Page 107 of Sacrifice (Corrupt Empire 2)

“What does he have to gain from it? In your opinion.”

Her brow furrowed as she stuffed a forkful of food in her mouth.

“He could want to manipulate me, but why would he tell me Tristan needs a girl who will stand up to him if he wanted that? I don’t know, maybe he wants the money. It’s wrapped up in a trust until I’m twenty-five.”

She shook her head, putting her fork down.

“Neither of those options make sense.”

And yet one of them had to be right. I knew her money was wrapped up in a trust. It wasn’t like I wanted it and neither did she.

“Have you seen the paperwork?”

“For what? My trust fund… No. My dad took care of all that.”

“Maybe you should look at it.”

She picked up her fork again.

“Yeah… maybe. I feel weird about going to the penthouse though. The police released it back to my uncle when they concluded their investigations, but it’s legally mine.”

I didn’t blame her. I didn’t want to go back there either. Not to the place we’d first met. Where I’d killed her parents and started us on this fucked up path we seemed to be on together. One that was fast approaching a messy conclusion if we didn’t deal with Frazier.

“Is that the only place he’d have kept it?”

“Yes, in his office. I guess I don’t have much choice.”

I reached over the table and took her free hand, rubbing my thumb down the back of it.

“Do you want me to come with you?”

She shook her head, giving me a sad smile.

“No, that’s too dangerous considering everything. I’ll be okay.”

I hoped she would. Avery was stronger than she realised. She’d been through so much and she was still standing. Still proving to me day in day out how she took everything in her stride and kept giving no matter what. The most selfless girl I’d ever met.

“There’s something else… Uncle Charlie is throwing me a congratulations on owning the company slash birthday party.”

“He’s what?”

This was the first I’d heard of it.

“Yeah, I know… John sent me the memo. Charlie hasn’t officially told me yet, but he keeps dropping hints like it’s some kind of stupid surprise thing. I didn’t ask him to do it. I may have cornered Clara and found out all the details.”

It would create more publicity for the company and perhaps put a positive spin on everything when all they’d had was bad press recently. There were still rumours circulating about Avery being involved in her parents’ deaths. She was tired of hearing about it. She’d told me just last week before all the shit with Tristan and Rick had gone down. She’d barely been back in the world for a few weeks and it was already wearing her down.

“He’s no doubt doing it to show the world the company is moving in a positive direction after everything.”

“I hadn’t thought of it like that. You’re probably right. Still, I feel like I’ll be up on display like some show pony, trotted out to say ‘look how progressive we are, a woman is at the helm’ — it makes me sick to think of it like that. Especially after dealing with Frazier the chauvinistic pig earlier. He obviously thinks I’m incapable of running the company because I’m female. I’m not saying I’m qualified, but it has nothing to do with my gender.”

I tried not to smile. She could be so fucking cute when she was ranting. The little furrow between her eyebrows and the way she looked like a little kitten getting frustrated by the big bad world.

“I seriously don’t know what his problem is. He was all like oh you’d be the perfect woman for my son. Like what is that? We hate each other. You know what, I’m done with talking about this. It’s just pissing me off. I’ve been linked to three different men today and I’m done.”

I felt bad for smiling, but I couldn’t help it.

“You know who you are perfect for?”

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