Page 87 of Take Her

“What are—who—” The man panicked, scrambling backwards from his keyboard, then he squinted. “Do I know you?”

“I think you do,” I said, coming into his office to casually lean against his wall. “We’ve been at a couple of the same events in the past few years. But, more importantly at this juncture, I know all about you.”

Samson had sent me this man’s details not long after our conversation, along with proof the man was a bigamist. I had no idea why Samson knew these things, but I’d had Sable run over it—his intel was definitely solid.

I jerked my head at the wall outside. “Do any of the sweet people in these photographs know about your second family?” I asked, then eyed him narrowly. “Just an hour away, man, that shit must be tense. What if your sons join the same intramural baseball team?”

I could see the man squirm. “What the fuck do you want, Mister Selvaggio?”

“Same thing you do. To win the game.” I used the bat to point at his computer. “I want you to be the person responsible for auditing Corvo’s books at the stock exchange—and I want you to pretend you’re fucking blind when you do it.”

He recoiled. “You think you can blackmail me into covering up your past for you?”

“Yeah, I do,” I said. “Because right now, Corvo’s rolling in it. People won’t want you to look too hard, they’ll be so excited to get a piece of our action.”

“There’s no way?—”

“I’m not asking. I’m telling,” I said, standing straighter. “If you know anything about me or about Corvo, anything horrible you might have heard in the distant past, maybe told as a joke because it’s exciting—it’s all true. So you’re going to nut up and help me make a lot of people a lot of money.”

“And if I don’t?” he snapped, despite the fact that I was the one holding the baseball bat.

He had some balls—I supposed he had to have them, to play the game he was running. “If you don’t, we’ll air your dirty laundry. I’ve seen a copy of your prenup—if this lovely wife here,” I said, gesturing to his tastefully appointed surroundings, “finds out you’ve been unfaithful, it pretty much lets her light your life on fire and burn it to the ground. But you know what I’m more curious about? Speaking of arson—” I leaned forward slightly, using his son’s bat like a cane. “Is if you had to pick a family, just one family, you know, to get through all of these trying times with you...which one would it be?”

He inhaled deeply at that, and my private phone buzzed. I held out a hand for silence, while I pulled it out of my pocket, opened the screen, and saw a message from Lia’s PI.

I think you should know, I’m not the only one following her.

And for a second, I was not myself, nor responsible at all for what I’d do. My mood darkened like the sky before a tornado, my muscles all clenching in quick succession, my jaw setting the same as my shoulders. I let out an inadvertent growl. I wanted to take it out on something, I didn’t care what, and I was already holding a bat.

Who.

The fuck.

Was following.

My little girl.

I refocused my attention on the matter at hand with effort—and found Mr. Piznos’s attitude had changed while watching me glower. “How far back is clean?” he asked, looking quickly between me and the bat.

“The past decade is fucking starched,” I snarled. “Earlier than that, you just take what I give you, and don’t ask questions.”

“I can work with that,” he said, and nodded quickly. “We good?”

I visibly made myself calm down. “Yeah. We’re good,” I said, taking his son’s baseball bat to his living room and tossing it, fingerprint-free, on the couch, before letting myself out his front door.

He and I were fine. But whoever was messing with Lia? I yanked my phone back out of my pocket and commanded the PI: Get plates.

37

LIA

And at the thought of what we had together falling apart because my brother was no longer here—not having a reason to see her anymore?

Having there be any room inside her heart for the tiniest sliver of doubt?

I pushed her against the wall and shoved my tongue down her throat, like I could find penance inside of her for all the sins my mind had held for weeks.

But instead of pushing me away or kicking me in the balls—both of which would’ve been very understandable reactions—she threw her arms around my neck and held on.