Page 10 of Vermilion Desire

We have known that Tanya has a weird fan fascination with Braxton, just as do many other young girls who look up to him and think that they are going to be his future wife when he inherits the family fortune when his father passes.

It’s vile, but that’s how rich people inherit their money.

“We will discuss this in my office!” Beth Senior’s heels snap on the ground, yanking the younger woman through the sheer force of fear.

The lab becomes silent, and I turn to the younger Beth. She shrugs her shoulders, supporting her chin in her hand as she leans on the table. Her eyes occasionally sparing Braxton Berkshire’s picture an uninterested glance, she mentions something interesting.

“Prodigies are on a different level than your average Joe.”

I click out of my research and logout from my access before turning my attention fully to her. We’re the only ones here now, and I’m just waiting for Mr. Wolf to come to pick me up just as I have promised him that I would do.

“Is he now?” I cock my head, waiting for her to elaborate on her thoughts.

“A music genius is what everyone calls him. A lot of professionals think his right-side brain dominates the left.”

I nod with her findings. “An anomaly can be found in his brain if he has a scan.”

If that is true, then it is possible for him to make up a lot of details in the crime that he committed. I trust Mr. Wolf and Cal’s judgment. If they say that he’s guilty, then he is guilty in my eyes.

This goes against everything I have been taught as a researcher. I am to never find my conclusions by researching information that favors the outcome that I want.

Conflict rages inside of me as the notification on my phone tells me Mr. Wolf is outside of the building.

The sense of anxiety erases from me, and I take a stand away from the chair while Beth Junior stretches her arms.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says as she waves me goodbye.

I leave her in the lab to do whatever work she still has while I quickly leave through a series of doors. Sometimes I curse these long security checks, but the wait is worth it when Mr. Wolf stands at the entrance.

I break into a run and jump into his arms; the smell of him calms me and pushes me in a haze of content.

“Hey!” I greet through the cricking night. “I missed you!”

Mr. Wolf chuckles, ruffling my red hair, and steers me to his car. “I missed you too. How was your day?”

“It was fine until just a couple of minutes ago,” I say with a laugh as I open the car door.

He waits until I get in to fit his massive body into the driver’s seat. Mr. Wolf makes the car purr and vibrates as he twists the key into the ignition; the jolting sends quivers into my heart as I peer at him.

It’s been hours since I had seen him and seeing him in person beats talking to him over text messages and one phone call when I was on my lunch break. While he works in a place where every minute passes with a new crime and new leads, sometimes we can’t talk until we’re exhausted at home.

We once had no contact for a week because a case he and Cal received was just too overwhelmingly important. People above them wanted the case closed as quickly and as quietly as possible when a prostitute was found in the hotel room of a senator.

One can only imagine the backlash from the news, but it still got out that the senator had a habit of meeting call girls. Everyone in the police station had been severely reprimanded for their carelessness.

Someone’s big mouth had gotten everyone in trouble, and no one knows who it is. And I don’t think they’ll ever figure it out because news that big can’t be contained.

I have no remorse for the backlash the senator received. He was forced to step down from his powerful position.

He dug that political assassination grave himself. No one can help him turn that around. In the public’s opinion, he’s a lowlife that took advantage of the system that he swore to make better.

Prostitution is illegal, and everyone knows that.

“What happened?” Mr. Wolf asks, interested and patient as he waits for me.

I smile and shake my head. “There’s this intern; she actually kissed the screen of a computer in our lab.”

He scoffs. “Why?”

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