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“Don’t goddamn ‘honey’ me, Rapp.”

“It’s just better this way. If I sued for divorce, a lot of things would change.” He knew how much Jan liked living in the luxury high-rise, especially for free. “This condo would go away, for one.”

She considered that a long moment.

“What if she sues you for divorce?”

“For what?”

“For infidelity. Everyone saw that photograph of us in Bermuda.”

With more than a little confidence, if not arrogance, he shot back: “Pennsylvania courts don’t give a shit about cheating. And my wife knows it. How do you think I got away with that photo being run?”

He saw Jan eye him more carefully.

Suspiciously.

Like that was painful proof that she ain’t the first regular piece I’ve had on the side.

Or maybe not the last . . .

“I know because I asked,” Rapp went on, more evenly. “My lawyer told me.”

“Even if the photos are in flagrante delicto?”

“In what?”

“In the act, Rapp. Screwing.”

“Oh. Yeah. Even that. I asked.”

Now, why the hell did she ask that?

Would she go that low—send Wanda photos of us fucking—thinking she could become Mrs. Mayor instead?

“But she could sue for other reasons. Could even say you beat her, if she got mad enough to go after you.”

He didn’t say anything.

Jan quoted, “‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.’”

Badde sighed and said, “She won’t.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“She’s got the Badde name, got all that money, and everything that comes with it. Why change?”

“What if she blows the whistle on PEGI?”

“Oh, now, that won’t happen. She likes the money too much. Once you been broke, you don’t ever want to go back. If all the padded payments from PEGI go, so do all those billable hours the Commonwealth Law Center gets from handling the business that will come from Volks Haus and Diamond Development. And she can kiss goodbye those big steady retainer checks Kwame Construction has paid from the start.”

Jan looked at him a long moment and shook her head.

“Rapp, I’m telling you that wives get revenge for a lot of reasons. And they’re not thinking about money when they do it.”

“I’m telling you, she won’t,” he said smugly. “Look, we’re kind of like the U.S. and Russia were with that Mutual Asset Deduction.”

“The what?”