Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 74604 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74604 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
“The fuck are you doing in my neck of the woods?”
“I have a case,” I told him.
“That brings you into the city? Must have deep pockets.”
“She does. And I have a favor to ask if you still have contacts on the force.”
“Yeah, of course,” he said, nodding. “Let’s take a walk,” he offered, leading me outside. “So, what do you have going on?”
“A rich businesswoman—“
“Christ, don’t fuck her,” Gabe said, making a snort escape me.
“I’ve had that lecture already. Anyway, she woke up in a hospital with her wrist slit, was forcibly put on a 5150, and has no fucking idea what happened.”
“No shit. That’s an interesting one.”
“Yeah. The problem is, none of the neighbors remember seeing cops or ambulances. Neither do some kids who were scouting on the street that night either.”
“Yeah, that’s weird,” Gabe said. “Did she not remember any of that?”
“Not a fucking thing,” I told him. “All she remembers was expecting Chinese food delivery. She was alone. Then she woke up in the hospital.”
“And you’re sure she just didn’t have a bad night?”
“She’s pretty fucking certain. As is her personal assistant who tracked us down and hired us.”
“Alright. Well, yeah, I can ask if any cops were sent to her address at…”
“The Chapel Lane building.”
“Oh, she’s rich-rich,” he said.
“Penthouse of the Chapel Lane building,” I clarified.
Gabe let out a whistle at that.
“Yeah, someone would remember being called to that apartment.”
“Exactly.”
“I will ask around today and get back to you.”
“I appreciate it.”
“Maybe when the case is done, we can grab some drinks and talk about how it went. Too fucking interesting not to know what went down. Assuming you’re not balls-deep in the client at the end of the case.”
“I can behave myself, for fuck’s sake,” I said, letting out a laugh as a car pulled up and parked a few yards away, a slick jet-black sports car that cost a cool hundred grand, easy.
“Who’d bring a car like that into this…” I started, then the door opened, and out walked a gorgeous woman with black hair and a killer body.
“Brock, this is my girl, Corey. Corey, this is Gabe,” he explained, placing a hand at the small of the woman’s back.
“The blonde in Baltimore,” she said, grinning at me.
“That’s me,” I agreed.
“The chains thing, is that a preference of yours?” she asked. “Gabe never knew.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head.
“Don’t mind her. It’s an occupational hazard to ask.”
“Yeah? What’s the occupation?”
“I own a BDSM club,” she told me, making my brows shoot up.
“No shit?”
“No shit.”
“Good for you. And I get shit for liking successful women?” I asked, giving Gabe a look.
“I like this woman, regardless of her success,” he said, shrugging. “You have a pathological compulsion toward a certain type of woman.”
That was the general belief.
That I liked wealthy women.
What no one got was that it wasn’t about the money. I made my own money. Good money, too, considering I slacked a lot on initiative when it came to my job.
It wasn’t the money.
It was the worldliness.
It was their sense of adventure.
But above all else, it was the confidence.
Thus far, I hadn’t found anyone quite as self-assured as a wealthy woman who knew that, no matter what happened in her life, she would land on her feet.
No one, least of all a man, could knock her down and keep her down.
That kind of confidence, yeah, it was sexy as fuck.
And, well, they tended to be sex-starved because those silver-spoon guys weren’t shit in bed because they never had to be, because any girl with dollar signs in her eyes would moan and writhe like she was having the best lay of her life if it meant she got to take a ride on his yacht.
Uptown girls and backstreet guys, it was a tale as old as time.
“I gotta take this,” I said, seeing the name of the security guy on the phone.
“Yep. I’ll be in touch,” he said, nodding at me.
“Appreciate it,” I said as he led his woman back toward his office.
The rest of the afternoon was spent working out some finer details with the security guys, shooting off texts to Sawyer with updates, and writing down notes for other shit to look into when I had some free time.
- Randi is leaving the office now.
The text from Cam saved me from more monotonous work, making me head back in the direction of Miranda’s apartment building, and waiting outside for her town car.
She pulled up twenty minutes later, a to-go coffee in her hand, even though her workday was over, sliding out of the car looking just as fresh as she’d looked going to work, and I wasn’t exactly sure how that was even remotely possible.
“How’d it go?” I asked as her gaze lifted to mine.
“Cam held it together really well, but it was a lot,” she admitted. “What time is the security guy getting here? Do we have time to order something for dinner?” she asked. “Thank you,” she said, giving the doorman a smile as he opened it for us to pass through.