Page 111 of The Suit

Even if what Kit was saying was true, which I highly doubted, Beulah lived in Chicago and I lived in New York. I tried not to think of the dozens of solutions I’d come up with during the black hole in time when I thought I’d wanted to see where we could take things.

And she’d put a hard stop to that the second she stole my email.

“But only until tomorrow, then she’s moving to New York.”

My breath caught in my throat and my heart kicked out double time. “What do you mean? What? Why… why would she do that?”

“She wanted to be back on the east coast, nearer to her family home. She bumped into an old professor who offered her a job.”

“Who? And a job as what?!” I raged, because this was outrageous.

How dare she?!

Who exactly did she think she was?!

Murray stepped behind Kit and roped his arms around her. “Why do you care? I thought Beulah was dead to you.”

“Murray!” Kit nudged him, “you’re not helping,”

“I am actually.” He kissed her head. “Look at Rafe’s face. That’s his thinking face. He’s thinking about Beulah.”

I frowned at him, wishing he wasn’t right. But he was, mostly, except the really annoying bit about Beulah being dead to me. Which was so fucking typical of her, popping up exactly where she wasn’t wanted.

In my city. In my head.

I rubbed at my chest again.

“Pennington,” I nudged him out of his own apathy, needing the sound of reason. “What do you think about this?”

“I think Beulah’s a snake, just like Nancy, just like them all,” he snapped, then looked up at Kit, who still had her arms crossed over her chest. “Except you.”

Kit’s lips pursed as she stared at Penn for a beat, then turned back to me.

“Beulah’s going to be in New York, and if that was me, or if I was you, I would want to find out exactly what happened first-hand just to really make sure I was justified in my contempt. Think of it this way; if you’re wrong then you also get to say Penn was wrong too. You never know though, maybe you’ll have a conversation about how you could move forward, and maybe you’ll invite her to another game,” she shot a sly grin at Penn, “this time at Penn’s new club.”

I wasn’t sure who scoffed louder, Penn or me, and whatever he muttered had Kit rolling her eyes.

I would’ve heard if the goddamn butterflies fluttering around in my chest weren’t doing it so loudly. I’d also have been able to think more clearly. But as they were, all I could think about was seeing Beulah again, and being inexplicably happy about it.

Something that really fucked me off.

But maybe Kit was right.

Maybe I should find out.

Though I wasn’t sure which I wanted more; to prove myself right or to prove Penn wrong.

21

Rafe

After Kit had finished verbally kicking my ass, I’d showered off the five-day stench I was carrying around and gone to find Cody while my office was being cleaned up.

According to the authorities – which loosely translated as Cody hacking into the FBI mainframe to get the low-down – they had now seized close to five hundred billion in assets and cash, stashed in over one hundred thousand shell corporations hidden among tax havens across Europe and the Caribbean.

Twenty of those hundred thousand accounts had been found due to a few strategically placed data breadcrumbs Cody had left the tech teams to stumble across. Just to make double sure they weren’t overlooked, he also sent an encrypted memo to Agent Jacob Parker who was leading the search, and whom he’d worked closely with a few years ago, taking down an arms dealer who was trafficking funds through bakeries in Iowa and North Dakota.

Once he’d accomplished that, which had taken less time than me making my third cup of coffee for the day, he hacked into the feed of the cameras stationed around the FBI headquarters in New York, along with those in the Chicago field office; both of which had made for some very interesting watching.

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