Page 32 of Tease

“You needmyhelp? That’s a new one. Usually, I’m asking you.”

I laughed and shook my head.

“S-s-shut up.”

“What can I do for you?”

I looked out of the window, trying to work out how best to ask him for this particular favour.

“It’s not exactly l-l-legal.”

“Then you came to the right place, though considering who your family is, I’m surprised you’re coming to me.”

“It c-c-can’t be tied b-back to us. It’s important, Xav. I w-w-wouldn’t ask otherwise.”

It was the only reason I was involving him. I didn’t want to alert anyone we were looking into this. Who knew what kind of connections the person who was after us had. I had to be careful.

“Okay, lay it on me.”

His tone was serious this time. Xav might like to act as though he took nothing seriously, but my boss knew when to use his humour and when to listen.

“I n-n-need access to police case files… one case s-s-specifically. I have t-t-to s-s-see them to know what happened.”

Xav was silent for a long moment.

“You want me to hack into the police database for you?”

“Kind of. I-I-I don’t know if it w-will be digitised. It h-happened twenty-five years ago.”

This was a huge gamble for me to take because I’d never asked my boss for help like this before. He wasn’t exactly a saint himself. I knew all about what he and his family had done. I wasn’t stupid. The rumours about them being responsible for Frank Russo’s death? Completely true. Not that Xav had confirmed it to me himself or anything. I had a gut feeling about it.

“Xavi, are you in here?” came another voice in the background.

I heard the creak of a chair.

“Hold on, Rina,” Xav said to me. “I’m on the phone, E, what do you want?”

“Oh, sorry. I just need the thing I gave you.”

“What thing?”

“You know, the thing I got for Ash.”

“The thing you got… what, you mean the strap-on?”

I heard a male noise of frustration.

“Jesus, Xavi, did you forget you’re on the phone!”

“Rina doesn’t care.”

I put a hand to my mouth, trying not to laugh. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard inappropriate things from Xav. I was used to it, especially when it came to his partners. He was constantly winding his boyfriend, Eric, up.

“Oh my god, that’s who you’re talking to? Honestly, your employees don’t need to hear this.”

“You need to quit being such a prude, no one cares you bought our girlfriend a strap.”

“Just tell me where it is.”

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