Page 127 of Morally Corrupt

Pity…

I put my left hand over his mouth and watch his eyes jolt open and widen at my presence. I give him a smile as I push the syringe into his neck.

As I watch, it doesn't take long for him to fade. I check his pulse with two fingers, satisfied with myself when I find none.

This wasn't a rewarding kill. He got what he deserved for purchasing underage boys for sex, but he was already old and decrepit. Even if I could inflict more pain on him, his body wouldn't have taken it, so it would have been in vain. Pity… that he was punished decades too late.

I get back to the hotel room and see Adrian already in bed, resting on his side.

Is he asleep?

I slip inside and tentatively wrap my arms around him from behind, putting my head on his back.

"Done?" His voice surprises me. So, he is awake.

"Yes," I whisper.

His hand comes on top of mine, and I steel myself for the rejection, thinking he'll push me away.

But he doesn't.

His hand just rests over mine, giving me warmth I'd never genuinely appreciated before.

45

ADRIAN

We arrive back in NYC early the next morning. After we'd communicated our findings to Vlad and Marcel, Vlad had been adamant about checking other names on the list.

"You need repeated testing to prove a hypothesis," he'd said. I hadn't been too happy, mainly because I was sure about it. It seemed pretty clear cut from where I stood.

Those people have all been involved with Jimenez at some point, and then Martin had profited by blackmailing them. The only thing we'd check is whether all the names on the list were guilty of the same crime or different ones.

"But aren't you curious?" Bianca had asked when I'd brought up that point.

"Why would I be? These people may have been involved with Jimenez at some point. But that was over twenty years ago. Even if the information gave us insight into what type of businesses Jimenez ran, it's still in the past. I doubt he kept everything the same."

"You're right and wrong at the same time," Vlad had said. "You're right in that the information would be indeed outdated, but you're wrong in that it wouldstillbe viable. A leopard doesn't change its spots, no matter how many years pass. And in our world, if you're good at something, you keep doing it. Jimenez has never been caught. He's never even beensightedso far. Law enforcement knows about him, but they can't catch him because they don't know what he looks like. If that's not success…"

While I see Vlad's point of view, I don't want to go about gallivanting and crossing each name off the list.

But Bianca has other ideas. And somehow, I can't let her go alone, no matter how deadly she thinks she is.

And so, we've paid a few more house visits, and for the next four days, we manage to speak to another six people, the only living ones on the list.

Again, none are too willing to talk until we proceed with a little persuasion. Only one other man was involved in the sex rings, while the others were merely guilty of investing in Jimenez's illegitimate businesses or backing up illegal arms dealings.

All of which will look just as bad if they're to be released to the press, fact that we've made clear to them. Luckily, even though we're required to use a little more force than we would have liked to, no one ends up dead.

In my book, that's a victory.

And so, here we are again, piecing everything together and making sense of the empire that Jimenez rules.

"His main sources of income appear to come from human trafficking and illegal arms trade. Not very surprising there," Bianca says after she finishes making a diagram with all the people involved.

"And that's where The Block comes into play." Vlad drops this into the conversation casually, and we all turn to look at him.

"What do you mean?"

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