Page 18 of Exposed

“How long have you been married?”

“Too long, and these kids drive me crazy. Take my advice, stay single as long as you can,” Carol joked.

I chuckled and followed behind her calling for an Uber to go back to the hotel.

Chapter Eleven

Dominic

My office was in the process of being upgraded, so I sat in Emmanuel’s office with him going over the product line dates of when things started to get tampered with. I opened my laptop and looked through the video footage from yesterday. Seeing Josslyn and Carol talking in the lab and changing out containers, nothing looked off. All of the employees went through interviews and background checks.

“Gentlemen, I see you’re stuck in the middle of surveillance. Any leads I can give Danielle?” Elijah questioned, strolling inside with Mark.

“We had our guys going through hours of footage and narrowed it down to the prime hours of late afternoon and early morning when packages are sent for testing. That places most of your lab team that works around those hours as potential suspects.”

“That would be about five total people. Carol’s the lead manager; I doubt she would do anything like this. She’s been with the company since it started,” Elijah responded.

“I was thinking the same thing, and she’s much older and probably has a pension and family to take care of so she wouldn’t get involved in something like this,” I said.

“Well, keep me updated, and how have you been overall?” Elijah asked.

“Are you asking as a friend or owner of Raven Cosmetics?” I answered.

“Both.”

“He has a crush on Lauren and refuses to act on it,” Emmanuel teased.

“She’s too young, immature, self-involved, and probably like my ex, money hungry.”

“I didn’t hear you say no to his questions, though. Maybe it’s time that you started dating again,” Mark suggested.

“Coming from the married guy. Why are all my friends trying to get me to marry and settle down?”

“Married life has its perks. Let’s not bring up Jacinda, makes my skin crawl,” Mark joked.

“Have you heard from Jacinda? It’s been three or four years, right?” Emmanuel asked.

“The last time I heard she was working for some magazine, not sure if she’s still there. I tend to keep our circles separate after everything that went down with trying to pin a baby on me. Had me thinking I was going to be a father all that time, and she was sleeping with someone else,” I told the two of them, going over in my head the last relationship that caused my heart to harden at the idea of being with another woman being physically released.

“It didn’t help that we were dealing with Jackson being shot at the time,” Mark mentioned.

“Let’s get out of here and head to dinner, I’m starving and ready to meet your in-laws. I heard Kenny Sr. is just as tall as you,” Mark joked, curving away from my left hook and heading out. I closed the file folders, Emmanuel grabbed his jacket, and I followed behind. Danielle had put together this dinner at some exclusive restaurant and we had no choice but to go.

* * *

Forty-five minutes later, we arrived across town in separate cars. I rode with Mark and Emmanuel trailed behind in his car since he lived farther away than Mark. We stepped out of the cars and already noticed photographers hanging outside.

“The restaurant is closed for the night, right? Did someone tip off the photographers that we’d be here?” I queried, pushing the photographers to get inside.

“Hey man! Almost knocked me down,” the photographer yelled, picking up his hat off the ground.

“Get a real job,” I remarked back, ready to throw his camera in the trash.

Mark chuckled, and I waved him off, not caring how I looked. I hated how people constantly pried into other people’s business. Diablo’s was down the street from Lynnhaven Fish House, where we normally hung out for lunch with my boys.

Everyone was already seated when we arrived except for Lauren. I glanced around the room, ready to shut the place down if something had happened to her.

“Where’s Lauren?” I asked Danielle as she passed the wine menu around the table.

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