Page 53 of Defiled Innocence

“It’s not late.” She checks the time on her phone. “But I do have some reading to do. I’ll get this cleared and head upstairs.”

I press a kiss to her forehead. “Good girl,” I whisper just for the fun of watching her eyes dilate before me.

She’s so responsive, it would be cruel to deny myself.

Uncle Igor clears his throat, reminding me he’s waiting for me.

As we walk down the hall toward the foyer, he pockets his hands.

“That boy she mentioned, Christian Sendell,” Uncle Igor says, coming to a stop once we’re at the front door.

“What about him?” I grab his coat from the closet and hold it out to him.

He drapes it over his arm and frowns.

“I never worked directly with Lucas or his father before him, but I remember there being some trouble with Christian. It was a while ago, mind you, years back. Lucas’ father was still an Alderman at the time.”

“What sort of trouble?”

“Gambling debts if I remember right. Nikolai might remember. If I’m right, he’d taken a loan to cover the debts and when he couldn’t repay, Lucas came to his rescue.” He shuffles the coat open to put it on.

“I’m not getting in the middle here; I learned my lesson on that with my own sons. I’m just suggesting you might want to take a closer look at him. If he’s so friendly to Lia, there might be other reasons.”

“I’ll look into it.” I’m already listing what information I want by morning about this man in my mind.

“Good.” He gives me a hard nod as he buttons his last button. “Let me know if you need anything.”

He smacks my shoulder and heads out, leaving me alone in the foyer.

“Shit!” Amelia yells and a second later a clamor of cups and plates echoes down the hall.

She definitely tried to carry everything at one time.

Amelia

“Peter from Freedom House is on line one for you.” Sarah peeks her head into my office. “And I’m going across the street to get a coffee, I need a latte. You want something?”

I look up from my computer screen where I have the bookkeeping software open. “Yes.”

Grabbing my wallet, I pull out cash for her. “A caramel latte, the biggest they have and with an extra shot of espresso.”

“This one’s on me. You got it last week.” She wiggles her fingers and leaves without taking a single bill, calling back to me, “Don’t forget line one!”

“Line one. Right.” I shove the bills back into my wallet and turn my chair to find my phone.

It’s buried beneath pages of bank statements I printed off this morning to get ready for the accountant that should be here soon.

The Freedom House is a halfway house that we’ve worked closely with over the last year.

Some people will leave a full-time recovery facility and opt to room with them until they are back on their feet full time. We work with them to get those people counseling and set up with job skill workshops that will help them get employment easier.

“Hey, Peter. How are you?” Pinning the phone between my ear and my shoulder, I continue shuffling papers around, trying to put them into some sort of recognizable order.

“Hey, Lia. Sorry to bug you, Judy is out for the day, Sarah said, and I have a client I’d like to send over. He’s just joined us this morning and he’s having a bad afternoon. I thought I might be able to get him hooked up with Ramon?”

“Of course, let me just pull up the schedules.”

I brush away the papers lingering on top of my keyboard and wiggle the mouse until the screen comes to life. Just as I’m typing in my password, there’s a soft knock at the door.

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