Luciana
I rubbed my eyes.
Then stared at the number again.
Payroll and finances for the last year couldn’t be right.
Could they?
I stared at the tax forms and investments then stared down the rest of the numbers; nothing financially made sense.
There were fifty different companies, all owned by a Chase Abandonato Winter, and every single one of them had money circulating through each other.
Money laundering wasn’t a new concept, but the way he did it was… fascinating.
And the way he paid to get it done…
Unheard of.
He was able to clean his own money because he owned banks, not just small branches, but one of the biggest banks in the United States.
I frowned harder.
If the numbers were correct and not a typo, the guy had pulled in almost two billion last year, and paid out close to nineteen million to people in his different companies, mainly his bank, and a few people named associates.
Associates?
Like business associates?
My fuzzy brain tried to put everything together, but the stomach cramps, mixed with my exhausted eyes and the fact that I was staring at more money than I’d ever seen in my life, had me a bit thrown off.
I wasn’t stupid. People who shot people, or were attacked like he was, didn’t just get paid blood money. Either he was Jason Bourne, or they were part of a crime organization that apparently even the government turned a blind eye to, if the whole scenario with the cop was anything to go off.
My chest felt heavy.
I pressed a hand against it and jumped out of my seat when a knock sounded on the door.
It opened.
Trace, the woman from before, the one who did nothing but aggravate Chase more, the one who seemed to deny him everything, was standing in the doorway and, for some reason, I felt anger.
And an unholy protection over the man who’d kept me from getting wrongly arrested, from the man who was more foe than friend.
But so broken that if I didn’t defend him…
Who would?
Who?
I glared.
She seemed taken aback, and then her pretty, deep brown eyes narrowed into tiny slits. “Do we have a problem here?”
I licked my lips. “No, just working.”
She crossed her arms and looked around the room. I knew what she saw, tons of folders open, papers scattered. It was chaos, but everything had its place, and only I knew the way.
“Nixon sent me,” she said, just as Nixon walked by with Chase hanging over his back. “We need to add another fun job to your description.”
Great, just great. The last thing I needed was to be next to the guy for an extended period of time. I didn’t trust him.
And if I were being completely honest, I didn’t trust myself.
I clearly had some major Stockholm Syndrome going on if I felt any ounce of protectiveness over the guy, but there it was.
My stomach sank when his head fell over Nixon’s shoulder in a deathly sleep, his face pale.
I tried to move past Trace, but she held her arm out, blocking my path. “If you hurt him…”
The threat was there.
And rather than scare me…
It just pissed me off. “Look…” I clenched my teeth. “…I don’t know who you are, but from what I’ve seen so far, I’m not really that impressed.”
“You don’t know the hell that guy’s been through,” she hissed, her head ducking toward mine.
“I know that seeing you,” I whispered harshly, refusing to back down, “isn’t making it better.”
She jerked as though I’d just slapped her, and tears filled her large eyes, threatening to spill over any second.
Nixon’s voice interrupted our exchange. “She’s right.”
Trace’s face fell more as a tear streaked down her right cheek. “I can’t lose him, too.”
“Too?” I asked, looking between the both of them.
“She was my friend, too,” Trace admitted, staring down at the ground. “Guess you don’t really know who your real friends are until their loyalty is tested, huh?”
I had no clue what she was talking about.
Nixon just sighed and pulled her into his embrace, studying me over the top of her head. “Make sure he doesn’t suffocate from his own vomit, and if he wakes up screaming, try singing.”
“Singing?” I repeated dumbly. “How’s that going to help?”
Nixon, for the first time since I’d met him, looked ashamed as he kissed the top of Trace’s head and whispered, “His mom used to sing.”
“Okay.” Used to being the key phrase.
Because she was no longer here? Or because she was out of the picture?
They both turned.
I clenched my hand into a fist and called after them, “What are you?”
“Vampires,” Trace called back with a completely straight face, about the same time Nixon said, “Zombies.”
They shared a smile.
I huffed in annoyance.
“Follow the trail, Luciana,” Nixon finally said, not so helpfully, and they made their way back down the stairs, leaving me with the devil himself.