Page 88 of Devious Secrets

“Come here.” Alexander crooks a finger at me from behind his huge desk. The skull vase has been moved from the table in the sitting area to his desk. It’s empty this time, making it look even more ominous.

“Good morning, Megan.” Kaz grins at me as I approach the desk. His jaw is slightly squarer than Alexander’s and there’s an amber tint to his brown eyes, but otherwise, he could be his twin.

“Morning.” I smile back.Ivan greets me with a soft smile.

I wouldn’t bet on him being the nice one after overhearing the three of them talking last night. He’s just as ruthless as Alexander, and maybe in some ways worse.

“Oh. I forgot to ask yesterday. How is the waitress?” I ask. “From the club?”

“Vivienne?” Ivan’s scowl returns. “She needed a few stitches, but she’s fine.”

His concrete tone reminds me of Alexander’s. Yes, Ivan is definitely not the soft one of the three brothers.

“Ah. Yes. Vivienne.” Kaz slaps Ivan’s shoulder. “Don’t forget. Company ink, Ivan. Company ink.”

Ivan’s expression darkens. I’ve obviously picked a wound.

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing.” Alexander grabs my hand when I get close enough to them and he pulls me to his side. “This is Lev, a good friend. We were talking about Dexter Thompson.”

“The security footage from the party where he died didn’t give us any clues as to who fed him the poison.” Ivan frowns.

“Maybe it was slipped to him before he went to the party. What was it?” I inquire.

“Potassium cyanide.” Alexander answers me without any hesitation.

Only two days ago, he would have ordered me from the office and locked me away for even attempting to get involved in this conversation. Now, he’s folding me into the discussion.

“Potassium cyanide? That would act pretty fast. Within ten minutes, I think.” Their eyes bore into me.

“Megan?” Alexander tugs on my hand.

“Relax.” I grin, squeezing his hand. “I grew up reading mysteries and moved on to true crime when I was in high school. There was a case like that about twenty years ago.”

“What happened?” Kaz leans forward in his chair.

“This guy won the lottery, a big winner, and within a few days of collecting his winnings, he died of an apparent heart attack. He had some heart condition, so they ruled it natural causes at first, but his sons thought it was weird, so they ordered an autopsy.”

“And?” Alexander prompts me.

“That’s when they found the cyanide in his system. They still haven’t figured out who did it. His sons think it was their stepmom because she wanted the money to herself. The wife thinks it was his sons because they wanted the money.” I shrug. “It’s an unsolved homicide.”

“If it acts that fast, how can they not know who gave it to him?” Lev questions.

“Not enough physical evidence,” I explain. “Since it made it look like he had a heart attack, no one collected the dishes he’d been using for his lunch—that’s when it happened, right after eating. His two sons were in the house and so was his wife at the time, so without being able to provehowthe poison was given to him, they couldn’t provewho’dgiven it to him. So… it’s unsolved.”

“Much like Dexter. The evidence is all gone by now and without the camera footage to show who slipped it to him, we’re back to knowing nothing.” Ivan sighs.

“Well, you guys were blackmailing him, right? That’s why you have all those boxes with the flash drives and photos? You use it to make people do what you want?” Being Alexander’s wife gives me a little leeway here, I suppose. No one’s going to threaten to shoot me because I know these things.

“A lot of people could have been blackmailing him,” Lev points out.

“Were you told to get everything in the box or only the flash drive?” Kaz asks.

“They wanted the flash drive specifically,” I confirm.

Alexander lets go of my hand and opens the top left drawer of the desk. After he rifles around a second, he pulls out the flash drive.

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