He kicked off the wall, shrugging. “I have a feeling you’re going to take my deal today.”
I opened my mouth to tell him to fuck off, then paused.
Could I get out the same way I got in, with a deal?
“I’ll give you what you want,” I said, “if you get me out.”
His only reaction was a slight smile. Dead grass and old leaves, recently thawed and unearthed, scuttled across the pavement between us.
“You really aren’t in a place to bargain,” Butcher said at last.
I tilted my head, becauseyeah, I was.I definitely was. But the casual and confident way Butcher spoke had me holding back. So I said nothing. Butcher leaned against the wall, taking out a cigarette.
The office was quiet. Empty. Andrew was apparently gone, and since this building was a shell, housing only Andrew’s office and a conference room filled with boxes, the only sound was my bag hitting the table.
I sat down, looking at the rows and rows of boxes.
The obvious clusterfuck Andrew was in.
How the fuck had he set up a billion-dollar crypto scheme with what appeared to be no computers, no help,nothing? I dragged a hand down my jaw.
If Butcher wouldn’t help, maybe I could find something to leverage. It was a long shot, but whatever Andrew had fucked up, if I could find a way to unfuck it, I might just get out.
I sat up, walking the short distance down to Andrew’s office. It was starkly empty, too, with just one single L-shaped desk and a cheap office chair.
I tugged open the top drawer—nothing.
I did that with the middle and bottom—still nothing.
Fuck.
I moved to the last drawer and nearly closed it, assuming it was also empty, when I noticed something small and crumpled in the back.
A photo.
I grabbed it, ironing out the wrinkles and?—
It was a photo of Andrew on a beach in Mexico. Andrew with a woman wearing a small polka-dot bikini. She smiled and flashed a ring at the camera.
My heart stopped beating in my chest.
Somewhere a river roared—oh, no, that was my blood rushing in my ears.
It didn’t compute. I stared at the wrinkled, plastic photo. At honey hair I’d just recently had wrapped around my fist. At the moles I’d already mapped with my tongue.
Shay, standing next to the head of the Rocky Mountain division.
Andrew was high enough in the organization that whoever he dated had to be run through the chain. He couldn’t get married unless given the green light. The Mafia handled disobedience as one would expect, with a lot of fucking blood.
I wasn’t wondering why he would risk that for Shay.
Thatmade sense.
Who wouldn’t risk blood for someone like her?
But from everything Shay had said about him, it didn’t make sense.
It’s not like there’s anything of value on it—well, value to someone other than an astrophysicist.
