Page 61 of Wicked Mafia Mistake
He pulls a manila folder from inside his jacket and sets it on the table between us. Thin. Unlabeled. The paper inside is visible through the gap at the edge.
"You're not going to like this."
I open the folder.
Photographs. Surveillance shots, grainy but clear enough. Harrison Whitmore walking into a building I recognize from intel briefings but have never visited. Harrison in a hallway lined with numbered doors. Harrison seated in what looks like a private viewing room with a crystal glass in one hand and a smile I have never seen at any dinner table or boardroom meeting.
Society 69.
My hands go still on the folder. The photographs blur and sharpen as my pulse pounds behind my eyes. Harrison. My best friend of twenty years. He’s a part of the society where women are sold like cattle and he never said a word to me.
"How long has he been a part of that filthy club?" My voice comes out flat.
"The timestamps go back four years. He's not a participant, as far as I can tell. He attends the window auctions but so far he only watches and leaves. Society 69 has a word for it and it’s window shopping.”
Luca pauses. "The Ferraros have proof. Photos, entry logs, surveillance footage from inside the venue. It's part of the leverage package."
Part of the leverage. Not just financial crimes and business records. Harrison's presence at Society 69 events is another chain, another lock, another piece of blackmail that Lorenzo's family holds over a man who is already drowning. And if Sloane ever sees these photographs, the father who failed to protect her becomes someone she loved who sat in those rooms, watched the same system that breeds violence against women, and did nothing.
I close the folder. Press my palm flat against the manila surface and feel the photographs beneath my skin, the glossy paper warm from the overhead lights.
"Does anyone else know?"
"Just me. And now you."
"Keep it that way. For now. Sloane can never see these. We will find another way to force Harrison to admit to the coercion and that he signed that contract under duress. Understood?"
Luca looks torn for a second and I level my eyes on him to make sure he hears what I am saying. “Sloane can never find out her father has a dark secret like this. It would destroy her. We can dowhat we have to do without ripping her heart out in the process with this.” I hold up the folder.
“We might have to if it comes down to it.”
“Let’s cross the bridge then. Agreed?”
Luca doesn't argue. He reads my face and hopefully understands what I'm doing—building a wall between Sloane and every ugly truth that might destroy her while telling myself I'm protecting her.
“You better put that somewhere where no one can find it then.”
He leaves. I stand alone in the boardroom with the Society 69 folder and the Genesis deadline and the weight of every secret I'm carrying pressing down on my shoulders until the back of my neck aches.
Nine days.
Luca hands me another folder along with the financial forensics he's compiled on the Ferraro shell companies so far. I stack them together, tuck them under my arm, and take the elevator up to the penthouse.
Sloane is on the sofa with her legs tucked under her, reading something on her laptop, her bare face lit by the screen's blue glow. She looks up when I walk in and her blue eyes sweep my face with the quick, instinctive assessment she runs on everyone but never used to run on me.
"Hey." She closes the laptop. "You look like you've been carrying the building on your back all day."
"Long meetings. Give me one second and I’ll be right back.” I turn to my office and drop the files in the bottom drawer before returning to Sloane.
“Now where were we?”
"Mmm." She stands and crosses the room, her bare feet quiet on the hardwood, and stops in front of me. Her knuckles brush against my beard as she pulls the silk free, and the contact is so casual, so domestic, it nearly breaks me. "You're wound tight. I can feel it from across the room."
Her hands move to my shoulders. Her thumbs press into the muscle above my collarbones and I feel the tension in my neck release a fraction under her touch. She reads my body better than anyone I've ever known and right now my body is screaming with everything my mouth refuses to say.
"Let me take care of you." She says it quietly, her blue eyes looking up at me, and the trust in her gaze makes me want to confess everything. The deadline. The Society 69 folder. All of it.
Instead I cup her jaw in my hand and tilt her face up and kiss her with a desperation that has nothing to do with desire and everything to do with terror. She tastes like wine and happiness.
