Page 12 of Devil’s Azalea (Nightshades #3)

RAFAEL

I stay in the shadows for several heartbeats, watching Emilia pull herself together before slowly unfolding my body out of the closet, my cock throbbing painfully with each movement.

The damn thing doesn’t seem to realize the moment is gone—and that I won’t , in fact, be burying myself inside of Emilia.

What the actual fuck is wrong with me? How the hell am I this distracted right now? Of all times?

But the way she looked at me back there, moaning around my tongue like she wanted to drown in me… yeah, no wonder I’m struggling.

She stares at the dead body for a long moment, her profile a study in controlled rage and something else—regret?

Remorse? Then she kneels next to him, whispering, “I’m sorry this happened to you.

I’ll get Jason— for you .” That last part is bitter enough to rot steel, and my hand flexes instinctively around the device concealed in my palm.

I slip it into my pants pocket before she notices. “Not if I can get him first,” I vow, the fury still pulsing through me from that conversation. Jason, that ungrateful fuck, thinks he can turn on me now? After everything ?

He’s only councilor because my brothers and I bankrolled his campaign and backed him.

We made you, Jason. We can just as easily unmake you.

But maybe his betrayal is a gift in disguise. A mole in the Russian camp could prove useful—especially if Sergey gets careless and reveals who’s backing him.

Yeah, I can’t kill Jason just yet. Too bad.

Emilia tosses me a glance filled with so much ire it actually throws me for a second.

I’ll never fully understand this woman. We were just devouring each other in that closet, for fuck’s sake.

And now, we’re apparently back to being enemies.

She’s good at compartmentalizing her emotions—I’ll give her that, at least.

You go soft for her.

I straighten my spine. No. Not anymore. Whatever flicker of regret I felt from messing with her plans, it’s gone. Fuck her. “Good luck explaining the death of that innocent man to your supervisor.” I begin to walk away, but her words stop me.

“Tonight didn’t happen,” she declares, voice hardened to steel. “We weren’t in that closet. Nothing happened.”

When I’m still so hard from the taste of you? “Sure, nothing happened. Except you were moaning around my tongue like a cat in heat, desperate for more.”

“Get the fuck out of here, Rafael,” she snaps, pressing the hem of her dress into her palm as she rummages through the waiter’s pockets—most likely searching for some form of ID without leaving prints.

I don’t argue.

I leave without another word. Not because she ordered me to, but because I’m itching to see what treasure I just pilfered. If she knew what I slipped into my pocket, she wouldn’t be so eager to kick me out.

Without a backward glance, I walk out of the office, through the quiet hallway, and back down the stairs towards the main hall, where the event is still in full swing.

A couple of people are caught up in a bidding war, waving their little paddles at some overpriced trinket on display, and the auctioneer is lapping it up, trying to egg them on.

“That’s twelve thousand—can I get twelve thousand and one?... My God! Thirteen thousand! Is that the final bid? Going… going… thirteen thousand-five hundred!” The delight in his voice is clear for all to hear. The man is living his best life.

I adjust my lapels and make my way to the exit. If anyone tries to stop me, I swear to–

“ Rafael! ”

Fuck.

A woman plants herself in my path, arms crossed, face pinched like she just bit into a lemon. “I’ve never seen a man spend so long in the restroom before. What? You had a number two situation?”

Right. My date. Bethany . The woman I was planning to take back to my hotel to bleed off some lust. To distract me from exactly what happened upstairs.

But now, with Emilia’s sweet taste still coating my tongue, the thought of bedding Bethany softens my cock faster than a cold shower.

I level a cold start at her, and her bluster crumbles instantly. Her arms drop to her sides, her expression shifting from anger to wounded puppy. “You were gone for so long… I was lonely,” she whines, now all whimper and pout.

“I doubt you were,” I say dryly, flicking my gaze from her face to the direction she came from—the bar—where half a dozen men are practically drooling over her backside, thirsty for attention she’d no doubt been happily providing. Predictable.

“I was !” she insists. “I missed you. But whatever, you’re back now.” She smiles coyly and raises her hand towards my chest.

I grab her wrist before she makes contact .

“Why don’t you go have some fun with your admirers over there?” I nod at the bar. “Something important has come up that I need to deal with right away.”

She pouts dramatically, but I’ve already moved on, stepping past her and heading for the exit with purpose. No one should dare stop me this time.

When a man in a suit waves and starts towards me, I fix my face into stone—brows pinched, mouth flat. He takes one look and quickly turns away like he’s suddenly discovered something fascinating in the opposite direction. Smart man .

I text my driver, Alfred, as I cross the threshold out of the hall, and by the time I step outside, my car is already purring at the curb. The valet gets the door for me, and I acknowledge him with a nod, absently taking a wad of cash out of my wallet to tip him.

His jaw drops and he bows so enthusiastically, his head knocks against the side of my car. “Thank you so much, sir!”

I wave him off and slide into the backseat, shutting my door.

The moment Alfred pulls away from the curb, I reach into my pocket and withdraw my prize—the flash drive I lifted from between Emilia’s perfect breasts while I had her a little… distracted earlier.

“What do you suppose could be on here?” I muse out loud, turning the small device over in my fingers.

Alfred spares me a quick glance through the rearview mirror but, as always, keeps his mouth shut. He’s smart enough to recognize a rhetorical question.

I close my fist around the flash drive and relax back into my seat. I’ll find out soon enough.

Part of me wishes I could see the expression on my little rogue’s face when she realizes her precious little flash drive is missing.

Will she suspect me right away? Or just assume it slipped out during her grand exit?

Honestly, storing sensitive intel in the space between her tits was such a reckless choice—not that I minded the placement.

The thought makes me smirk as the car glides through the city. Alfred has been with me for years—over a decade—and he’s an expert at weaving and bobbing through traffic. So, within thirty minutes, we’re descending into my underground parking lot.

I get out of the car, whistling a jaunty tune as I head into the elevator, toes tapping the floor rhythmically. I catch a couple of my men trading glances, but I ignore their curiosity. Let them wonder what’s put me in such a fine mood. Mystery is part of maintaining respect.

The elevator opens on my office floor, where Enzo is sitting behind his desk, typing furiously on his computer. “Back so soon?” he asks, glancing up at me as I walk past him. “I know the event can’t be over.”

I shrug, heading straight for my office. “Found something more interesting.”

His chair squeaks as he gets up to follow—curious as always. I take off my jacket, sink into my seat, and bring out my laptop. Once it boots, I slot in the flash drive and wait as dozens of files gradually populate the screen.

All video files.

I play the first one: it’s a recording from a dash cam video. Just random footage of a car driving through Manhattan. The second video mimics the first, as do the third and fourth.

I frown. Did Emilia just copy a bunch of useless videos onto her flash?

Then I click on the fifth video.

It starts very much the same: just a car weaving through traffic, nothing eye-catching. But then it stops in front of the building hosting tonight’s event, right behind a black Lincoln.

A pretty woman emerges from the Lincoln, dressed in a see-through blouse that leaves nothing to the imagination, a skirt that barely covers her crotch, and ridiculously high heels that make her legs look miles long.

Movement flickers at the camera’s edge before another figure enters the frame, apparently exiting the car with the dash cam. Jason Moore. The footage comes from his car. That moron recorded himself.

“Dumbass,” Enzo mutters as we watch the councilor pull the woman into a full-bodied hug, then kiss her like no one’s watching. “In broad daylight? Where any reporter with a pulse could snap a photo?”

So, he’s having an affair. Hardly shocking.

But I want more than scandal. I want leverage. Something I can hold him by the balls with and squeeze until he squeals.

Now armed with the knowledge that these are Jason’s dash cam recordings, I watch the route the car takes through the city with a more critical eye, analyzing his daily navigation.

A few more videos show him meeting with his mistress and taking her to a remote house where they disappear for several hours at a time—twice even overnight.

“Mrs. Moore would find this fascinating,” Enzo says.

“And what makes you think she doesn’t already know? Tina Moore is not the sentimental type. I doubt she’ll give a damn who her husband is screwing, as long as he stays in power and keeps funding her lifestyle.”

No, if I want to leverage these videos, it’s best to use them with Jason directly.

Such footage becoming public will significantly harm his goals of running for the senator’s office in the next election cycle.

The American public can forgive many sins, but hypocrisy from a family values candidate isn’t one of them.

There are still dozens of recordings on the drive, most of them just more of the same routine, and just as I’m about to give up on finding anything more concrete, another video catches my attention.

From the first frame, I know this one is different. The driver veers off his normal routes, going through back roads and rundown neighborhoods. The footage drags on for several long minutes, but I stay glued to my laptop.

Then— finally —my patience pays off. Jason’s car slows to a stop behind an expensive Rolls Royce, the kind of luxury vehicle that sticks out in this area like a diamond in a coal mine.

As he walks towards it, I immediately notice the shift in his posture—his shoulders are hunched, submissive. A far cry from his usual cocky swagger.

Seconds later, a man steps out of the Roll’s passenger side.

Adrian De Luca. Nico Marino’s enforcer.

“Holy shit. He’s been in cahoots with the Marinos?” Enzo asks in disbelief.

I don’t respond. I just keep watching.

Adrian opens the back door, and Jason slips inside.

He's in there for about four minutes, and when he comes back out, he’s holding a dark leather briefcase.

That in itself isn’t a crime at all—could be campaign documents or other mundane paperwork—but then the universe delivers a gift wrapped in perfect timing.

The fucker clips his foot on a chunk of rock he managed to avoid earlier but somehow misses now, clearly distracted by whatever just transpired, and stumbles to the floor with an almost comical lack of grace.

The briefcase slips from his hand and crashes onto the pavement, hitting the corner of a nearby curb. The latch pops open, and the contents spill out.

Wads of hundred-dollar bills.

My lips curl up. “ Perfect. ”

On screen, Jason gets up, his mouth moving rapidly, no doubt swearing up a storm while scrambling to gather his cash. I pause the video right there: briefcase open, money everywhere, Jason’s face clear as day.

Now that’s leverage.

There are still plenty of videos left, and I intend to comb through every single one. But this clip—combined with his cheating scandal and the audio I recorded tonight while locked in the closet with Emilia—is more than enough to bury Jason Moore for good.

I take out the pen in my breast pocket that doubles as an audio recorder and twirls it between my fingers.

He wants to be a senator? He should worry about staying out of prison first.

“Set up a meeting with Jason tomorrow,” I tell Enzo.

He frowns, shaking his head. “He usually leaves the country two days after his ballet event and doesn’t take any meetings before he travels, using the holidays as an excuse.”

“He’ll meet with me.” The confidence in my voice is absolute as I copy every single video from the flash drive to my laptop. “Tell him I know about his meeting with a certain Russian tonight.”

That little breadcrumb will be enough to hook him. He’ll come, if only to figure out how deep my knowledge runs.

That’s when I’ll strike.

“What?” Enzo asks sharply, his body tensing with surprise. “What meeting?”

I flash him a slow smile. “He’ll understand.”