Page 133 of Sinful Bride

And I’ll win.

“I-I d-don’t… I don’t know what you?—”

“You’re going to sit there and tell me you didn’t know they were minors?”

“I didn’t! I swear!”

“Not just minors, Scott. Kidnapping victims, who were probably sold into human trafficking and found their way to whichever two-dollar agency you went through to get your dick wet. And believe me when I say, I have a much better lens than you.”

I open the top drawer of my desk and slap the file folder of all his recent indiscretions down on top of what he thinks are mine.

“Take a very close look. And then tell me there was no way you didn’t know they were underage.”

“Fine!” Brennan shoves the photos away with a snarl. “Fine! Whatever! You think you can come after me with this? Good luck finding them! Better yet, good luck getting anyone to testify against me! Me!” He slumps back in his chair and folds his arms with a huff. “Give it a good fourteen years. You’ll be dragging your own daughter out of hotels just like that one.”

I take another, slower sip, this time to mask my ice-cold fury as I do some quick math in my head.

Four hours and $600. That’s how long and how much it will take to clean him off my floor.

The more he talks, the more I’m feeling like it’s worth the expense.

“I’m so glad you brought that up.” I set my mug down just so I don’t throw it at him. I happen to like this one.

I return to my desk and flip the top half of the stack over. A copy of a birth certificate I recently ordered rests on top of another missing person’s report.

“This is little baby Jackson. He was born a few weeks ago to a fifteen year-old girl who’d been missing for a few years. Last time anyone saw her, she was ten. The next time she was seen in public, it was at a hospital in Detroit for severe stomach cramps. Which turned out to be related to her pregnancy.”

“This has nothing to do with me.”

His face says otherwise. It’s the way he keeps staring at the girl’s photo. The way the blood keeps draining from his skin. The way his fingers shake when he tries to shove the papers away again.

“I think you know it does.” I jab a finger at her photo. “She was fourteen. Fourteen, you sick son of a bitch.”

“I don’t?—”

“How many other bastard kids are out there, Scott? How many victims? How many lives have you ruined?”

He jumps from the chair. “You have no proof! You have nothing! Just these sick accusations and I won’t stand for it!”

One bullet. It would be so quick.

I press a button on my desk phone, then settle into my office chair and offer him a magnanimous smile. “I must be honest with you, Scott: I’m the least of your problems.”

Security arrives in record time, and with one quick nod from me, the two men grab Brennan by each arm and yank him to his feet.

I don’t know what he keeps blabbering about as they drag him away. I’m too preoccupied with nursing the remainder of this hangover.

It’s only three hours before the news breaks.

I see the notification drop on my phone screen the same time Jack walks into the office and grabs the remote to the flatscreen television.

“Sorry for the interruption, sir. But you’re going to want to see this.”

The screen lights up with Cora Brennan’s face surrounded by microphones at a podium. From the looks of it, she’s standing outside their home.

“I am deeply mortified, more than I am embarrassed, by my husband’s actions. I confess to having turned a blind eye when I wrongly assumed he was engaged in… well, how should I say it?” She breathes a self-conscious laugh I’m sure she practiced before calling this press conference. “I knew my husband was having an affair. But I had no idea—at all—the depths of his depravity.”

She takes a deep breath. It’s shaky and conveys her threadbare nerves to the rapt audience.

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