Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 70115 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 351(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70115 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 351(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
“If you heard that, then you know they offered me first run at the job.”
“You wouldn’t.” Miller’s smirk was back in place. “You know better.”
“Do I? Why’s that?”
“I knew your daddy well. Sol was old school, the real thing. Man’s man and all that. Didn’t hesitate to uphold the law, no matter whose sensitive feelings got hurt.”
Sadly, he could imagine Elder and Miller chatting over a beer. Of course, he reminded himself, Elder would have buried him neck deep in mud if he’d known about Miller’s proclivities. Even his father had his limits.
“I’m a man’s man too,” he said with a suggestive smile.
Miller’s expected disgust came on cue and nearly made him laugh. “No need to be nasty, boy. I know you tried to follow in your old man’s footsteps, but you got smart and did the right thing by stepping down. You had no idea what you were doing and your unnatural behavior made you incompetent as well. This place was a mess when I got here. No discipline. No leadership. The mayor should thank me. You should thank me.”
“Thank you,” Solomon said agreeably, chuckling when Miller frowned in suspicion. “No, I mean that. Thank you for being such a corrupt, obvious bag of shit that I was forced to rethink my retirement. I’m not sure I would have if there’d been a halfway decent, semi-qualified human being in this position. Oh, and thank you for being so arrogant that you got sloppy.”
“No one talks to me like that.”
“Get used to it. I imagine you’ll hear worse before this is over.”
Miller placed his hands on the desk, his own smile ugly and mercenary. “You may have the mayor spurting in his pants to connect himself to the Finn name again, and you may have heard unsubstantiated rumors about a few civilians from another state. But you aren’t the only one with connections. I know people on the council and in state that hate what your family stands for as much as I do. I’ve got things on you and your father that could change how the good citizens view your happy little family. Trust me when I say you don’t want it getting out.”
He’d had a feeling, based on Tanaka’s digging, that the man was connected. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
That suggestive comment, more than anything else, set him off. Solomon had known it would. It was disappointing how easy it was.
“Depravity really does run in your family, doesn’t it? You grandfather was a killer, your father aided and abetted a pedophile by concealing his crimes with one transfer and you? You’re the worst of the bunch. You think taking your perversions across state lines meant no one knew about you?”
Mentioning what Elder had done with Rory’s abuser made Solomon momentarily see red. It was his father’s unforgivable sin. Sending his youngest son off with a police officer who had a history of violence and inappropriate behavior in order to straighten him out. When he’d seen the evidence of the rape of his child—his own child—he’d told Rory to keep his mouth shut and transferred the asshole to another precinct instead of placing him under arrest. The few punches he’d delivered would never absolve him of that crime.
Because of his selfish decisions, Rory had suffered in silence for years.
And Miller knew. He was threatening to give that information to the press. If he had all the details, Rory would be in the spotlight and everyone would know, whether he was emotionally ready for that or not.
Solomon pulled out his phone and glanced at the text that was waiting for him to hit send.
“What are you doing?” Miller asked, his voice rising in a note of panic.
C&C. It stood for Copy and Crash. If Tanaka got the message, he would grab all the incriminating information from Miller’s phone and personal computers and then send a virus to erase the rest. If he had any hard copies, there were ways to get rid of those as well.
But Miller wasn’t the only one who knew and, more importantly, Solomon wasn’t his father.
He cared more about justice than his reputation.
Solomon slid the phone back into his pocket, the message unsent. “I got a little ahead of myself. I should have informed you that a warrant was obtained to search your house this morning based on witness statements alleging you illegally procured state’s evidence for obstruction of the law as well as personal use.”
“That’s a lie!”
He was backing away, rounding the desk. “I’m not sure why you restricted the use of body cams here, since you used to have such a hard-on for video collection.”
The tables had turned in Miller’s mind. He saw it happening. The man paled so swiftly Solomon wondered if he’d pass out. “I protected my men. They’d been forced by the state to wear those things like leashes for so long they forgot—”