Page 69 of Trial of Deceit

“Ash,” Jediah said, cupping her face with his other hand.“You good?”

Sighing, she confessed, “I have a lot on my mind.”

“Like wa?”

“You, Jediah.It’s always you.”

She looked over her shoulder with a smile, expecting to see Jediah.He’d stepped out for a bit to speak to the overseer of this warehouse.Curious as she was, she knew better than to sneak out.Dimitri had let her off the hook last time, and she knew she wouldn’t be so lucky if he discovered her snooping a second time.Plus, it wouldn’t be so easy with all the cameras and armed men roaming everywhere.Ashari’s smile faded when she saw Reka.

Reka gently closed the door to the computer room behind her before taking long strides toward the desk.Placing her hands flat against the top of the desk while Ashari spun around in the chair, Reka leaned forward and lowered her voice.“Whatever you’re doing, you need to stop it.”

Ashari’s brows furrowed.“What are you talking about?”

Reka’s eyes narrowed.“Now’s not the time to be playing games.I told you that Jed isn’t someone to take lightly, and you’re not listening.You know what happened to his fiancée, right?”

Ashari relaxed into the chair.“Don’t know what you’re talking about, Reka,” she said with a sickeningly sweet smile.

Reka stared at her for a moment before dipping a hand into her pocket.She removed a phone, did a few swipes, then showed an image to Ashari.Ashari’s eyes widened as she studied the screen.It was her meeting her father, walking across the parking lot at the headquarters.

“How?”Ashari forced out, her eyes darting to Reka’s.No one was supposed to know about this building.It was a simple yet spacious two-storey constructed under the guise of being a call center.

“Cameras are everywhere.”Reka straightened her stance while putting the phone back in her pocket.“Tsai was teaching me her program before I left.I don’t know what you’re using or how to fully use it, but I know enough, and I’m going to learn how to clone it for Jed.”

Ashari gulped, then whispered, “Does he know about… us?”

Reka paused before shaking her head.“No.He recruited me during training.Why would he know about us when not everybody actually completed it?”she asked in a normal tone.

“That’s true,” Ashari said, her words trailing off while glancing at Reka’s pocket.“Did you show him?”she asked, causing Reka to shake her head.Ashari exhaled a long breath.“Thank you—”

“Don’t thank me.Stop now, Ash.Either be his wife, or leave.You can’t have one foot in and one foot out.I won’t tell him this time, but if I find out that you’re still helping them, I will tell Jed,” Reka threatened.

“Tsai would hate to see what you’ve turned into,” Ashari mused.Back then, she’d loved how Reka was practically joined to Tsai by the hip.It took away from their time together, but made the moments they spent together more intimate.She’d loved listening to Reka go on and on about technology, watching her eyes light up like she was a silly little kid all over again.

No anger left Reka’s eyes when she replied, “Or maybe she’d be proud that I’m no longer the naive little eighteen-year-old you loved only when you could cry to me.”

Ashari frowned.“Reka—” she quieted as Reka snatched a laptop off the desk before stomping toward the door.

Ashari’s throat tightened.It was becoming increasingly hard to breathe.There were too many pieces of Reka in this room.From the silly photograph inside a simple frame of her and Tyre, to the trash can overflowing with empty cups of iced coffee.

She stood and moved toward the door.She couldn’t stay in this room anymore.As she opened the door and stepped out, the guards raised their brows at her.They didn’t question her as she continued down the hallway, for which she was thankful.

Arriving in the large room, which was more of a mess hall, where the drugs got bagged, Ashari thought of how smart of a businessman Jediah Richardson actually was.

Drugs were loaded onto the transport trucks of Cameron Reeves’ company, guarded by the workers of Dimitri Forde’s security company, then dropped off at Elias Swaby’s wholesales to be sold on a secret menu.Jediah Richardson being a silent investor in the chain of wholesales could easily cry foul if he was ever accused of being tangled in with the drug trade.His being the CEO of the renowned Richardson Motors gave him the excuse of spreading out his assets.Businessmen dipped money into industries they weren’t adept to all the time; it was like a hack to a constant cash flow.Sure, there was a risk of possibly investing in a shady company, but the wholesales had been around long before Jediah was born.How could he know that they distributed drugs if they’d never been caught?

Everything tied in beautifully.No one ever got this close to Jediah to be privy to this information.

But the drugs weren’t the only reason why the F.B.I.wanted him.The objective of her case was to figure out how he moved the guns.There were many working theories that the cars he regularly imported and exported were somehow involved, but every angle proved fruitless.All audits were good.Every sweep was clean.

The Jamaican government gave the F.B.I.a grace period of one year to build their case before they had to hop on the first flight out of the country.It’d been four months, and Ashari felt no closer to breaking this case.If she were her father—

A loudclangcame from somewhere, startling her.Ashari’s eyes scoured the area, trying to find where the sound came from.It seemed so familiar, but she couldn’t place a finger on where she’d heard it before.

Theclangcame again.Ashari noticed a large door slamming shut.She sighed.No, that wasn’t where she’d heard the sound the first time.Ashari erased the look of disappointment off her face, replacing it with curiosity as she watched the men who stopped beside the door that had slammed shut.

Jediah had an unlit cigar tucked into the corner of his mouth.Elias handed him a rag, and Jediah wiped blood off his hands.Jediah looked at Ashari while the door opened again — and there went that loudclangingsound before it closed, twice, again.Dimitri and Tyre dragged a man into the mess hall by his arms while his legs dragged behind him in tattered pants.The man was barely conscious, beaten and bloody that he might as well have already been dead.None of the women or men had stopped working to glance at the loud interruption.

Ashari approached them.She stopped before Jediah, her nose wrinkling at the strong waft of piss lingering in the air around the bloody man.Now that she was up-close, she got a better look at him.His skin was missing in square patches all over his body, leaving behind irritated white flesh.Someone had taken their time to carefully carve the man.

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