Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 129980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Swift impatience crossed his face. “No one else is going to touch the books. That’s been your job for the last seven years, and it will always be yours. I think you get that you can’t just walk away after working with me all these years. You know more about what I do than anyone else. It wouldn’t be safe for you to decide to leave.”
There it was—a clear threat. She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. Her chin went up and she glared at him. “I don’t appreciate the threat, Alan. I’ve always been loyal, and I don’t understand where all this is coming from. Why after all this time you suddenly feel the need to threaten me. I’ve gotten you out of trouble more than once. I found the people who were supposed to be loyal to you, skimming money off the top, and reported it to you.” Mostly, she’d done that just in case he was testing her. That would be like him. She didn’t like that those people had disappeared. She felt the weight of responsibility for them, although he could have simply fired them. She hadn’t heard in the news about bodies appearing. “Why the sudden problem with me?”
He was silent for so long that she didn’t think he would answer. He just stared at her, and she didn’t like the way he was doing it. Again, he had that speculation and a little too much lust, as if he suddenly saw her differently. She wanted to pull her sweatshirt around her and check to make certain her body wasn’t on display. She sat quietly, keeping her fingers twisted tightly in her lap, her mind on the stapler and going through the steps she would take if she had to use it.
“I don’t have a problem with your work, Azelie, but let’s be real. You’ve grown up, and you look…well…the way you look. I’m surprised that some man hasn’t tried snatching you. It will happen though. We both need to face the fact that you’re not going to spend your life alone.”
She frowned. “The way I look? I’ve always looked this way. Men aren’t falling at my feet, Alan. Nor do I want them to. I’m going to school and working. I babysit a couple of children when their parents are in a jam. I write because it’s important to me.”
He didn’t ask what she meant by writing or what she wrote. He fixated on one thing only. “I don’t like that you watch kids for Bradley Tudor. He’s single and he definitely wants to fuck you.”
Her heart accelerated again. He knew about Bradley, even his last name. He’d been watching her—or he’d hired someone to do it for him. That wasn’t good. That was putting Bradley in jeopardy. The twins had already lost their mother. They didn’t need to lose their father, and the threat was there. She feared for Andrii now. Had it been reported that she was seeing him? She’d gone out with him. Did Billows know, and that was what this was all about? Her breath caught in her lungs and refused to move. It took her a moment to calm herself so she could sound natural.
“You’re very much mistaken, Alan. I think Bradley is dating someone. We have no interest in one another. If he feels differently, he wouldn’t get anywhere, because I don’t look at him that way. You know what happened with my sister and her husband.”
Deliberately, she pressed her hand to the one scar close to her heart from the bullet that had nearly ended her life. “I have no wish to be with anyone right now. I like my life just the way it is.” That wasn’t just a half-truth, it was a lie. A blatant lie. Since meeting Andrii, she desperately wanted to take a chance with him. To see if she could possibly have a real relationship. Now she knew, in order to protect him, she didn’t dare continue to see him. She just didn’t know how to tell him.
“I’m just letting you know, there had better be no dating. When you’re ready, you’ll be with me.”
She rolled her eyes and turned back to the computer.
“Do you hear me?”
“I hear you. We can take this up again at a future time. Just not now.”
He seemed to take her at her word and walked out, allowing her to breathe.
NINE
It hadn’t been difficult to attach the device Mechanic had engineered onto Azelie’s hoodie. It wasn’t detectable with normal equipment, which was what made the tiny camera so perfect. Even when Azelie went through the security screens, that hidden camera would never set off the alarms.
She went through a side entrance and then stopped at the desk of a guard. “This is why we can’t find the offices,” Maestro said to the other members of Torpedo Ink watching the situation unfold as Azelie made her way into the lion’s den. “The door is hidden in the wall panel. I’ve been there several times. I have an affinity with wood, and I didn’t find it.”