I snap the question off like a gunshot. It makes him pause. I shouldn’t like the surprise on his face, but at least it’s proof I can still break past his armor and pierce the heart of him.
“What do you mean?”
“My job. Everything we’ve done. How much of it wasreal?”
“All of it.”
“David Sorensen? That was real? Or was my part only cover for the actual deal?”
His grip on me tightens. “David’s a special case. You brought him to me before I understood what he really wanted. That was real?—“
“Until it wasn’t anymore.” I blink back tears, feeling like an idiot. “God, I thought I pulled off a serious win with him, and now I’m finding out he wanted to get close to you all along. How many drugs are you moving with him, huh?”
“We measure it by weight?—“
“Fuck off, Prime, I don’t care what the proper terminology is.” I’m mortified and he’s still making jokes. It’s taking a lot of effort not to knee him in the balls and headbutt him right in that pretty nose.
“This company is real, Deanna. The parking lots are real. The investments are real. All the numbers, all the income, it’s real.”
“Except?”
He hesitates and his expression darkens. “How much do you want to know?”
“Everything. All of it.”
“That’s not happening.”
“Then I’m done. Get the divorce papers ready. You can go to hell.”
“Deanna—“
“I’m not kidding, Prime.” I shove against him but I might as well try to eat the entire copy machine.
“I don’t want to lose you.”
“You mean, you don’t want to lose your convenient business partner.”
“My wife.”
“Don’t do that.” I make a fist and pound it into his chest. “Tell me the truth, damn it. Please, just tell me.”
He seems to wrestle for a moment. His eyes glaze over and he looks down at my mouth. I don’t know what’s going through his head, but mine’s in turmoil, wondering what crimes I’ve accidentally committed, how many moral lines I’ve already crossed, all without knowing. I’ve been making a fool of myself for years. Prime’s probably been laughing behind my back. No wonder he thought I’d be stupid enough to accept his marriage proposal.
He already knew I was a sucker.
I feel used. Plain and simple. Drained dry down to the bone.
“The parking lots are real, but they’re a convenient cash business. Money from the illegal side of my operations flow into the legal side in realistic, steady increments. That’s registered as income, I pay taxes, and it’s nice and squeaky clean. Nobody here knows it’s happening, not unless the accountants are much more competent than I realized, but they aren’t.”
That’s a strange relief.
“You had me thinking Jonathan was a secret gangster.” His frown tells me he has no clue who the hell I’m talking about. “What about the other stuff? What about… the killing…”
“This corporation is a laundering scheme nestled inside a surprisingly profitable business enterprise. If I stopped selling coke, I’d still have a nice income.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Because I like selling coke.”
