Page 227 of Wicked Proposal

After a few minutes of forks scraping plates and me idly imagining Brad’s face going gray as he choked to death on his undercooked pancakes, he clears his throat and stands.

“C’mon, bud. The driver’s waiting,” Brad says.

Driver.Eli’s eyes dim at that word, like they always do.

I decide to risk it. “Why don’t you take him today? Just to see the place.”

Brad fixes me with a stare that says,Are you stupid?“I’ve got work. I don’t have time for that bullshit.”

Which Eli immediately translates into his head into,I don’t have time for you.

Fucking hell. He wanted his son so badly, and now, he can’t even be bothered to drive him to school?

I open my mouth to argue, but Eli cuts me off. “It’s fine, Dad. Let’s just go.”

“See?” Brad ogles me. “He gets it. Why can’t you?”

Deep breaths, Mia.

You can’t whack your child’s father in front of him, Mia.

Think of the therapy bills, Mia.

I smooth the creases out of my face. “Bye, munchkin,” I whisper sweetly. “Have a wonderful day at school.”

I try to kiss him on the head, but he ducks away.

My heart cracks just a little bit more.

I wait for the car to leave the driveway. Wait for the engine’s rumble to fade into traffic.

Then I dart to Brad’s computer.

“Okay,” I breathe, sticking in my trusty thumb drive. “Time to get to work.”

Brad isn’t stupid. He takes his laptop with him every day. His home computer is linked to his cloud, but it’s password-protected.

What he doesn’t know is that I still remember it.

Perhaps not that smart, then.

This is what I do every day: log in, look for dirt, save every file I can. There are five terabytes of data on here—only so much I can go through in a single day. But I still do it.

Because this is how we get out.

Dirt. That’s what I need. Information, shady deals, sensitive data I can trade for my freedom. Baldwin Construction’s activities have never been completely above-board, not even when Brad’s dad was in charge.

If I look hard enough, I’ll find what I need.

Then I’ll take my son far away from here, and we’ll be a family again.

Family.That word stirs uncomfortable memories inside me. Memories of him.

Yulian.

For four weeks, I’ve been searching for proof of Brad’s claims that they were in on it together. So far, I haven’t managed to find anything.

But that doesn’t mean I can trust him. He still lied to me, after all. And I’m sure as fuck not going to trust Brad.