It’s better to go the polite route first.

That’s what my mom taught me, a bunch of nonsense about catching more flies with honey that I groaned at as a teenager, but now wish I could hear again from her lips as an adult.

Finding the number for the US Marshals Service was easy enough. Taryn’s in her own cubicle today, attempting to research other ways of tracking down a material witness under protection.

The futileness of our goal is like a loudspeaker against my ear, but I can’t shake the idea that there’s a reason Yang wants the associates on Ryan Delaney’s tail, and hell if I won’t be the one to figure it out first.

Then I was laughed at—repeatedly—over the phone by a man named Aiden Watts, Federal US Marshal.

“Listen, honey—”

Big mistake. “I’m not your honey or dear or sweetheart or strawberry tartlet,” I interrupt. “I’m an associate at Costello, Wine & Cottone, and I want answers. If you can’t give them to me, I’ll be forced to get creative, and believe me, when I do that, I usually unearth facts that the other party really wants kept quiet.”

“You’re not going to find anything, anywhere,” Watts says, my scolding having zero effect.

“I want to know where Ryan Delaney is. His life could be in danger. This is a well-known, well-funded crime ring we’re talking about, here.”

“His life is not in danger,” Watts says, “because he’s adequately protected. I want to say that any sniffing around you do will likely compromise him, but sniff away. You’re not gonna find him.”

“He’s a grown man. What does he want? Have you considered that?”

“He wants nothing to do with whatever you’ve got going on with your two men in custody.”

“Aha, so you’re admitting you talked to him.” I prop my elbows on my desk, holding the phone in the crook of my neck and ear and write down, AIDEN WATTS - contact for RD.

Aiden muffles a curse, then recovers quickly with, “Of course I have. I’m a Marshal.”

“But you might not’ve been his Marshal.” I tap the pen against the desk. “Is he in New York City?”

“He’s not anywhere you’ll be able to locate.”

“Yet.”

“He doesn’t want to be found, Miss Hayes.”

“Well, I work for my clients, not for him.”

“Goodbye, Miss Hayes.”

“Until I call you again, at least.” I rush to say before he hangs up, “Which I will.”

Click.

God. Some parts of this job, I really do feel like a tabloid reporter.

I set the phone back on its handle, and slump back in my chair, thinking. The polite route didn’t work. I didn’t think it would, but had to cross it off my list before the deluge of phone calls Mr. Watts is going to get once the other associates get a whiff—but now I’m stumped.

I’ve never had to locate someone in WITSEC before, an acronym for Federal Witness Security, the official term for witness protection. And from my research, nobody else was successful, either. Not if the witness played by the cops’ rules and stayed clean. As far as I can tell, Ryan Delaney poofed out of existence the night his parents were killed. He hasn’t done anything to make his identity known, that I can see, and he’s been under protection since he was a toddler. He’s unlikely to do anything now.

Unless.

He must’ve heard about Lopez and Garcia’s arrests. I have to use this to my advantage, flush him out somehow, maybe go to the press anonymously with some insider information about the case. But that blurs a whole bunch of lines.

Am I that desperate?

Is that what Yang wants?

This whole office is filled with questionable morals, and that’s just the first floor. I’ve stretched them, sure, maybe molded them to my own devices a few times, but I’ve never crossed them.

If I screw up, then I’ll lose everything. My attorney’s license, my credibility, my reputation.

Is it worth it?

“Hey, babe.” Mike’s face looms over my cubicle wall. “What are you working on?”

“Fuck off, Mike.”

“You used to like the way I fucked.” He smiles the one that used to have me smiling back, but all I can muster is revulsion.

“Well, you ruined it when you stuck your dick in a whole bunch of other women,” I say tiredly.

Mike dips down so he’s closer in range. “Astor, c’mon. Don’t be saying that stuff so loudly.”

“Worried people will get to know the real you?”

“No, I’m worried you actually mean what you’re saying.” Without invitation, he takes the chair that Taryn left beside mine. “It’s been two days, Astor. Hasn’t this been enough time to realize we were good together?”

“Not good enough.”

Mike leans closer. I lean away, closer to my monitor. “Honey, I’ve told you—”

“Don’t call me honey.”

“Fine. Astor, I’ve told you how sorry I am. I’ve emailed, texted, left voicemails, saying I screwed up bad. I shouldn’t’ve said the things I did. I didn’t mean them. I still love you. Of course I still love you.”

I shake my head, holding up my hand to him. “Mike, enough…”

“Why are you still wearing our ring, then?”

I clench my raised hand into a fist, refusing to answer.

“It’s because you still have feelings for me. You don’t want to let us go.”

“Yesterday you couldn’t wait to trample me for a chair in the Delaney case. And now—what? You’re giving me unrequited love? Which is it, Mike? Do you want to use me for business or pleasure?”

“Can’t it be both?” He dares to touch the back of my hand and stroke down. “We were so fuckin’ good at both.”

“Don’t,” I whisper.

“You miss me, Astor. I know you do.”

“I miss what I thought we were,” I admit. “But you ruined it, Mike. You. Because you couldn’t keep your dick loyal, because you lie, because you cheat me both in bed and in business. I’m not yours anymore, so go away. Just go. Away.”

Mike’s mouth, so supple and shining before, hardens into a thinly veiled sneer. It’s when his gaze cuts to the paper under my hand, the one with Aiden Watts’s information, that I feel so utterly gamed.

I flip it over. “Leave.”

“With pleasure,” he says. “But you’ll realize your mistake soon enough. You’ll be begging for my cock. I’m the only one, the only dude who’s ever loved you. Got that? No one else is gonna get through your cunty barrier. Well, maybe the ones who want your inheritance could deal with it.”

I go still.

“Hear that?” he persists. “You just pissed off and ditched the one guy who was willing to fuck you despite what you look like, who would’ve kept doing it as much as you wanted, and it wasn’t for your money. I have my own family stock to pilfer. You lost a sure thing, Astor. Now, whoever you choose, you’re not going to know if they want you for you, or if they’re only willing to tolerate you for your Momma’s cash.”

Mike storms off and I remain stiff-backed, staring blindly at my computer’s screensaver. The only sign of movement is a slight gulp in my throat.

The way Mike can go from so endearing to vicious, how did I not notice it before? Is it because what he’s saying is true? I’m so desperate for a guy to love me, I blunt the sharp edges?

Mike is right about the inheritance. Locke and I’s trusts, set up by our late mother, kick in when we’re thirty, and it’s a lot of money. Somehow, she managed to keep a lot of it away from our father, who tends to squander money as soon as he sees triple digits in his bank account.

When she was first diagnosed with ovarian cancer, we thought she’d be okay. Stage 2, the doctors said. It was curable. Then, it spread. To her uterus, her lymph nodes. Twelve months later, we’re told she’s at a metastasized stage 4. My mom was dying, and I couldn’t argue her out of it. I was unable to make any deals, force any settlements. I couldn’t call the devil and ask him to please spare her. I was simply reduced to a spectator, watching the love of my life, my role model and best friend, die.

I rub at my eyes, considering now is the time to go home and do the rest of my thinking on my laptop, safe in my apartment. I could pour a glass of wine, play music, and pretend that I don’t only seek out men who are intent on hunting and destroying, a habit my mom would be so disappointed to see. Apex predators, willing to conquer and discard without so much as an oops.

I push away from my desk, reminding myself that I’m an apex predator, too. I’ve made grown men cry in courtrooms and depositions. I’ve won cases considered losers that Yang and his other partners tossed to me like garbage they needed dumped.

And if I can give such a dominant title to Mike Ascott, then I sure as hell can own it, too. That’s more my mom’s style.

I’m useful, I’m smart, I am not Acne Hayes.

Inheritance.

The word whispers through my mind, an indistinct voice so distinctly my mother.

I blink. Peer harder at my monitor.

As soon as Locke and I were born, my parents put a will in place so we would always be comfortable, in case the worst happened. And the worst happened.

They did it as soon as we were born.

My fingers fly over the keyboard as I type in what I need.

Ryan Delaney’s parents must have had a will, and somehow, some way, that little boy would’ve received his inheritance.