Page 77 of Scandalous Contract

My focus was trash, though. I kept thinking about her. Wondering what she was doing. Wondering if she was thinking about me, too. Had she sniffed the flowers I sent her as she sipped her coffee this morning?

Thoughts like that had me sitting at my desk for over an hour, staring at the wall, not getting any work done. My phone buzzed, pulling me out of my head. I checked my phone to find a text from my father that read:Are you watching the news?

Shit, it had to be something to do with the Clarks. I’d been wondering when we’d hear something. It was almost ten a.m. now. Their offices opened at eight-thirty. I started looking around me frantically, searching for the remote to the flat-screen television mounted in the corner of my office. I checked my desk drawers and found it in the second drawer.

I hurriedly clicked on the TV and flicked to the news. I turned the volume up. There it was in big-ass letters on the screen:Worked to Death or Murdered and Planted There?Whoever wrote that headline had a way with words. The anchor’s voice cut through.

“Police were called early this morning to Clark Construction after three decomposing bodies were discovered by staff. The company has not made a public statement yet, but police sources confirm an investigation is underway.”

I leaned back in my chair, arms crossed, jaw tight. The bodies had been discovered before the Clarks could cover it up. Now, it was time to get ready for whatever came next. My phone rang.Aiden.

“Yeah,” I answered, still watching the footage of Clark Construction employees being escorted out of the building, wide-eyed and shaky.

“The identities of the bodies have not been released yet,” the anchor continued. “This story is ongoing, and we’ll update the public with details as we learn them.”

“Are you watching the news?” Aiden asked.

“Yeah. Just turned it on. It seems your brother’s girlfriend did her job well.”

“Yeah, she did. He took it a step further, though. He had her plant a bug in both Clark offices, Senior’s and Junior’s. We’ve been listening in for the past few hours.”

“And?”

“The news is just now reporting things, but those bastards have been busy for a couple of hours trying to cover their asses. Here’s what we’ve picked up so far from conversations between Senior, his lawyer, and his right-hand man.”

I didn’t interrupt. I let him talk.

“This is all on Junior.”

I’d figured that.

“Junior fucked up big time about a month ago. He called his old man around three a.m. crying like a little bitch. He said he messed up badly. At the time, he had a room in one of my resorts. He was there to get a feel of the place, take pics of the décor and try to find out whether he could convince our chef to come work for them. But instead of doing his job, he did the usual, fucked and got drunk. After the call, Senior shows up at the hotel and finds Junior high out of his mind, blackout drunk, with three women dead in the room. Two hookers. One hotel employee from Bak Resorts.”

“Damn. One of those women was one of your employees?”

“Yeah. Which means I’m going to have to be careful about how I handle this. I can’t say anything until they identify the bodies.”

“Right. How did your staffer get involved?”

“Apparently, she was working that night, and the front desk kept getting noise complaint calls. She went to his room to tell him about the complaints and ask him to keep it down. Junior dragged her inside, violated her, and forced her to take drugs that killed her. I only know this because Senior told his right-hand man to make sure Junior hadn’t kept any of her personal items, like her badge. Apparently, he likes keeping items that belong to the women he kills.”

I clenched my jaw. There were so many sick motherfuckers in this world. And my dad wondered why I didn’t want to be a parent.

“I can’t risk asking the guy who worked with her that night about it because it’ll show that I know something. I have to wait until the bodies are identified. But no one has reported her missing. She’s listed as fired in our records.”

“Which means someone on your side is in with the Clarks.”

“Yeah. And when I find out who, I’m going to fuck up their entire world.”

“Did you hear anything else? Does the police suspect Junior?”

“Oh, there’s more to the story. After arriving at the room and seeing the scene, Senior panicked,” Aiden continued. “He didn’t want to call any of his own people because he didn’t want them seen coming in and out of the hotel. So, he called Louis, who had apparently been working for them for a while. Senior told him to get rid of the bodies. Louis agreed, then Senior stopped him and told him that this was their chance to take out the hotel competition and construction competition. He told Louis to hide the bodies on one of our Bak job sites. Louis said he couldn’t, stating it was too risky. So Senior threatened to kill Louis’s family if he didn’t dump them at one of our job sites.”

“But he didn’t do it right away. The sick fuck kept the bodies.”

“Right, and when Senior didn’t get a visual confirmation of the job being done, he roughed Louis up. Louis finally tried to get rid of the bodies. And that led us to our current situation. Your guys did a great job positioning the bodies at the Clark office. According to the secretary, there had been one in her seat, one in Senior’s office and the last one in Junior’s. The secretary freaked out and called Senior. He told her not to call the cops. She said it was too late, another employee had already called them.”

“Yeah, your brother was definitely right to get his girl involved.”