Page 18 of Undeniably Corrupt (Boston’s Irresistible Billionaires #7)

My feet pound the pavement while sweat drips down my forehead and neck. Something has been eating at me, and maybe that explains my preoccupation with her.

I slip my AirPods into my ears and dial up my father.

“Vander?” He picks up on the third ring, a little confused to be hearing from me on a work night. Usually we chat through encrypted texts, but this requires a phone call.

“Hey, Dad. I need to ask you a few things.”

“Sure.”

I slow my run to a walk, but I don’t turn back toward home. Not yet. “Do you remember my high school girlfriend, Liora James?”

“You mean the girl you just hired to take over for Champagne?”

I smirk. God, my mother loves to talk.

“Yes. Tell me what you know about her father. About her family.”

“Honestly? Not a lot other than her father owns James Architecture and Engineering and the James Automotive Group.” He clears his throat.

“He’s very successful at both, and I’ve never heard a bad word said about him.

He’s all smiles and waves whenever he’s in town, though he never liked me much and, as I recall, never liked you a whole lot either. Have you checked into them? Into her?”

I drag a hand up my face and through my damp hair. “Not really, no. My friends told me I can’t dig too much into her.”

He chuckles. “How come?”

“They told me it would be stalking, and I listened. They were right, and I was already…” I huff. “Too preoccupied. I’d already overstepped and taken liberties with her I shouldn’t have. But on Monday a fake FBI agent showed up at my door asking about things he shouldn’t know.”

“Explain that.”

“He called himself Agent Vincent Vega, which to anyone is almost nuts. It’s an automatic, that’s a fake-as-fuck name and get the fuck out of my office . But then he started asking questions and mentioning things about my past.”

He falls quiet. “What about your past?”

“What I was arrested for. He brought it up and asked if I was still hacking.”

“That’s not public information. We had your arrest wiped along with the accusations against you.”

I close my eyes. He’s right. We did that. Shit. So how could he have known ?

“Liora was the reason he was there. I know it. He was dicking around, asking about me, and then he homed in on her and didn’t stop. He asked if the reason I hired her is because she’s my ex-girlfriend. How could he know that, Dad? How could this guy possibly know that? Or about my arrest?”

“He’s working with or for someone who does, or Liora is part of this.”

I rub my hand over my sweaty forehead. “No one knew except for my people.” I stare down at the sidewalk, sweat dripping onto the concrete creating black dots. “I really don’t want to think that about her.” But it’s difficult not to.

“Then someone else knew. You just didn’t know it.”

“Her father?”

“Maybe. But what’s the connection there, and why is it coming to you?”

“I have no clue, Dad.” I puff out a breath, watching the white plume of vapor dissipate into the cold night air.

“I ran this guy’s face through my database, and nothing came up.

Nothing in the private or public sector.

Liora is living in a shit neighborhood, dancing in a strip club, and telling me she has no one else in her life but herself.

She’s a single mother, and when I took her out on my bike the other day, she told me I couldn’t kill her, otherwise her child would be in foster care.

You mention her father, and she visibly shuts down.

Now a fake FBI agent is at my office door, not so casually giving me a fake name to go with it, and mentioning her.

I left Lavender Lake, but she had two years there after me.

I know she graduated because that was on her background check, but it’s as if she graduated and left without ever looking back. ”

“She left two weeks before graduation,” he says, and my feet freeze in the middle of the sidewalk.

“What do you mean?”

“She was working for your mom and texted one day thanking her for everything she did for her but said that she wasn’t coming back.

Naturally, this worried your mother, and she checked on her to make sure everything was okay, but Liora’s phone was shut off.

The story that passed through town was that the school granted her an early graduation, and she was staying with out-of-state relatives who needed her, and that was that.

She hasn’t been back to town since. It’s why your mother was so surprised and happy to see her. ”

I stare out into the dark night of my neighborhood, with cars passing and dogs barking, and I hear and see none of it. What happened to you, Liora, that made you run?

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

He laughs humorlessly. “You had broken up two years before that and hadn’t seen or talked to her since.

And you never mentioned her. Never asked about her.

We thought that was your way of saying you didn’t want to know about her.

Besides, what was there to tell? She graduated and was staying with family and moved on. ”

Except I didn’t move on. And now that she’s back in my life… yeah, I’m not sure I ever moved on.

She ended up in California, and she had no other family. An aunt somewhere, maybe, but I don’t think they had much to do with her, and she wasn’t in California, if memory serves.

“Don’t let Mom tell anyone she saw her. No one. And definitely don’t let her spread it around that she’s working for me.”

“I won’t. I’ll make sure of it, but your mother is no fool and knows how to keep her mouth shut.”

“What do I do?”

“You dig around, Vander. You dig into her father and more into this fake FBI agent if you’re not ready to dig into Liora. Find out their secrets and what they’re after.”

“I will. I’m not sure I have a choice anymore.”

“Do you want me to look so you don’t have to?”

I do want him to. But I also don’t. The only person I want looking into Liora is me. She’s not mine. Not anymore, and she never will be again. But the possessive protectiveness I feel toward her tells me otherwise. I don’t like it, but it is what it is.

“Nah. I’ve got it.”

“You need to go slow, Vander. Slower than you are. You’re talking about the FBI.

Fake or otherwise, these people know things about you they shouldn’t, and if they’re watching you or looking into how you operate, you’re taking risks and need to play this smart.

More than that, you don’t know this isn’t a setup. ”

“I know. I’ll go slow. And I’ll be careful.

” Because I won’t risk my freedom. Not again.

That week in a federal prison was enough to make me swear that, practically in blood.

But what secrets is Liora hiding? And how does her father play into that?

“There are a lot of ways this could go. A lot of paths it could lead.”

“Do you know what you’re doing with this?”

I rub my lips. “Not even a little. But I’m doing what I feel I have to.”