Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 138334 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 692(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138334 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 692(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
There was no accusation in her voice, only acceptance. Too much acceptance. She believed that whoever the woman was in Fredrick’s life might plot to exact revenge on him, but Meiling would withhold emotions so she would never care enough to do such a thing. Which was worse? Caring too much? Having the ability to love, or not ever loving? Damn it. Why was he even feeling guilty? She wasn’t his mate. He wasn’t cheating on her.
“The way it works, Meiling, is this,” he said, keeping his voice even and patient. “Fredrick had a mate. He’s leopard. His leopard and he both were mated to one woman and her leopard. By all accounts he loved her and was devoted wholly to her. There was no cheating. He was faithful to her. When she died, he was devastated. That didn’t mean as time passed, he didn’t still have the needs of a man. In his case, I don’t know what he was like, or what his leopard was like. I hadn’t heard that his leopard was difficult. But he most likely took lovers. More than one. He would never consider that being unfaithful, because none of them were his mate. He would only be faithful to his mate.”
She frowned, that adorable frown he often had the desire to lean forward and kiss off her face, especially like now, when she was tapping the pen on the notebook over and over. “Then you believe he would tell that to the woman up front. Make it clear to her that there was no relationship and no chance of ever having one.”
“Certainly a man of honor would do so.”
“The women in Fredrick’s house aren’t all leopard, but they’re all young. Did you notice that? All of them. He has twelve women working there. Seven are full-time. Five are part-time.”
“That place is enormous. Keeping it clean has to take an army.”
“Of women? Young women? The men he employs are for security, bookkeeping, groundskeeping, that sort of thing. The women have kitchen and essentially maid duty.”
“Fredrick is a dick. We’ve established that.” His phone vibrated and he pulled it out of his pocket. Harold had written what looked to Gedeon like a page out of a novel, the text was so long.
“Harold confirms that Fredrick has a very active sex life with the women he employs. He was in a ‘relationship’ with Lola Morales. He put the word relationship in quotes. They were sleeping together for eighteen months when she found out he was having sex with a couple of the other women. He fired the other two, but she ended their time together. It was an amicable ending. She’s never caused a problem, not even when she’s walked in on one of the women servicing him.” He winced when he read that to her. Put like that, it sounded bad. There was no good way to put it. He raised his gaze to her face.
Her dark eyes met his. Direct. His gut clenched. Knots formed. Yeah, she was thinking about all the women fawning over him at the club. The way they came to the booth and tore at his trousers to get at his cock. He rarely bothered to take them anywhere private. Hell, they’d line up if he let them. Did he have respect for them? No. The answer was no. Did he have respect for himself? No. The answer was no.
“Stop it, Gedeon. There’s no comparison. This case isn’t about you. It’s about Fredrick and what he did or didn’t say to set this in motion. We have to find out as much as we can about this woman. I did some research on my top three suspects. She was one of them. She has to have a tie to Georgi and we need to find it in the next half hour.”
Gedeon nodded and went to work. They had a name now. Lola Morales. They had to find out where she came from and who she had working with her, if she really was the one behind the missing money and the kidnapping of Fredrick Atwater’s four-year-old daughter, Lilith. He tried finding Lola Morales, then anything she might have to do with Chaban. He came up empty. And then he tried Lospostos. He scored big there.
Lola Morales was the daughter of Pedro Morales, a trusted lieutenant of Elijah Lospostos. More, she had grown up with three boys close to her: Georgi Chaban, Alan Cano and Caleb Basco. The four had been inseparable. The boys’ fathers also worked for Lospostos.
“We’ve got a hit, Lotus. We need to call a meeting with Timur.”
8
MEILING rarely spoke in meetings with clients. She left that up to Gedeon, fading into the background so those around her almost forgot she was in the room with them. It was the way they conducted business deliberately and it worked. But this was her find.