Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 76846 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76846 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
It wasn’t uncommon for many of us to work late. But this was too late even for the most ambitious members of the team.
I heard the sound of footsteps, the stride awkward in the way only the senator’s was.
Michael Westmoore was a relatively short man. I actually had to stop wearing heels because it bruised his ego when a woman towered over him. To overcompensate for being vertically challenged, he had shoes with lifts specially made. The problem was, he wanted to be a lot taller than the standard lift would make him, which meant he added a slight heel to the shoes as well, making it so he ended up walking a bit like someone in high heels, only with flat loafers on.
I slunk back into the shadow behind the door, not wanting to engage with him. Not when my head was still screaming.
A loud ring had me fighting back a gasp before the senator’s voice flooded the hallway.
“Dimitri,” he said, making my brows pinch.
I knew the senator well. Well enough to know the names of every one of his family members—including the illegitimate son he’d never publicly acknowledged but who fleeced his father for money every month that he always sucked up his nose within weeks—but that name meant nothing to me.
“Are you alone?” A deep, heavily accented, man’s voice filled the hallway with the senator.
Michael Westmoore was completely useless with all forms of technology. He had this awful habit of always answering his phone on speaker without even realizing it, leaving one of us on his team to quickly turn the speaker off before he or someone he was talking to said something that would ruin his chances of reelection.
“Ah,” the senator said, and I could hear him turning into my office, likely having seen the computer still powered on. “Yeah, yeah,” he said, coming toward the bathroom, and glancing in, but not seeing me stashed behind the door.
“We need to talk,” Dimitri said, and I placed the accent as Russian as the senator walked back out into my office.
“About what?”
“You were supposed to get that case dropped,” Dimitri said.
In my hiding place, I winced.
I mean, it was an ugly truth of politics that most, if not all, politicians got corrupted eventually. Even the idealistic ones, the ones who swore they would never take corporate money or bribes, the lure money corrupted them all eventually.
I wasn’t surprised my boss was corrupt.
I was a little surprised that it sounded like he was involved in something actually criminal.
Michael Westmoore hated feeling like he answered to anyone. And when you involved yourself with criminals, you were never truly in charge.
“This kind of thing takes time,” the senator insisted. “It’s not like I can just go to the DA and tell him to drop the case against a man caught trafficking women into Brooklyn.”
Trafficking?
My heartbeat was punching against my ribcage, loud enough that I could swear it could be heard even from a room away with rainfall still hammering against all the windows in the building.
It was one thing to look the other way when someone was dealing cocaine to half of the politicians in the game. It was a complete other to try to get a man off of trafficking charges.
Trafficking.
Of actual human beings.
Women, it seemed like. And likely girls.
Lord knew there was only one reason women and girls were trafficked into a country.
“You are costing me money,” Dimitri said, voice getting rougher, a little more accented in his anger.
“I’m working on it.”
“Work harder,” Dimitri bit off. “Or there will be consequences, da?”
There was a pause.
“Yeah. Yes. I’ll see the district attorney tomorrow,” the senator insisted. “But I need proof that—“ he started, but Dimitri had already ended the call.
“Shit,” the senator said, and I could hear his footsteps go into his office, then back down the hall.
I wasn’t sure I released my breath until I heard the elevator doors chime as they opened, and swallowed up the senator.
What the hell?
I mean… what the actual hell?
I didn’t know if it was the painkillers or the adrenaline, but the migraine had started to ease. Not completely, but enough to be able to think straight again.
I stayed in the bathroom for another couple of minutes, wanting to make sure the senator was out of the building before I finally moved out, powering down my computer, grabbing my cell and my purse, and heading for the elevators myself.
I didn’t know what to do with this information.
All I knew was I needed to get the hell out of there, get some space, some room to think. Maybe some sleep. Then I could figure out what my next steps would be.
I didn’t realize, of course, as I exited the building twenty minutes after my boss that the streets weren’t as empty as they looked, that someone was watching me.