It looked like her ex’s new bitch’s eyes were going to pop out of her head in jealousy.
“You may slap me in front of all these witnesses,” Perry said as Bridget drifted closer, “but I think evenyouwould have a hard time getting out of that. The agreement is signed and done, no matter what you may have to say about it. You can’t doshit.”
“She didn’t have a lawyer then, though, did she? Or a personal accountant?” I gritted out, wishing I could beat the shit out of him.
“No—why—why would she need those things?”
“She does now.”
I stepped aside so Peregrine could get a good look at all five feet six inches of Asparagus walking up the driveway.
The new recruit’s eyes were gleaming behind his spectacles as he straightened his squeaky-clean new cut, and I barely stepped aside before he had licked the tip of his pencil and began.
“There seems to be a few discrepancies in the reporting of your income,” Asparagus said bloodthirstily, and I could tell by the way the blood drained from Perry’s face that it was a hit.
And the longer Asparagus spoke, the paler and more frantic Peregrine looked.
“What do you mean discrepancies?” Polly asked, narrowing her eyes.
“Insufficiently imputed income,” Asparagus began, then spat out a bunch of other jargon I didn’t recognize but seemed to make Perry turn gray.
“You were holding out insufficiently imputed income on me?” Polly asked. “Wow.”
“They could take his license for that,” Asparagus agreed. “This is a serious offense.”
“How much for this to go away?” Perry hissed hysterically at me, tearing wildly at his hair.
I shrugged. “As much as Polly wants. It’s her choice. This is shit you couldn’t have built without her, and she didn’t get her piece of it.”
His jaw dropped.
“You’re doing all this for Polly?”
“Yeah, bitch, I am. Want to say something else about her?”
Perry back away anxiously.
“Nope. Not at all. She’s a wonderful woman. Whatever happened was merely an oversight. An accounting error. I’m as surprised as you that she didn’t end up with the proper amount of money.”
“This is really embarrassing for you,” Polly retorted, rolling her eyes.
“Send her your proposal and you better make it a good one,” I called over my shoulder as I put an arm around Polly’s waist and drew her away.
“Abraham,” she breathed, and I couldn’t interpret the tone in her voice. Was she going to forgive me?
But when I drew her closer, letting out a ragged breath to feel those delicious curves, she pushed away.
“Don’t think Perry is going to recover his standing after that,” she said. “Bridget looked like she could feel her dreams of a beach house slipping away.”
“You deserve everything. What can I get for you? A bigger house than you had? Nicer car than his?”
“How about a man who would actually stand up for me?”
It felt like a punch to the gut, but here was the time to play my ace.
“I might fuck up, but I willnevermake that mistake again. I’m not that man anymore, and here’s what I’m going to do, baby. Asparagus found a lead and I’m going to follow it. I’m going to go unprotected into a rival MC’s territory and see if I can find my mother.”
CHAPTER 21
