Page 88 of Scandalous Contract

I tossed my phone onto the bed, and it landed on something that made a soft crinkle. I looked down and saw the edge of Julian’s letter. I picked it up and smoothed it out, my fingers running over the handwriting.

I reread it. Every single word. And just like earlier, his letter brightened my mood. My smile was back, and once again, I had Julian Cattaneo to thank. I sighed and traced the letters J.C.Julian Cattaneo.

“Why are you making it so hard to forget you, J.C.?” I whispered.

Of course, I dreamed about him after I finally fell back to sleep. In my dreams, his age didn’t matter, my past didn’t matter, the fact that he was a Cattaneo and the brother of my daughter’s roommate didn’t matter. Only two things mattered in the dream.

Stefanie and Julian.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

JULIAN

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MY PI HAD GOTTEN BACKto me with information on Scott Pollard. Most of the stuff Aiden had picked up in his recordings of Scott in his father’s office were lies the bastard told investors, trying to get them to work with him.

The truth was that Scott Pollard was a bad seed and a thorn in his father’s side. Scott had racked up a lot of debt over the years, with creditors pursuing him long before his father's criminal investigation began.

Because of this, his father distanced himself from Scott and even stopped using him for dirty jobs after creditors began approaching the Clarks for money. That angered Scott so much that he actually kidnapped Junior for a few days just last month and held him for ransom until his father paid him off.

With both Senior and Junior dealing with their legal issues, Scott was trying to intimidate the family and the company to get money out of them to pay off his debts. He was desperate.

And with things not working out the way he’d hoped, he was starting to spiral. The cameras at Cattaneo Concrete Solutions had picked up on someone in a gray hoodie and ripped jeans loitering around the building.

The person had thrown a glass bottle at the front door, trying to break it. But our glass doors and windows were bulletproof. We’d been shot up before. We now had measures in place to protect our employees and clients.

However, striking the glass that hard had triggered the alarm. He’d run off once it blared. On the cameras, his face wasn’t shown. But Rashad had sent me photos of Scott, and in a few of them, he was wearing that same hoodie and jeans.

He was the one who’d tried to break into my company. He was the one I was after. And I was determined to find him.Tonight. He’d escaped me once a week ago, fleeing an alleyway once he saw my car. I wasn’t going to let him escape me again.

I turned onto a dirt road a block away from the latest address Rashad sent me. I cut the engine and killed the lights. I sat there in the dark, gun in my holster, waiting to see if my arrival, though a block away, had been detected.

I glanced out the windows, eyes scanning the forest around me, searching for movement. All was still. It was a clear and quiet night. The moon was out, and the stars shone brightly. Tonight would be a perfect night to lie on my back balcony and stare up at the stars with Stefanie.

But because of this motherfucker, I was pulling on my black gloves, preparing for a kill. If I weren’t in such a rush to get back to Stefanie, I’d let this Scott versus the Clarks shit play out. I’d let Aaron’s bastard son bring down their entire family and destroy their company.