Page 81 of What's Left of Us

Gaping, I stare at his serious expression.

“I meant my vows, Georgia.” He straightens, grabbing his glass and dragging it toward him. His foot moves away from my leg, my skin feeling its absence. “For better or worse, I’m in this.Weare in this. No matter what your father tries to pull. Understand?”

I find myself nodding again, unable to put into words what his mean to me.

Because Lincoln Danforth is everything a woman could dream of marrying.

My husband.

And my…friend.

A fuzzy feeling fills my ribcage.

“So today matters,” he concludes. “Wematter.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Lincoln/ Six Years Ago

Conklin looks atthe computer screen and winces at the number staring back at us. “That’s a lot of zeroes,” he says, counting them with the tip of his pen that he was chewing. Leaning back in the chair, he turns toward me and blows out a long breath. “I knew the Del Rossis had money, but this seems…”

“Excessive,” I agree, scrubbing a hand through my fresh buzz cut. Grumbling, I exit out of the tab and shake my head. “You ever heard of a business making that much money?”

“In a lifetime,” he replies slowly, moving his head back and forth. “Sure. In the course of a year? No. Not unless he’s suddenly Bill Gates.”

I tap my hand against the edge of the desk and drag a palm down my jaw. “Lord knows, the world only needs one of those.”

Conklin grins. “You’re such a Mac user.”

I gesture toward the computer where Nikolas Del Rossi’s name is spread across the screen. The man must have sources at every local newspaper because he’s constantly being written about and praised in one of them. It’s nauseating. “What do you make of this? You think he’s legitimate?”

My friend is thoughtful for a second before choosing his words carefully. “I think he runs a concrete business that’s legitimate since the IRS hasn’t flagged any of his filings since he took over his partner’s shares. But the numbers aren’t adding up.”

That’s what I was worried he’d say. I asked Knight if he could look into Del Rossi and the Carbones, but he said his resourceswere limited at his security company. I knew he would do what he could for me, but I wasn’t optimistic he’d find much. It seems like Nikolas and whoever he’s working with have their shit on lockdown.

“But,” Conklin adds, raising my brows. “I was able to look into the charging documents from his partner’s arrest. The detectives on his case dug into his business’s bookkeeping, which led to his arrest for money laundering and fraud.”

He must have seen something interesting. “Is there something that stuck out?”

Reaching for a notepad from his top drawer, he flips it open and turns it to me. “I did a little comparison of The Del Rossi Group’s books to their former company’s books that were reported in the files from the FBI. What do you see?”

I study the first page, trying to decode his horrible handwriting. “Are these supposed to be words?” I muse, shaking my head.

He snatches the notepad from me. “Shut it,” he grumbles, pointing to two different names that he underlined. “Check this out. From 2005 to 2008, when William Murphy was arrested, he was getting large lump sums of money from a company called Scores Tech. When I searched that company, nothing came up.”

“Strange,” I agree.

“And look here.” His finger trails down to the next line. “This is from The Del Rossi Group, starting in 2009 until last year.”

Scores Tech. “Okay, so the investor decided to stick to the company when Del Rossi took over. That doesn’t seem like it’s that abnormal.”

“Normally, no. But there was a stipulation when Nikolas took over MDR Inc. and made it into The Del Rossi Group. He wasn’t allowed to use any of the previous investors. In order for the company to remain legitimate and separate from WilliamMurphy and the scandal he created, they were supposed to start fresh. And that’s not all.”

Jesus, how much did he do? “I asked you to do a little light digging, Conklin. How long did you spend on this?”

He shrugs. “You know I don’t sleep for shit when I’m adjusting from days to nights. I had some time on my hands.” He waves me off and doesn’t give me a chance to respond. “Anyway, I noticed that Scores Tech has two separate addresses by one common name.”

“I thought you said you searched it and couldn’t find anything?”

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