Page 19 of Partners In Evil
She knows my brothers take care of the whole firm for me. She knows we’re all struggling for money. And now she’s gonna think I’m only being friendly with her because I want to keep her from taking off for something better.
Today has been a disaster.
10
EMMA
My mind is whirling with thoughts. Everything that had seemed so simple just a few minutes ago now seems wild and complex. This morning, it had all just been about me and about Finn. Raven floated in the background, but that was it.
Now, suddenly, the whole firm is on the line. Finn’s brothers are involved. My job is involved. Nothing is simple or easy the way it had felt when we were walking down the street, hand in hand. The way it had almost felt when he leaned in to kiss me.
“Emma! Wait!” I hear his voice from behind. Unconsciously, I walk faster, down the stairwell. There’s too much to think about right now. Talking with him will just make me more confused.
His steps follow me down the stairs. “Emma! Let me talk to you!”
There’s no avoiding it. I turn around. “I’m not angry,” I tell him. “I just didn’t understand everything that was happening. Now that I do… maybe it’s better if you stay away from me.”
He stops, standing on the same landing as me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Raven visited you this morning, didn’t she?” I ask.
“She did,” he says. “But you have to understand, any relationship we ever had is over. I never meant to go as far with her as I did, but she sang for me and—”
“That’s not what I mean,” I interrupt. “I believe that you don’t love her. But she threatened you, didn’t she?”
“Not… in as many words, no,” he replies, but it’s obvious he knows the answer is yes. A woman like Raven doesn’t need to put a threat in words for it to be a threat.
“But if you don’t do what she wants you to—”
“Okay, yes, she’d destroy me, obviously,” Finn admits. “That’s less a thing she said and more just her basic state.”
“And do you think she’d be happy seeing you spend time with me?”
He thinks for a moment. “I think she’d probably try to destroy me and then you and then anyone who reminds her of me or you if she found out. But that’s okay. I’m not afraid of her.”
“Well, maybe you should be,” I say. “She has money and if what your brother was saying is true, this place doesn’t need more enemies right now.”
“Devil’s Advocate has had plenty of enemies!” I reassure her. “Why, once there was this shipping company that really wanted our offices as part of their warehouse, and—”
“Raven could hurt this company if she wanted to,” I snap. “And you know she wants to!”
He looks at me, starts to say something, then seems to remember we’re in a stairwell and changes his mind. “Let’s go into my office,” he declares, finally. “Where we can talk in peace.”
As if to punctuate his sentence, one of the doors below us opens and a forty-year-old in an off-white button-down walks in. When he sees Finn, he immediately glares.
“Don’t think I don’t know about you using the company printer to print take out menus for restaurants you like,” he hisses. “I’m always watching.”
Finn shrugs. “I have no idea what he’s talking about. Come on.”
I nod and follow him back up the stairs and into the office. Janice is watching me as I follow him into his office, and as I close the door behind us, I can already see her leaning over to talk to Lucy.
That will be a fun conversation for later, I decide. For now, I need to focus on this.
Finn sits on the corner of his own desk, and I stand, slightly awkwardly, in the middle of the room.
“Alright,” I say. “What is it you couldn’t talk about in the stairwell?”
“I don’t think this is really about Raven,” he replies, blankly.