chuckled. “I have it on good authority that isn’t the case though. The good little girl you thought you were raising is no different than Samantha.”
“Bullshit.”
One shoulder lifted. “Believe what you want, but the truth will come out. Sooner rather than later, in fact. Don’t think it’ll stop there either. There are things I’m sure you wouldn’t want out that will affect the both of you.”
His threat hit me square in the chest, setting off the need to deny or avoid it entirely. “I would watch it if I were you.”
“Funny. I was going to say the same to you. Do you think you’re the only person who has eyes and ears on other people? Money talks. We’re both made of it. Some of us put it to good use if it means gaining something.”
The only thing he was gaining is the likelihood of me smashing his face against the goddamn table. His family, and the Vandyke’s, printed counterfeit bills as their main source of income these days, drugs were a new business venture over the past year. I was surprised they hadn’t been caught yet. I’d like to think it was only a matter of time before their operation was discovered, but I had no leverage besides hearsay.
Rubbing my lips together, I considered my reply. If I said the wrong thing, he’d run with it because he did have the money and power to do something about it, even if some of that money was fake. That should have worried me, but I refused to let it. “I think you’re a coward, Richard. You’re trying to scare me into believing you have dirt on me because you’re not getting what you want. Child’s play, really.”
His stare pinned me, but I held it. Did he have dirt on me? Probably. But there were things I was careful about, that I was positive nobody else knew. Things that involved just how invested I was with a certain blonde, and I knew immediately when his eyes flashed that he understood clearly where my thoughts went.
Digging into his pocket, he flattened out a small piece of paper that I identified immediately.
Left for work. Took the dog home.
I saw the way he watched me examine the note I’d left for Della, but I knew better than to show it was tied to either her or me. I hadn’t signed it. The best he could do was assume.
“How do you think it would look if stories of your time with little Saint James came out? If people saw just how you looked at her? How you’d leave her little notes early in the morning after a sleepover together?” His inquiry was cocky. I said nothing, fueling him. Denying it would only make him go further, so silence was the only way to go. “Maybe you’re right, Theo. Maybe I don’t have anything on you. But her? Well, so long as she’s around Samantha and the other girls, she’s around the same corruption her father got head deep in. Would be a shame, wouldn’t it? Such potential, I’m told. I’m not sure she’d be the same if the media came after her again considering her last round with them.”
I was fine being threatened and taking it, but Della? She didn’t deserve to be dragged into any of this. Standing, the chair scraped back as I slammed money down on the table and gripped the edge of it. “Your family has always been faced with corruption because you’re weak. Adele, what she’s gone through, has made her strong. Your threats will only ever be that.”
The smirk he gave me told me that he didn’t believe it, which was a problem. If he was willing to act himself it was for good reason. Normally he hired other people to do his dirty work. But I couldn’t go back and change my reaction to something that wasn’t so telling.
He knew.
He knew that I cared about Della.
He’d use her to get what he wanted.
Fuck.
“Your business won’t last if another investor drops. You may have the money to survive, but what about your reputation? How long will you make it in this city if people thought you were in too deep, just like your former partner? If you used his departure from this world to sink into his beautiful offspring like a predator?”
My teeth ground so hard I was sure I’d need to get them fixed. “So that’s what you want? To save me?”