Page 152 of Morally Black Betrothal

I turned to Selena, keeping a hand on Simone’s knee. I was ready to shove the woman back into the elevator, missing kid or not. Unfortunately for her, I’d grown up with three siblings whose shitty personalities would kick her smarmy ass in a heartbeat.

“I’ll do what I need to do,” I told her evenly. “Which means you need to tell me exactly who the fuck is blackmailing you. Don’t bullshit me and don’t leave anything out.”

My words hung heavy in the air between us. Simone grabbed my hand and squeezed—in stress or gratitude, I wasn’t sure. But I squeezed back, glad I could give her at least that.

“They want your company.”

I was sure I’d misheard her. “Come the fuck again?”

“You heard me.” Selena threw her hands into the air. “I know it sounds insane, but I swear to God, that’s what Ezra said.”

“Ezrawho?” I demanded, though an eerie awareness already tingled on the back of my neck.

“Ezra Huntington.” This time it was Simone who spoke, the words soft and monotone, almost like she was numbed.

I sat back on my heels, head spinning. “EzraHuntingtonis the loan shark who took your sister for a ride?”

Simone looked confused. “You know Ezra Huntington?”

I huffed. “I—yes, I do. His family has been real estate developers in the Northeast for years. But junior fucked up one too many times a while back, and his dad kicked him to the curb. He’s been trying to get back into his good graces ever since.”

I stopped there because if these were the same people, Selena was in a lot more trouble than I realized. Yes, I knew the Huntingtons well. They’d been in competition with my family for years over real estate deals, but also over some darker sides of doing business that were usually Ronan’s territory. Some of Bas Huntington’s associates spent as much time in Vegas as my brother did and probably because they were greasing the same mafia-minded wheels that Ronan did his level best to keep spinning on our behalf.

The real question was how a girl from a Vermont farm had gotten mixed up with their kind.

“We went to high school with Ezra,” Simone said. “In Woodstock.”

“That’s right,” I said more to myself than to the girls. “Bas has a big house in Vermont where he stowed his wife and kids.”

“Who’s Bas?” Simone asked.

“Ezra’s father. He’s done business with mine.” I turned to Selena. “So you and Ezra are, what, friends?” I very much doubted that if he’d taken her kid.

“It wasn’t a big deal,” Selena said. “We ran into each other at a bar back home and got to talking. I floated him a business plan, and he offered to invest.”

And so it fell out. An idiotic scheme for a psychedelic mushroom business, of all things. The predictable failure of said business. The loan Huntington wanted repaid with interest as soon as possible or else he promised to fuck up her life.

Which he would, of course. The Huntingtons were dirty businesspeople. Rumors of illegal activities to buttress their real estate investments had abounded for years. I had no problemimagining the profits Ezra Huntington saw when he looked at a beautiful woman like Selena Bishop. There were all sorts of markets for someone who looked like her. Or a daughter who would grow into a spitting image of her mother. Or her aunt.

It was a neat little package of fucked up.

A few minutes later, Simone looked like she wanted to sink into the floor from embarrassment, and I was ready to stop hearing this woman’s irritating voice.

“So when exactly did this cross over to taking my company?” I cut into a long tangent about how she left her kid alone for ten minutes to take a smoke break because she justhadto get some peace and quiet from her four-year-old.

“Just fucking listen, okay?” Selena snapped.

I glared, and she had the decency to shudder and continue in a slightly more subdued voice.

“I went to Ezra’s office in Rhode Island to make the payment with the jewelry?—”

“Oh my God, Sel, you were going togive himMom’s jewelry?” Simone cut in.

“No, Miss Perfect, I pawned them first. Happy?”

My muscles coiled, ready to tell Selena to get the fuck out for talking to Simone like thatagain, but Simone’s hand on my wrist kept me in place.

We needed to hear the rest.