Page 23 of Resist

CHAPTER TEN

Ryker

“Did you hear a word I said?” The voice on the other end of my speakerphone snaps my attention back to the task at hand. My job. And screwing over the soon-to-be former Mrs. Martin Hinkle.

“Yeah. Yes. Sorry. My assistant brought in something while you were talking, and I got distracted. What did you say again?” I lie.

My mind is in a goddamn fog. I glance down to my call log on my cell and shake my head at the name Vee and how many times it sits on the list.

Each one either dialed and then ended before the call went through . . . or dialed and left unanswered.

“Mm-hmm,” I murmur to Marty as he drones on, repeating the same shit he says each time he calls.

“I don’t want her to get a goddamn penny is what I said. Fifteen years stuck with her and probably a total of fifteen blowjobs to go with it. Do you know what it’s like to be a man and have to beg your wife to get blown on your birthday? Add to that she’s off spending money left and right every time I leave for work. She’s bled me dry already with her Chanel and Givenchy and whatever you call it. She doesn’t deserve another dime from me.”

I clear my throat and think of the photographs in the file beneath my fingertips of his version of “at work.” Martin entering a hotel with a buxom blonde two days of the week and then a sexy redhead on two others.

“I’ve got you covered, Marty. I have records, and Stuart has been digging around—”

“Stuart?” he asks.

“My private investigator.” Never leave home without one. “He’s been hard at work. I’m more than certain that she’ll agree to mediate the terms before we ever approach trial. I doubt she’ll want all of her friends hearing about how half of her shit is knockoffs and how all of the hours she’s told them she’s spent donating her time is all a bunch of bullshit.”

It sounds like he smacks his hands together on the other end of the line and rubs them in anticipation. “I can see her face now.”

“Good. Keep thinking about that. And make sure to keep your distance from your”—I clear my throat—“friends for the time being. We were watching her long before you asked for the divorce. That’s the only reason we have dirt on her. I’m sure you’re being watched now.”

“Definitely. Definitely,” he says before ending the connection, and I know he’s already trying to figure out how to sneak out and get some.

Prick.

But a wealthy prick indeed, whose $500,000 retainer sits paid in my account.

An incoming email dings on my laptop, and I’d much rather stay distracted by looking at it than deal with my crappy day. First, Judge Marcos denying my motion in one courtroom and then being on the losing end of a rather shitty decision on another one across town.

Still thinking about the money I’m out from Wicked Ways and the lack of response when I call is just icing on the fucking shit-cake I don’t want to deal with.

Because it’s not the money I give a rat’s ass about . . . not in the least.

Maybe it’s my wounded pride from the insults she hurled at me. I know they’re bullshit, but still . . .

Stop caring, Lockhart.

I click to open the email just as my receptionist buzzes the phone on my desk.

“Mr. Lockhart?”

“Not now, Bella.”

The first picture opens on my screen.

“But—”

“Not now.”

I jab the intercom button on my phone and hang up on her as I stare at my screen and the images Stuart just sent over.

They’re grainy and taken at night, but there she is. I stare at the black-and-white image of the woman I know only as Vee. Scroll through the photos, one after another—my eyes squinting, my mouth twisting in thought. Her hair is jet black and cut into a severe angle at her cheek, her clothes are expensive yet understated in black to match her hair, and even without color, I know her lips are a deep red.