Page 76 of All That Glitters

Will there ever be a day she isn’t at the front of my mind? Probably not. She’s lodged herself inside of me in every way possible. Right now, she’s probably at home freaking out.

I check my phone again to see my texts haven't even been opened. Or maybe she’s not freaking out. It’s possible the verbal diarrhea of truth from last night terrified her into distance, and now she doesn’t want to speak to me.

Which is fine, I tell myself.

She’s entitled to her space, especially when I gave her a lot to digest.

Too much, I argue mentally, too much to think about and not nearly all the truth.

She’ll never look at me the same way again.

And right now, if I don't go over Parker’s crap and figure out exactly how to switch things around to benefit The Family, they’ll kill me—and her. If I don’t provide them with exactly what they expect, we are both goners, and I can’t allow that.

I’m not even sure Parker knew what Stanic and his people really wanted out of the picture, not really. He spent too much time seeing to his own devils to worry about the demons on his back and their long-term plans.

They’ve been making inroads money laundering through various umbrella corporations, I assume as I continue to flip through the paperwork from the first box. Pretty good inroads, but not enough to cover most of their expenses. What were they trying to do with Wretched?

“If I had to do it all over again…” I mutter.

I’d shoot him somewhere to make it hurt, where he’d bleed out slowly and have to watch me watch the life drain out of him. I should have found a better way to dispose of him where Empire was far enough away not to hear the gun go off.

I scrub my hand over my face. I really fucked this up.

What had I been thinking?

Too many missteps to count from start to finish.

So far, nothing is really making sense to me, and maybe it’s because I’m only halfway through one of the boxes, or because Parker had been a complete dick when it came to keeping track of things. Hell, things might have gotten lost during the boxing process.

Either way, the headache is here to stay, and the second cup of coffee gives me no relief.

I shouldn’t have let the Stones get on the plane that day.

That’s where the fuckups started.

I’d had a bad feeling about it from the start, but I hadn’t paid attention to my gut, hadn’t thought about the price someone else might have to pay for my escape from the streets. I thought I’d be able to make it on my own in Hollywood, without Stanic or the avenues his money brought me.

I did a damn good job of it for a long time.

And I’d thought we made a clean break from each other when I got out. He hadn’t been happy about it. In fact, I’d gotten a gun pointed at my back on the way out the door. He hadn’t pulled the trigger, though, and a part of me thought he might even have respected me for pulling the stunt.

I’ve never been more wrong.

Groaning, I flip through several boxes until I find the rest of the documents for Parker’s current film. The first few folders detail the projected budget for the film, but the numbers are still way off when I run them. My eyes cross, head hurting even more as the numbers start to blur together. What the hell am I looking at?

I’m halfway through the stack when the answer smacks me upside the back of the head: Stanic and the rest of his people are moving money through the movie deals they make, and the one starring Empire is set to make them their biggest profit yet. Parker had been a decent little mule until his last two films. Then, the profit margins had gotten smaller. And smaller.

No wonder he’d been set on having things go his way for the film. It was probably his last shot to make things right for The Family.

I’ve got to try to convince her to finish it, though, and keep her from finding out about everything else.

I lean back in my chair, fingers pressed against the papers, thinking about the scenes we’d run through.

A reluctant smile pulls at my mouth.

The last one ended up with her sweet pussy pressed to my lips and my tongue inside her.

I don’t want anyone else touching her the way I’d touched her. Immediately, the grin vanishes, and my headache roars back.

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