Page 105 of Suspicious

Bennett rolls his shoulders, his jaw wracking from side to side. He straightens out his suit and clears his throat. “Okay… so you have this information on me. What I want to know, is how thefuckyou found it?”

I glance across at Haven, and she steps up, her face still clearly pissed as she folds her arms across her chest. “I don’t know if you know this or not, but The Nest was run by the Rojas Cartel.”

He tilts his head. “I do know that. They were the ones who… brought me the girls.”

Haven and I both mockingly laugh. “Of course they did. That’s why they had the photos… they always kept proof of everything, even if you didn’t know it was happening. It was their insurance policy, ensuring they could blackmail people if they needed to. The thing you didn’t know, Governor, was the cartel had a database. Ahugeone. When I left The Nest, I took the codes for it with me, and at Defiance, we hacked into it, taking the files. The database has dirt on people you wouldn’t even believe, and guess whose ugly mug was in there?”

Bennett cranes his head to the side, his knee bobbing up and down anxiously as he clearly tries to think of his next move. “Here’s the deal… I deleteeverythingon my computer that I took from your cell. Once I have done that, I will delete this flash drive. We call your guys and get them to delete their copies. We all walk away from this andneversee each other again. I also swear I won’t come after the club when I’m elected.”

Letting out a long exhale, I roll my shoulders, thinking through my next move.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Bea

I turn to Haven.

She shrugs.

I hesitate, then nod. “Okay, fine. Deal. But I have to watch you delete everything off your computer.Andany backups you might have.”

He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. All right. Come watch,” he states, and both Haven and I walk around, watching him delete file after file from various saved areas where my information was stored. He then pulls out a hard disk drive, plugs it in, and starts deleting. I side-eye Haven, and she says nothing. She hints at a smile as he then moves to his cloud account and begins deleting.

After almost twenty minutes of him fucking around, he sits back, turning to look at me. “Okay, all gone. I swear.”

Pursing my lips, I lean forward, open the flash drive, and wipe everything from it. Then I pull it directly from his computer and yank out my cell dialing Loki’s number.

“Put it on speaker,” Bennett demands.

I drop my cell to the desk, doing as he asked. Loki answers soon after. “You okay? You’ve been a long fucking time in there with that prick!”

“I’m good. You’re on speaker. He’s deleted all my stuff. I have deleted the flash drive, and for the agreement to work, we have to erase all the copies too. Can you please go ahead and do that?”

Loki exhales. “Are you sure everything is deleted on his end?”

Bennett grumbles. “It’s all gone, Loki. I swear. I don’t want what you have on me out there. It would ruin me. You have my wordeverythingis gone. Permanently.”

Loki sniffs down the line. “Okay then, walking to my dennow.” I hear the thumping of his boots. And then shuffling. I wonder how he is doing that, but then the sound of a keyboard echoes as he types. “We have two copies, and I am wiping them simultaneously. Should be done in… now. Everything is gone. Even from the cartel database. Those pictures willneversurface for you, Governor.”

Bennett lets out a relieved breath, sinking into his chair, his eyes closing as he nods . “Thank you,” he simply says.

“I keep telling you, you underestimate us, Bennett,” Loki replies.

Bennett opens his eyes, a slow smile returning to his face. “I’m beginning to see that now.”

“Hurry home, Bea,” Loki urges.

“I will, just finishing up, then we will be on our way.”

“We can watch the evening news together tonight like we always do,” Loki states.

I find myself smiling, understanding exactly what he’s saying. Haven grins at me, giving me a small head bob. “Okay, babe, be there soon.” I end the call as Bennett stares at me.

“You guys watch the news… for fun? You’re so fucking boring,” he drawls.

Shrugging, I sigh. “I guess when you find the right person, doing mundane things with them doesn’t make it boring, right? I’d say it’s been a pleasure doing business with you, Bennett, but honestly, you’re a real fucking piece of shit, and I hope you choke on the dick you’ll be sucking in jail.”

I start walking around the desk. Haven is following me but stops at the same pile of papers, swiping them with all her might off his desk. They go flying through the air as she lets out a harmonious laugh as we continue for the exit.

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