Page 100 of Crash Course
"Cilla?"
Pull it together.She had to. She’d simply compartmentalize. Treat it like a grisly case that required emotional control.
Total lawyer mode.
After a second, she brought her hands from her face and pointed at the laptop. "These are all settlement agreements over PFOA and PFAS contamination. Randolph Industries is quietly paying people off."
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Cruz swunghis head to the laptop screen, saw a load of legalese that it was way too early to tackle, and went back to Cilla. "Settlement agreements for what?"
"I was skimming, but they all involved chemicals and the environment. The more we dig, the more I’m discovering things I don’t want to know. Things that could cost Randolph tens of millions if they weren’t buying people off."
Cruz scoffed. "We have a ten-year-old with cancer, who cares about money?"
Whoopsie. Too bad he hadn’t employed the filter his family always begged for.Shit.
However, Cilla took it in stride.
"Gah!" she said. "I can’t stop thinking about her. But if I do something, I’d be risking ruining my father’s company and putting thousands out of work. Could you do it? If one of your brothers—yourmother—did something like this? And please, don’t tell me they wouldn’t. I thought the same thing about my dad and look where I am."
He thought about that. About their family motto.Family first. Through blood, through hate, through fear, through joy. No exceptions.
No exceptions.
He ran a hand over his face. Freaking three in the morning. Too tired for this. "Okay," he said. "I get it. I’m honestly not sure what I’d do. Let’s think it through. Kick around some ideas."
She stood, walked the length of the room, then spun back, holding up a finger. "We should talk to Phin or Kayla."
"About?"
"Their EPA contacts. If EPA opens an investigation, I’d be out of it. There has to be a way to get them to do that."
Excellent idea.He boosted off the couch and headed for the bedroom thinking about all the ways his brother might kill him for waking him up in the middle of the night. And if Maddy had stayed over? Who the hell knew what he might be interrupting.
Certain things were more important than getting laid.
Or sleep.
He grabbed his phone from the nightstand and punched up Phin. Two rings in, a groan that sounded packed with broken concrete came through the phone line.
"This better be good."
Cruz winced. "It is. We’ll come to you."
"Who’s we?"
"Me and Cilla."
His brother let out a long sigh. "Christ. I don’t want to know why she’s with you in the middle of the night."
A rustling noise sounded. Probably little brother throwing the sheets back and getting out of bed.
"Maddy is here," Phin said. "I’ll come to you."
"Fine." Cruz hung up and strode back to the living room, waving his phone. "He’s lecturing me about having you here when Maddy’s in his suite."
Cilla laughed. "Y’all are practically running a brothel."
