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I huffed out a breath of laughter. “Understood. Don’t worry, I’ve got Byron for all of my proposition-related needs.”
He made a noncommittal humming noise. “I should probably say up front that I was a finance guy, not a lawyer. Beyond some basic googling, the best advice I can give you and your husband is to talk to someone who actuallyisin the legal profession.”
He gestured me to come with him and headed toward the stairs.
“Finance guy, huh?” I asked, following him up to the second floor and trying not to stare at his ass. Because, I mean, it wasright there. Good thing my body was still sore from my heat.
He gave a rueful laugh. “Yeah. Stockbroker, specifically. Everything you saw inThe Wolf of Wall Streetis unfortunately pretty accurate.”
I tried to picture it. In some ways—namely, the hyper-competence and the way he filled out a well-tailored suit—it didn’t feel like much of a stretch. In others, it did.
“I didn’t know there was much call for stockbrokers around St. Louis,” I said curiously.
He ushered me into his room, which was actually a suite. The front room was done up as an office, with a closed door on one side that presumably led to the bedroom.
“Make yourself comfortable,” he said, indicating a charcoal gray couch that appeared to be in much better condition than the well-loved one in the TV room. “And as it happens, there are a fair number of brokerage jobs around here. One of the major online trading platforms had a hub in St. Louis until they went under a few years ago. But, no—I was in New York.”
I settled onto the comfortable cushions.
“Sounds like the big leagues,” I said. “You’re from here originally, though?”
“From across the river, yes.” Zalen opened his laptop and sat behind the minimalist steel and wood desk that dominated one corner of the room. “When I was growing up, I couldn’t get away from East St. Louis fast enough. But after what happened in New York, it just seemed right to come back.”
I wasn’t sure if I should ask or not... but Zalen was a careful kind of man. If it was a forbidden topic, I didn’t think he would have let that slip.
“What happened in New York?” I asked quietly.
He reached for a pair of wire-rimmed glasses and put them on, keeping his attention focused on the computer screen as he typed something on the keyboard.
“I met my mate there. Julie. She was a consultant for the company where I was working at the time.”
The ‘was’ felt ominous. The others had mentioned that Zalen had been mated, and that it had ended tragically.
Zalen still didn’t look up, pretending to be absorbed in whatever he was doing. “Her little brother was a troubled teen. Jake was a good kid, but he got mixed up with the wrong people. The family eventually cut him loose, rather than dealing with the fallout from his drug and alcohol addictions.”
Given Zalen’s current crusade, I could read between the lines when it came to who those ‘wrong people’ might have been. I sincerely hoped the story wasn’t heading where I thought it was.
“Julie... respected her parents’ decision,” he went on. “But she didn’t cut off communication completely. We had to piece together the details with text and phone records afterward, but... well... I was in Boston on a business trip when Jake called Julie in a panic because members of a rival gang were threatening to kill him. Of course, Julie dropped everything and rushed to pick him up, so she could get him away to safety. Unfortunately, she was too late. She was killed when the rival gang gunned them both down in a drive-by shooting.”
He was still typing, the story delivered in an emotionless monotone. My mind immediately filled in the blanks—he would have felt the mating bond snap, while stuck hundreds of miles away in a different city.
My heart grieved for this houseful of men, all of them nursing their own private tragedies. I’d shed tears for all of them—but something about Zalen’s carefully controlled demeanor made me think that my tears would not be welcome, in his case.
“So, you came back home and opened a youth center to try and save future Jakes from the same fate,” I said softly.
He tilted his chin in acknowledgement. “New York stockbrokers make an obscene amount of money. This seemed like a better use for it than sticking around in a city inhabited by ghosts. Now, I was looking up some of the evidentiary requirements for money laundering cases earlier. It seems like the biggest hurdle is proving that the money being laundered came directly from illegal activities, purposely undertaken by the defendants in order to commit financial fraud...”
I rolled with the abrupt subject change and tried my best to pay attention to the dry recitation of legal theory, rather than what I’d just learned. I asked relevant questions, listening to the rapid clack of laptop keys as Zalen continued to research. We talked long into the night. At some point, I stretched out full length on the couch to get more comfortable, my eyelids growing heavy.
When I woke up, it was light out, and there was a fuzzy blanket tucked around me that smelled of lime and coconut carried on a warm sea breeze. No sound came from the attached bedroom, but there was a sticky note stuck to the arm of the couch.
Didn’t want to wake you, it said.There’s coffee downstairs.
I rubbed gritty eyes and rolled into a sitting position. My phone poked me in the ass, still nestled in my back pocket. I pulled it out to check the time, wincing at my nine percent of remaining battery. There was a text from Nat; I’d apparently slept right through the buzz of notification.
Can you come in today? There’s news on the restaurant. Also, we really do need to talk.
My stomach sank, even though neither of those things was explicitly ominous.