She darted around Delilah and slammed the door on her way out. Rosco jumped, yelped, and pawed at Delilah’s leg to be held.
Bending, she scooped him up. “You look like shit.”
Yeah, and you know why, asshole.
I’d told her through email last night, sparing her any incriminating details but enough that she got the gist.
“Shut up.” I lied, “I’m sick, you cold-hearted monster. Chantilly cornered me this morning to talk about budgets. She had a cold, Delilah. She coughed in my mouth, Delilah. I ate her cold, Delilah. I ate it. Do you know what that is like? I could demonstrate.”
“I feel like you’re saying my name a lot.”
“I feel like you’re not listening.”
We skirted around the elephant of the day, because I'd been fucking held in federal custody for the maximum forty-eight hours allowed by North Carolina law. If I had a working phone, I would have called Delilah to get me the fuck out of there.
I hadn’t.
So, I sat through Brandon's incessant questions without speaking a word.
“Did you know about the Winthrop Scandal before the F.B.I. and S.E.C. announced our formal investigation?”
“What is your involvement with Virginia Winthrop, Balthazar Van Doren, and Eric Cartwright?”
“We spotted you at Balthazar and Virginia’s engagement dinner. Her daughter was your date. Would you say you are close with her? Did she know about the Winthrop Scandal before it began?”
“We don’t have to be after you, Nash. Strike a deal with us. What do you say?”
If it were just me, I could deal with the pressure from the S.E.C. Fika had done a good job of covering my tracks, and insider trading cases could be difficult to prove. But the fucker went after Ma and Emery.
Instinct urged me to fight with my fists, but that had never worked out well in the past. Good thing I had something better than a fist. A Harvard-educated lawyer on payroll.
I spit it out, “Delilah, I need a favor.”
“How desperate are you for it?”
Sighing, I closed my laptop and clasped my fingers together. “What do you want?”
“Hmm…” She tapped a fingertip to her lip. “Tell me how desperate you are first.”
I stared at her until she fidgeted under my attention. Even then, she didn’t relent.
“Desperate,” I seethed, knowing she'd toy with me as revenge.
I deserved it for making her do all the work on Singapore for nothing. Didn't mean I had to enjoy it.
A smile consumed her face. She looked like the less green offspring of the Grinch. “I want you to kiss Rosco on the lips and tell him you’re sorry for being an insufferable asshole.” She held him out to me. “Also, tell him you think he’s cute.”
I didn’t budge. “I'm not doing that.”
“You can do the favor yourself.” She made a show of shrugging and shooting me a sympathetic grimace. “I hear self-care is all the rage these days.”
“You’re an ass, and not a nice one.” I transferred Rosco to my grip, brought the rat up to my face, stared it in its beady fucking eyes, and said, “You look like someone shaved a teletubby baby and glued a used wig to its head”—Delilah coughed—“and I guess you’re cute. Sorry, dude.”
I leaned forward, wondering if I’d entered a different dimension disguised as hell. The things I did for Emery Winthrop. Goddamn. As if he had a sixth sense, Rosco leaned forward, too.
And then He. Bit. Me.
On the nose.
For a tiny thing, he had razor-sharp teeth. Blood trickled down my nostrils. I released the rat, letting him fall to my lap and hop off. He ran to his bed, circled the doggy blanket, and curled into a ball.
When I stared at him, he barked. Twice.
I gave him the finger and focused on Delilah. “Now that it's established your rabies-ridden dog and I dislike each other, can we move the fuck on?”
She yanked a few tissues from her desk and tossed them to me, not hiding her amusement in the slightest. “I know I’m supposed to look serious right now, but I’m not worried at all. Frankly, the worst part is that you kept this from me all these years. I could have helped you out earlier.”
I read between the lines and saw her question, but I ignored it. Instead, I broke everything down for her, from stealing the ledger to burning it to building this company off money obtained through insider trading.
Delilah sighed, sat at her desk, and booted her laptop. “I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first?”
“The bad news.”
“Of course, you do,” she muttered, clicking a few times with her mouse. “The maximum sentence for insider trading is twenty years.”
“I know. I have Google.”
She ignored me. “The good news is, the average sentence actually given is just over one year, usually in a cushy country-club facility if you’re rich enough. The time served is often half of that on good behavior. So, about six months we're dealing with.”
“I can do six months.”
“You probably won't have to.” She shut her laptop and peered at me. “I think you can get the six months waived if you agree to testify and pay the maximum fine, which is five-million dollars.”
Worth every cent if it got Brandon off Emery and Ma’s backs.
“Done.”
She pulled out her phone and penned a text as she spoke, “I have a friend who specializes in fraud cases. She can attend the meeting with you as your lawyer. I can be there if you want.”
“I do,” I cut in.
Her soft smile made me roll my eyes. “For moral support?”
“For catering. People are less inclined to lash out when fed.”
“Sure,” she dragged out. The smile never left her face. “Let’s go with that excuse. We can outline terms of agreements before the meeting, including confidentiality, so the company doesn't get bad press.”
“How are you so sure I’ll get off?”
“You’re really looking at six months max. That’s your negotiating point, so the S.E.C. has little to lose and a lot to gain. Besides the logistics, Brandon is motivated and ambitious. He’s looking to go places bigger than the S.E.C. He won’t do that arresting North Carolina’s golden boy, but he will do that with the testimony of an anonymous whistleblower.”
“I’ll make that fucker’s career,” I muttered.
I’d pay a five-million-dollar fine.
Brandon Vu would get the career bust of a lifetime.
I should have cared more, but I didn’t.
He was just another step to getting Emery back.
I laced my Chucks beneath a gown, feeling like a knock-off Cinderella. The same floor-length dress I wore at the masquerade, because I refused to make another for a soft opening, which was really just an excuse to throw a party.
Ida Marie popped her head into the office. “We need an extra set of hands down there. Mr. Prescott never attends the soft openings, and no one can find Delilah, so we’re short some mouths to talk to the press.”
Talking to the press appealed to me as much as ingesting a banana stolen from a porn set. I considered forgoing the event entirely. Nash wouldn’t care.