Page 56 of Defended By Love

This is weird. Why on Earth would one of Zagreus Hart’s men be here? This building has absolutely zero affiliation with his company or any of its subsidiaries.

And why does Dominic know him?

“Dominic, who is he?” I ask.

I try not to look too smug as I ask. This man might think he’s a big shot, but I am Dominic’s right-hand man. For the past year, we have been an inseparable team. I’ve built up every case he’s had and served it up to him as a platter. We’re practically one mind.

We have no secrets.

Or so I thought.

“Hailey,” Dominic hisses at me, like I’ve somehow overstepped. By asking for a name.

The tall man smiles—or at least his mouth curves up. There’s nothing joyous about the motion. “Mr. Price, it would seem your associates don’t know their place. Didn’t you tell me you run a tighter ship than this?”

Dominic pauses and purples. Then, he laughs another country club laugh that physically grates on me.

“Clearly this one is going through something.” He nods towards me. I’m holding onto Grant’s hand and wearing his ridiculous t-shirt. My face burns, even though I know I’m not out of line. “The shock of the building has made her emotional.”

If his laugh grated on me, the word emotional is like proverbial nails on the chalkboard of my soul. I’ve done nothing to warrant being called emotional, especially by someone who’s legendary for his office tantrums directed at whichever newcomer was unfortunate enough to make an error.

Or does anger not count as an emotion?

“With all due respect, I’m not emotional. I’m just asking why this man is at the site of a building collapse when he’s an unaffiliated civilian.”

Dominic purples again. It’s the same hue that he gets whenever he’s ready to unleash on some intern who got the wrong coffee order. “With all due respect,” he spits. “You need to—”

The tall man waves him off and takes a step towards me, tilting his head like I’m a particularly interesting specimen at a museum. “I’ll indulge the curiosity, Mr. Price. I rather appreciate someone who asks the right questions.” He pauses. “The company I’ve worked for just went through some major construction and we were hoping we could lend some of our architectural support to discover why the building suffered such a structural tragedy. So, wouldn’t it be logical that I was called in to consult?”

A structural tragedy? Is that really the story he’s trying to peddle?

Such a story might work for headlines and excerpts for people unfamiliar with the building, but I am not one of those people. No, I took the time to learn as much as possible as I could about my second home.

“Our building was a structural marvel. Above code in every possible way.” As I say this, Dominic’s jaw ticks, but he doesn’t respond this time.

“Isn’t that what they said about the Titanic?” the tall man counters.

“Are you saying that our building encountered some sort of metaphorical iceberg?” I press. “Because it just seems a little too convenient.”

“Define convenient.”

“Hailey,” Dominic hisses again. “I think you’re done here. Go home before you do irreparable damage to the firm.”

I’m not done though. If Dominic had bothered to attend any of my court days, he’d know I’m just getting started.

“It just seems overly convenient that the building collapsed at the exact time that there was no one inside.”

“Go home,” Dominic warns.

“Don’t you mean lucky?” the tall man asks, ignoring Dominic, which only serves to rile him up further.

I decide to do the same. I don’t know what is going on with Dominic today, but apparently I’m going to need to treat this as an ask forgiveness, not permission scenario.

“I’m not sure if any part of this can be construed as lucky, but as far as tragedies go, yes, lucky. I guess.”

I keep my eyes trained on the man. So often, people only think about giving away the truth when they’re speaking. They don’t consider what physical clues they give away when they react to what other people say.

The tall man doesn’t react at all, except for a faint twitch of his lip that causes his scar to jump. Interesting.

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