Page 28

RHAIM

I didn’t actually have time to shower after watching Lia on TV, but luckily everything I needed to do for the day was either with a spreadsheet, or online—which was why I was in the middle of a meeting by zoom, hoping the man leading it would spontaneously combust, or start bleeding out—when the motion sensor over Lia’s apartment door buzzed me.

The only problem was, Lia wasn’t there—I could tell where she was on my phone.

Which meant someone else had the key.

I clicked off the call without a word and let him think I dropped, running for my truck.

She was going to check her texts, wasn’t she?

Let me know you got this

I sent with one hand, texting furiously—then I pulled up her bedroom camera screen, and saw a strange man in a suit walking around, carrying a trash bag.

“What the fuck?” I heard Lia screech over my earbud at seeing the same thing—so much for seeing my texts, and/or obeying. “Arnold? How the hell did you get in here?”

“Your father gave us keys.”

“What are you doing?” I heard her say, her voice going a whole octave higher, and I could see why, as the man turned.

He was disdainfully holding her toy. “Please, tell me you are not a cam girl.”

“Go fuck yourself, you fucking-fuck—” Lia yelled at him.

“Why were you at the doctor?” he demanded, as I found a place to park.

“None of your business!”

“No, Miss Ferreo—the second you signed that pre-nup, everything you do became my business. Which is why I’m here, cleaning up.”

“Senator’s wives don’t get to use sex toys?”

“Not in whore heels, they don’t,” he said, tossing her shoes into the trash as well.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me!”

I pulled Sable onto a separate line immediately. “Yo, Rhaim,” she said. “You let me sleep through the night. I thought you might be dead.”

“Joke later—figure out how St. Clair’s team figured out Lia went to the doctor this morning?”

“Hmmm,” Sable said, and I heard her fast typing. “Uhhhh…because she might be pregnant?”

“Excuse me?” I said, momentarily disassociating from Lia’s fight with the stranger—who seemed like an asshole, yes, but not dangerous—to gawk at the phone.

“Nothing definitive. Just that someone took a picture of her leaving a small doctor’s clinic. But I guess it’s a slow news day—after her performance on Morning Moment, it’s blowing up.”

I took a second to be reasonable. “Was she on East 74 th ?”

“Yeah—how did you?—”

“I’ll call back,” I said, hanging up, to jog through Lia’s apartment’s lobby to the elevator.

When it let me off on Lia’s floor, I could see her door was still open—and their argument was still going strong. I turned off my camera and pocketed my earbuds, so that I could hear the real thing.

“Hey,” I said, from the doorway, knocking on it hard. “Miss Ferreo? You missed a meeting about the IPO today—are you all right?”

Lia stalked back to her living room. “No,” she said, looking ready to cry, closely followed by a man I was sure I could crumple like a soda can—and I was stepping forward to do just that, when Lia held out her hand.

He couldn’t see it—but I could.

“The young lady wants you gone,” I said, with every ounce of feral menace that I felt.

“Your father’s goons don’t scare me,” the man told her, cinching the top of the trashbag he was holding tight. “So why were you there,” he asked her, reaching out with his other hand for the spot inside her elbow, where the outline of a bandage was ruining her sweater’s line.

She jumped back before I had an excuse to kill him. “Nothing! Just a check-up! I haven’t gotten any bloodwork done since I came back into the country?—”

“You need to go,” I growled at him.

“Who the fuck are you? And why the fuck are you here?” the other man sneered.

Because I hadn’t showered I hadn’t shaved—or done anything with my hair—I’d just decided to hole up in my office looking like a troll all day—there was an actual chance he didn’t recognize me, because I sure as shit had no idea who he was.

“There was a meeting at work. Miss Ferreo didn’t show.”

“Oh, you didn’t get the memo. She’s working for us now,” he said. “You need to talk to your superiors about things.”

“And who would they be?” I snarled.

“Just—get the fuck out already. The both of you,” Lia said, pointing at the door.

“Your lunch has been canceled by the way,” the man informed her. “Instead we’re doing a family dinner tomorrow night.”

“I don’t fucking care—get out!” she wailed—and I did as she said, following the smaller man down the hall, where he chucked his trashbag into the trash chute, before summoning an elevator. I made sure he saw me get into a different one—but before I could hit the button for a floor, I got a text.

Come back in five?

she sent—giving me time for plausible deniability.

I thought, but didn’t send:

That’s my girl.