Page 102 of Twisted Temptation

“Cross.”

He stops talking.

“Do I need to remind you about the unpleasantness at the Albany Hotel?” I ask calmly.

Cross is quiet.

“Because I remember it,” I say. “I remember it in considerable detail. Especially the photographs. And I remember what it cost to make sure no one else would ever remember them. It was no trouble. After all, friends do these things for friends.” I pause. “How is Mrs. Cross? Well, I hope.”

I don’t need to say anything more. That’s the beauty of leverage. Thirty-one years of marriage wouldn’t survive what happened that weekend. Him and a few male escorts. The drugs. The photographs. The blackmail that followed, and him turning to me to clean it all up.

Which I did, of course.

“Come to think of it,” he says. “There may be a zoning review I overlooked. These things can throw a real spanner in the works, especially in complicated cases.”

“It sounds complicated to me.”

“It’s starting to look that way, yes.”

“You’ve always been thorough, which is why I admire you, Cross.”

He doesn’t bother with the pleasantries of goodbye.

That’s okay; I don’t need him to like me. I just need him to fucking do what I need him to do, and that is to help me stop Anton Grazalov from building his casino in my city.

I’m not opposed to opposition. In fact, I welcome competition. It keeps me on my toes and makes me feel energized.

What I can’t tolerate is a sex-trafficking gangster wannabe trying to muscle in on my territory and risk him giving us all a bad name. The casino he wants to build will give him more opportunities to traffic in the back rooms. And I’m not having that shit in my town.

I leave my desk and walk to the mezzanine overlooking the casino floor. Tonight it is full, and I can feel the energy through the glass.

My phone rings against my chest. Pete Salerno.

"Talk to me."

"Just an update, nothing solid yet." Pete's voice has its working flatness, the tone he uses when he's mid-dig. "Your girl's California years. I'm onto something, but it's buried under a lot of red tape. Sealed court documents. Records that should exist but don't. Somebody with money went to real trouble to make a stretch of her life disappear."

The hum of my casino fades out under me.

People don't spend money erasing happy stories. Whatever is under that red tape is why Sunny deleted herself from the face of the earth.

She was scared before I ever met her.

And then I made her even more afraid.

That slams into my gut like a right hook.

"Get onto it," I say. "Whatever it costs, whoever you have to buy. I want to know everything."

I put the phone away and stand above my glittering, singing kingdom, and for the first time in my life, it isn't the thing I'm most afraid of losing.

Two hours later, Deno knocks and puts his head around my office door. “Boss, Katie’s downstairs, asking if you have a minute.”

Across from me, John Marco looks up from his phone.

“Send her up,” I say.

Katie comes into my office quietly. She’s lost weight, but her injuries have healed, and her eyes are clear. I can see there is strength in her straight back and shoulders.