Page 110 of Ashes of Sin and Stardust

“No. The FBI and Social Services know what we do, and there’s nothing illegal about it. Literally all we do is take victims and provide care.”

I nodded. Seemed sensible enough. “How much government funding do you get?”

“They provide about thirty percent of what we need to stay open. The rest is donations, and a significant amount of the donations is from my own businesses.”

I felt my eyebrows shoot up. “Tell me you at least write it off your taxes.”

“I’m generous, Alice, not stupid.”

I knew Reuben probably wasn’t out to become a billionaire. He was the one who said before that he wanted to make a difference and do work that mattered. But funding helped a lot. I decided I would make it a point to research as much as I could about grant writing and acquiring funding, and find a way to help Reuben with his center.

Before my ADHD brain spun out of control, Reuben went back to my original question.

“All of this is to say... Right before Christmas, Rachel managed to get her hands on a cell phone and text me her safeword, and I drove over and picked her up. While I was there, I noticed a glitter-encrusted room and a certain telescope...”

“That’s how you knew I was involved with Woodrow.” I swallowed.

He nodded. “A few weeks later, I took Pete out for drinks one night and pretended to smooth things over, get his side of the story, and I had Lindsay break into his house and collect the rest of your belongings.”

“Sorry you had to sit through a conversation with him.”

“He’s not bad when he’s drunk.” But his eyes flashed.

“Yes, he is. And I bet he said all kinds of shit about how much he loved to fuck me.” A small trickle of satisfaction went through me as I watched his face. “Oh I bet that made you mad, didn’t it? And I bet you hated hearing me talk about Michael Lewis and Simon Pierce yesterday.”

“What did I say about not pushing me?” He raised his eyebrow and shot me a dark glare. Ooh. Yummy.

I wanted so bad to brat him back, to see what would happen if I poked the bear a little harder, but I had promised, and I didn’t know how much bratting he could really take yet. I swallowed and squared my shoulders. “Sorry.” He gave me a noncommittal grunt as a response.

“How do you know Michael Lewis, anyway? Is it from The Underground?”

“We’re... work associates.”

“You know he’s a serial killer, right?”

“He was wanted for being a serial killer. Those charges were dropped.”

“No, Reuben... he killed fifteen girls in the late nineties and early two-thousands. He was tried and convicted and sent to prison and he escaped.”

Reuben’s whole body stilled.

“Ok this is classified, so you can’t talk about it. But that’s why he went on the run when the CIA started investigating Agent Smith Smith. Because apparently, they work together. I think they were kidnapping people and torturing them. There’s a video online of Michael and Agent Smith Smith torturing and killing this drug lord. It’s so bad it’s been censored and removed off the internet, you can only get it on the dark web.”

He stared at me in shock for a few moments. “And you played with him?” He looked furious.

“Well I didn’t know at the time! As soon as I found out, he had already ghosted me!”

He covered his mouth with his hand like he was trying to keep his muffled words from coming out. “Motherfucker... I’m going to kill him. I’m going to kill him, Alice. Next time I see him, he’s dead.”

I winced. “You... should probably not say stuff like that out loud when there are electronic devices in the room.” I didn’t know a lot about the illegal hacking software they had, but I knew it was dangerous. “And also maybe follow that up with, ‘haha, I was just kidding, Michael!’”

Reuben glared even harder, if that was even possible.

Okay, distraction-slash-redirection time. “When you were Anthony Mack’s sub, did you guys have sex?”

“No,” he said, pulling his head back and looking a little offended. “I have absolutely no inclination towards men.”

“So you had a nonsexual dynamic.”

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