Page 47 of Trust

Adam scoffs loudly. “What do you think happens to the people who lose too much money and can’t pay up?”

“Oh,” I say.

That had been stupid of me not to think about.

“So, um… You want me to keep doing this?” I ask tentatively. Had I done the right thing after all?

“Yeah. You need to—” Adam suddenly cuts off for a few seconds, and I think I hear muffled talking. “Okay, yeah, stay close to him. Do whatever it takes to get the evidence I need.”

I’m not sure if I’m relieved or even more terrified.

He’s depending on me.

He thinks I can do this, or he wouldn’t let me try.

“Whatever it takes?” I echo. “Do you mean…”

“Exactly what it sounds like, babe,” Adam replies. “If shaking your ass gets his lips to loosen up, do that. If he needs your tongue around his cock to get talkative… You get the gist.”

My stomach twists.

It’s not like I haven’t already gotten my mouth around his cock, but the way that Adam puts it makes me feel like a cheap whore.

“He told me something last night,” I blurt out instead of commenting on how that makes me feel. “That his hands are stained from things he’s done, that he’s not safe to be around.”

Adam lets out a small laugh. “What am I supposed to do with that? Any good lawyer would say it’s just a metaphor. We can’t get an arrest warrant with that.”

I immediately feel stupid for repeating the words, but I’d wanted to give him something. Anything. “I’ll find out something better,” I promise.

Even if it means continuing to act like a whore.

“Yeah. Guess you can’t come home for now. You’d be compromised.” Adam makes a disappointed sound. “Can’t be helped. The faster you get the info, the sooner you can come back to me.”

The fact that he sounds like he cares that I’ll be gone is heartening enough to where the sting of his earlier words is soothed. “I’ll do it as fast as I can,” I promise. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too. I have to go now. Love you.” He ends the call there, without giving me a chance to respond.

“I love you too,” I whisper anyway, like he can hear me.

I look around the room, inhaling deeply. I can do this. Ihaveto do this. I have no idea what I’m doing, though. I’m not savvy or suave or charismatic.

But Ilya does seem to respond to me being helpless, and if nothing else, I’m good at that.

I let myself out of the spare room, heading into the living room to wait for him to finish his phone calls. I don’t know what he’ll expect me to do while he’s working, so I start to play a game on my phone while I wait.

A few minutes later, Ilya finally emerges from the office. “Sorry about that,” he says, sounding genuinely apologetic. “I had to tell my assistant I was taking a few days off.” He comes to sit down next to me. “You have my full attention now.”

I shift so I’m pressing against his side. “Your assistant? What do you do?” I ask, my heart threatening to hammer out of my chest as I try to figure out what questions I can ask that sound innocent enough but might yield something useful.

Then it hits me that he’d said something else, too.

He’s taking time off.

For me.

Adam would never have done that.

The guilt bubbles up, and I’m not sure what to make of that information.