“Hi Mrs. D,” I reply, and she smiles at me.
“I wanted to see if you guys wanted an early lunch. I need an excuse to order pizza.”
“I’m fine,” I tell her.
“Pizza at nine in the morning, do they even open at that time?” Dominic chuckles.
“It’s pregnancy cravings. I’m sure there must be somewhere that’s open.”
“Baby, what is all that in your hands?” Dominic looks at the grocery bag and frowns.
He’s a man like me so he treats his wife like she should be sitting in a glass ball until it’s time to givebirth. So, it doesn’t surprise me when he rushes over to her and takes the bags, which aren’theavy.
I get it though. I was the same way withGabriella.
Candace rolls her eyes at him and shakes her head.“Dominic D’Agostino please don’t make me crazytoday.I’m allowed to carry fruit.”
“Candace D’Agostino, that looks heavier than fruit.”
“You know what, I’ll come back when you’re less crazy.” She walks away from him before he can say anything else.
I chuckle when he turns back to me and shakes his head.
“That woman is going to drive me insane.”
“Maybe. I’m gonna leave you folks to enjoy your day.” I grab my jacket. “I’m going to start on the files.”
“Okay. Let’s check in later to compare where we get to. There’s a whole lot of motherfucking files on that fuckers system. At home and at work. I thought Alfonse was bad. This guy is worse.”
“He’ll definitely be worse if he’s a leader.”
“Yeah.” A dark shadow crosses over Dominic’s face I feel in my heart.
Only fuck knows how powerful Jude might be.
“See you later.”
* * *
I dived into Jude’s files the moment I got to my office.
I spent hours looking through one file after another, hacking my way through.
I didn’t find anything that will help my search for Aleksei but I did find something interesting.
Up until fourteen years ago, Markov Tech was one of the companies that serviced the old Syndicate. Olivia’s grandfather provided all IT related services for the members of the Syndicate and also set up a way to launder money and move it around accounts.
It was something I found in Jude’s files that led me to that information in the Syndicate archives. I was already curious about how Jude came to have such an important role in the company, and I wondered when he started working there.
There’s no way it would have been during the time the company was linked to the Syndicate because I’m sure my father would have had a say against it.
Although I never met Phillipe, my father was close to him and talked about him a lot.
The discovery got me thinking about Philippe’s relationship with Olivia’s grandfather because he would have handled setting up something for the company contracts.
I guess though maybe that’s how the affair with Olivia’s mother began.
Curiosity lured me in deeper to look into Eric again.