Page 118 of Chasing Simone

Butch and I share a fleeting look. The mob enforcer isn’t untouchable any longer. His rotting corpse, cemented down at the bottom of an abandoned quarry, is a testimony to how touchable he was.

Ziggy brings our attention back to the matter at hand. “Last June was when Prez and Jo first hooked up. I mean, it could be a coincidence. But Lorenzo was obsessed with Jo. Maybe he was stashing cash away to grab Jo from Prez all along, liquidating his assets to make an escape easier.”

“It would explain why most of Lorenzo’s money hasn’t been recovered by the feds. He was burying it months before he snagged Simone and Stella to coerce Jo out of headquarters. The kidnapping was the only sloppy bit of the operation, because we forced his hand when we exposed his pheromone poppers drug ring to the FBI.”

A sick feeling builds in the pit of my stomach. I gnaw at my lip ring, fighting with myself. But I need to know the answer.

“Trent, when did you begin your affair with Cynthia?”

He looks me dead in the eyes. “Immediately after I opened the account for Mister Amato.”

Fuck.I tug at my man bun. “You started an affair with Cynthia to cover the dirty account, didn’t you?”

Trent has the decency to look ashamed. “What better way to hide an account than to bed the manager of the investment division trained to spot questionable accounts in the firm?”

“Fuck,” I mutter, pushing my glasses up on my head to rub between my eyes. “Your relationship with Cynthia—”

“Is fake,” Trent finishes for me, his voice rough with emotion. “I never wanted to hurt Simone. I. Love. Her. But what choice did I have, huh? My life was being threatened by the mob if I didn’t protect their money. I was screwed if the firm found out about who I was doing business with, possibly go to jail for not reporting it to the police.

“Cynthia had been trying to get into my pants for years, so I took advantage of the situation. I was desperate, and this seemed like the best answer under stress. I started the affair with her, using our relationship to keep her out of my clients’ accounts. But Cynthia wasn’t happy with keeping our relationship a secret. She orchestrated for Simone to catch us in the act, knowing full well there was no way my relationship with Simone could survive my infidelity. I couldn’t go after Simone, or else I’d risk Cynthia exposing me to the firm’s board members and the police. Cynthia has me by the balls.”

My stomach turns, and I force myself to swallow the bile working its way up my throat. This is not the news a man wants to hear about his woman’s ex, who she once loved. Yeah, the dude had a choice and chose poorly in his position. But lots of people make piss poor mistakes when under duress.

Simone dominates my thoughts. Would she understand why Trent made the choice he did, given the circumstances? Fuck, would she forgive him for what he did?

Am I at risk of losing my woman to her ex-lover?

There’s only one thing I can do. I need to tell Simone the truth. Trent has been trying to explain himself for a year to my woman, and she’s refused to listen to a word he says. She deserves to know what actually happened, what is happening.

And then she’s going to have to make a choice. Me or this orange idiot.

“Lorenzo Bianchi may be dead, but Luca Amato is still unaccounted for.” Trent sinks into the nearest chair, his head lowered. “How much is missing from the account?”

“All of it,” I admit.

Trent grips at his hair. “Fuck. I’m as good as dead, aren’t I?”

Seeing how anxious the asshat is, I almost feel bad for him, and maybe I would if the fucker was still alive and Trent didn’t have a chance of winning my woman back. “The good news is, we found a drop spot for most of the firm’s clientele. We’ll continue our search for the Oldani funds.”

Trent shakes his head, his expression grave and skin slick with sweat. “Right. Keep looking.”

CHAPTERFORTY-SEVEN

SIMONE

The late afternoon sun shines intensely through the floor-to-ceiling wall of windows in the top floor conference room. It raises the temperature in this room by a sweltering ten degrees. I’ve stripped out of my blazer and thrown my hair up in a twist, held in place with two pencils, but the heat continues to bother me as I work.

Punk walks the length of the room, scanning the office area around us. He’s been on high alert since Cynthia attacked me and is more uptight than his norm.

Candy sits across from me, staring out the windowed wall at Cynthia’s closed office door. Her leg bounces in eager anticipation of the wicked witch leaving her lair.

“Staring at her door isn’t going to make her come out any faster. It’s okay to take a break and move around,” Punk offers.

“The little cunt-cake has to leave her office at some point,” Candy states, her eyes transfixed on Cynthia’s office. “And I’m going to be ready when she does.”

There’s no doubting her words. Candy gave Cynthia one hellish experience after another yesterday, and most of this morning. Meetings with clients were the only things saving Cynthia from Candy’s wrath over the last few hours. When Candy went with Cynthia to retrieve the files I requested from storage, I swear I could hear them slinging shade all the way from ground level.

Wiping my brow clear of sweat, I open another case file. I’m hunched over my work when strong, calloused fingers graze over the warm flesh around my neck. I moan, leaning back into the familiar touch of my biker.

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