Page 71 of Cruel Possession

“I need some advice.” He sits down in his chair and motions to the papers spread across the desk. “In your time with the Rinaldos, you’ve proven to have a head for business.”

“Thank you?” I take a seat beside him, crossing one leg over the other, my foot bouncing.

“We’ve been expanding into new areas of business. Specifically, we’ve purchased a mall as a way to move a lot of money.”

I lean over, looking at the paperwork in front of him. “Which mall?”

“The one your family put up for sale nearly a month ago. Seems like they didn’t think it was lucrative with you gone.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose, wishing that I could storm over there and curse them all out. “Great, so, not only was I unable to get that fucking drug trade running again, but now they’ve sold off the way we cleaned a ton of money.”

“Nearly as good a scheme as the casinos I have.” Aiden picks up his pen and circled a number in red ink. “Now, what do I need to know about running this beast of an operation?”

“Why the hell would I tell you?”

He gives me that boyish smile that I have a hard time resisting. “I thought you might be willing to help me out of the goodness of your heart.”

I pretend to gag. “God, what the fuck. This isn’t some sappy fucking rom-com, try again.”

Aiden runs his fingers over my pulse. “Sure be a shame if you bled out in here.”

“There he is.” I take the pen from his hand, finding a scrap piece of paper. “The stores are your tenants and more often than not, someone is always going to be on the verge of bankruptcy. That’s just how it is.”

“And you exploit that?”

I give him a flat look, going through the other stack of pages until I find the sheet with the list of stores and the companies that own them, along with the contact information for each general manager.

“These ones are going to be the ones that will run the most money through for you without getting caught, since their businesses are in good standing.” I underline several of the stores on the list. “The ones with circles are the ones you can use every now and then, but they get raided every now and then.”

“You have people in this mall getting raided?”

“Aiden, be realistic. Where the hell did you think I was selling drugs out of?”

“Good to know. Joshua’s secured somebody to do business with.”

Which means that the Lyndes are starting to build back up. Everything I tore down is being reversed, and it’s all because the Rinaldos don’t see what’s in front of them.

Nothing I put in place was valued, and now everything is falling apart.

And there’s a rush of relief that runs over me knowing that it’s neither my problem nor my ass on the line.

Aiden leans in, listening to me as I give him every single detail I can remember about how I set up the money laundering in the mall to begin with.

Finally, once I’ve told him everything, he leans back. “I have more to pick your brain about before you leave.”

The shock slams into me like a runaway truck on the side of a mountain. “Are you going to let me go?”

He crosses his arms over his chest, but there’s a hint of hesitation in his eyes. “Do you want to be let go?”

And there it is. The million-dollar question.

WhatdoI want?

Chapter Twenty-Two

AIDEN

She staresat me like a deer in the headlights, and I don’t know what to do.