Page 10 of Undeniably Corrupt

It’s not a good look on me, and it’s not something I take in stride.

I wasn’t sure if I wanted her to see me yet. The real me, not the gross-looking dude. Now I don’t have much of a choice, as I’m in line and there are two people ahead of me. I could go. I could turn around and pretend like none of this is happening.

But I want to see her face when she recognizes me. Or doesn’t recognize me. It’s simply a matter of curiosity and nothing more.

I shuffle forward with the line, and when it’s my turn, I stand before her, staring down at her and waiting with my heart hammering in my chest for unexplained reasons. If I didn’t know better, I’d almost think I was nervous. Maybe apprehensive is a better way to put it.

“Good afternoon,” she chirps. “What can I get you?”

She doesn’t look up.

Look up, Liora.

“I’ll have a large café Americano with cream and sugar and a blueberry muffin.”

She punches my order into her tablet. “Sure. That’ll be twelve thirty-two. Cash or card, and may I have a name for the order?” Her chin begins to lift, and her eyes follow only to abruptly get cut off by someone calling out to her.

“Liora, the daycare is on the phone for you,” some eager beaver informs her.

Daycare?

“Oh.” Alarm strikes her features. “Okay, thanks. Can you finish this up for me?”

“Sure.” Eager Beaver comes over and rings up my order as she briskly walks to the back room. “Name?”

“Bennett,” I say again because why not? I shuffle to the side, my head spinning. Daycare. Does she have a child? Or children? Is she married? Or is she a single mom, and that’s why she’s dancing in the club? She said she was living with someoneand that it was for forever. Did she mean a man the way I took it, or was she referring to her kids?

Shit.

I tap out a rhythm against my thigh, wishing I could pound it out on my drums. Anything to reduce this… tension. This wild feeling inside me.

“Bennett!” the barista practically screams out at full blast, but if Liora hears it, she doesn’t come back out to see me. I grab my order and leave, hotfooting it back to my building, trying to talk myself out of what I’m about to do while already knowing I’m going to do it.

I plow through the doors of my building, nod to the security guy, and get my ass in the elevator. I have things I’m supposed to do today. Interviews for Champagne’s job and attend a meeting with a new client before I go and pick up Keegan and Loomis from the airport to tell them about Tommy Hardgrave. But I already know I won’t be doing any of those things. Not yet, at least.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Champagne calls out to me. “I see that look. There are three people waiting to interview, and Charles and John both say they need ten minutes.”

“It’ll have to wait.”

“Vander!”

“You do the interviews. You know your job better than anyone and what I need from your replacement.”

She makes a noise of disapproval as I enter my office and shut the door. I could go into the closet, but I don’t think I’ll need that level of access or secrecy for anything.

I open my laptop and start in as I eat. It doesn’t take me long. Not even five minutes and I’m inside the club’s server, so freaking easy I can hardly stand it. Then again, who wants to hack a strip club?

Me, apparently.

I search through their employee records as I take a bite ofmy muffin and chase it with a sip of coffee, hardly tasting either, as I locate her name. Liora James. She was hired a year ago, and they have a social security number and a license on file.

Copying all of her information to a folder, I debate doing this. It’s intrusive. I know that. Typically, that doesn’t bother me, but she’s not a hacker I’m trying to take down, and she’s not someone threatening my people. She’s a coffee shop worker. A barista. A dancer and a nursing student.

I shouldn’t do this.

Scrubbing my hands up and down my face, I growl into my palms. “Fuck!”

My hands slap the glass of my desk, rattling a few random things on it. I just want to see what I’ve missed in the last ten years. I won’t use it for anything other than scratching this itch about her I can’t seem to shake.