Dirty Ties

So I kept my mouth shut while I fact-checked everything Logan had shown me. I wasn’t a journalist by any stretch, but I led an entire division of them. I verified sources, followed leads, assigned reporters to do the same, trickling out the requests and using the cautious ambiguity Trent had always used with me.

The embezzling, accounting fraud, missing employees, all of it added up, albeit hidden beneath the kind of well-placed and thorough explanations an unsuspecting person wouldn’t question. The Trenchant name was stained with crime. Everything I’d unearthed soured my aspirations to lead this miserable corporation. It wasn’t just the board members. The corrupted partners inside and outside of these walls were many, the layers of deceit running deep in every department.

The one thing I hadn’t connected was Trent’s interest in the underground racing network. According to Logan, Trent was pulling my files of the racing schematics. If that was true, why had he asked me a month ago to obtain everything I could about it? Then never asked again? He knew I was keeping that secret, and I hoped to God it was the only one he knew about.

I also investigated Logan, digging for information online, following him, and snapping photos like an obsessed stalker. He drove a Jeep Wrangler. He stopped at the Starbucks next door to the office every morning. He worked out in a gym two blocks away every night. He had no friends or family, and his address on file was a studio apartment in south Chicago. But his jeep was never in that parking lot.

Every time he slid behind the wheel of that damned jeep at Trenchant, I lost him. I used a cab to be inconspicuous, but Logan seemed to know the streets of Chicago better than anyone, knew how to whip a turn at the last second. He drove the way Evader rode his bike.

I compared the photos of Logan and Evader, studied their physiques, analyzed their heights and weights. An absurd exercise considering I’d had both of their cocks in my mouth. But my brief moment with Evader had been in the dark and the measurements of his anatomy wasn’t what I took away with me that night.

Even if they were the same man, it didn’t change the outcome. With each day, time wrapped tighter and tighter around my ribs. Maybe I was waiting out the month, expecting Logan to wait it out with me. Maybe I was waiting for him to fight. Not for his revenge but for me.

Sitting one chair away, he wore a black suit that sharpened the physique I knew so well and desperately missed. Always the same style with a black tie and white shirt. He must’ve had a closet filled with this uniform, and if I looked beneath the table, I’d find black Converse sneakers. Rebellious and sexy as sin.

His strong jaw was bare of whiskers, the cut of his dark blonde hair combed back, every strand gelled to perfection. While he rocked the clean-cut look with the smoothness of a rich businessman, I preferred him tousled and tangled and covered with scruff.

I wanted to shove my hands in his hair and muss that shit up. I wanted to kiss him until his mouth gaped for air and his eyes hooded with desire. I longed for the ruthless, sexual man who starred in my fantasies every night. Logan on a sportbike. His body gloved in black leather. His synthesized voice whispering filthy things.

This crazy need to meld two men into one made me uncomfortable. I didn’t need any more complications in my life, but my body was desperate to merge them. My thighs flexed together, and the warmth between them swelled into a needy clench.

“What impact would it have on digital media, Kaci?” My father stared at me over his silver-rimmed spectacles.

I slid my hands to my lap and slowed my breathing. My open disgust with them was nothing new. I abandoned pleasantries seven years ago when they forced me into a contract. But there was no more contract, and they didn’t know I knew their secrets. Didn’t know I was a phone call away from turning them in. Didn’t know I was considering other angles of retribution. “I don’t care. Just fire me and leave Collin alone.”

My mother pushed back from the table and stood to bend over it, her blue eyes sparking with outrage. “Grow up, Kaci. Get over your petty disappointment and do your damned job.”

My insides winced at the viciousness in her tone. No matter how heartless she was, part of me would always crave her love.

God, I resented that. Add in my revulsion at their crimes, and I couldn’t keep my mouth from curling in a hateful sneer.

They would assume my indignation had everything to do with Logan’s betrayal. So I played the part. “My job was stolen from me by a man who blackmailed everyone in this room. Let’s talk about that.”