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He studied me before deciding that perhaps I was telling the truth, or it wasn’t worth forcing me to ‘cooperate with the investigation.’ What would I be doing with a screwdriver anyway? Did this office look like a repair shop?
“I’ll come back for it,” he said, moving over toward my computer. “You’ve got to have a box somewhere, right?” he asked, eyeing all the parts he’d have to gather and take with him downstairs.
Air escaped through my teeth, sounding like a whistle as my blood boiled in contempt for him. “Shouldn’t you be prepared to do your job?” I asked.
He wasn’t amused by my question. Tough luck—neither was I. He turned away from me and headed over to Melissa. He was probably explaining the whole warrant thing. She nodded and jumped up out of her seat to hurry away. A minute later, she returned with a large box.
My organs blistered at the pure heat bubbling beneath my skin as I watched this fucker leave with my computer storing all of my clients’ confidential information. My damn computer from which I worked.
“Oh yeah,” he said, halfway to the elevator before spinning around and heading back toward me. “Your phone,” he said with his hand stretched out as he stepped back through the door.
This piece of shit. The urge to test whether or not my phone could bounce off his forehead was alive inside me. Grudgingly, I reached into my pocket for my cell phone and handed it to him.
“Thanks. By the way, we have cops at your house currently searching it for more evidence,” he said, dropping it into the box.
“Evidence of WHAT?!” I exploded. “I did nothing wrong! This is absolutely crazy!”
The Levines were going to regret whatever they did to pull off a search when I hadn’t even been charged with anything or brought in for questioning beforehand. This was more than just humiliation; this was complete and utter disrespect. And this was messing with my money. They were working for a beating, and I was working to give them one as soon as possible.
Marching over to Melissa, I demanded that she order me a new computer and phone with immediate shipping, taking out my frustrations on her for handing the cop a box even though I knew she was just cooperating with the law and didn’t deserve it. But with the mood I was in, anyone could get my heat. I gave no fucks.
Downstairs on the associates’ floor, searching for someone to draft the motion for me, I noticed cops leaving the filing room. Seeing red, I growled, catching the attention of the handful of associates who remained.
“Draft a request for an immediate trial in the case of Crawford & Beam vs Levine LLP. It’s time to put an end to this rubbish once and for all. We’re not prolonging this anymore,” I grunted to the guy I thought to be the most competent associate amongst the few.
Like a zombie, I stormed off back to my office to grab my swim trunks and headed to the pool to yell in the silence of the water while trying not to romanticize the idea of fucking drowning myself. I was a strong man.
I would save the fight for the courtroom and use the anger to fuel my preparation so that whatever lies they could spin would be wiped clean by MY evidence.
Chapter 16
Tiffany
“I’msorry.Can’ttalkright now. I’m in the middle of trying not to lose my patience with these damn cops,” Mario muttered.
“Cops?” I asked, my ears perking up in confusion.
“Hey, watch out for the door!” Mario yelled before the sound of something heavy bumping into a hard surface echoed through the phone. “Yeah. Apparently, we’re dangerous predators, remember? Apparently, your parents got some phony judge to authorize a search of all our properties,” he said.
My parents did what?!
Oxygen drifted further from my reach. My heart clenched, and my chest constricted, cutting off the air supply to my lungs. My stomach burned from how hard my heart was beating behind my ribs. Tears climbed up my cheeks, forming behind my eyes. All I saw was red. I couldn’t even hear whether Mario was still on the phone.
Hanging up the call, I reached for my keys and marched toward the front door, shoving my feet into the pair of sneakers sitting by my doorway from my grocery run earlier. I was wearing my sulking outfit: baggy lavender sweats that fit like pajamas.
The amount of flyaways sticking out around the messy ponytail on top of my head could serve as wings on which I could travel the world. But changing was the furthest thing from my thoughts.
My parents had already done enough damage, but this… THIS was taking things TOO FAR. Someone had to stop them, and it would be me. I wouldn’t hide away, sulking anymore.
My men didn’t deserve any of this.
It all seemed like a nightmare that was holding me by the neck. The elevator ride down to the ground floor seemed to take forever even though I was the only one in there since everybody else seemed to have lives and jobs, except for me. With each passing second, it felt like I was losing more air. Tapping my key against the metal interior, I tried to match the pace of my racing heart, hoping that if I could keep up with the rhythm, I wouldn’t explode.
When I got to the ground floor, relief was brief, quickly replaced with even more frustration. I was nowhere close enough to my parents. It felt like it was my mission to show up and remove the fuse from the bomb my parents just tossed carelessly into the open. But the bomb had already gone off, and the only thing I had to hang onto was the delusion that I could somehow reverse it.
The cramping in my chest warned me to take some deep breaths before driving off. At the first sign of even an ounce of relief, I pulled out of the apartment parking lot, trying not to be reckless as I drove to Levine LLP. My parking was more just stopping as it paused diagonally between the parallel markers.
My feet took flight, but my mind was filled with fog as I raced toward the front door. I was barely two feet inside when two large security guards blocked my path forward. They worked for my parents’ firm since I was a kid, and I was familiar with them on my visits here.
