All of Me (Confessions of the Heart 2)

I continued to click through the photos kept in the hidden folder.

There were a ton of Reed with prostitutes climbing all over him, the man caught in the act of Bennet’s depravity, clearly spanning years. I raced to click through them, the images getting older and older until it came to one where Reed couldn’t have been much older than a teenager.

Clearly set up.

Hooks sunk into him just the same as Lawrence had done with me.

All of us corrupt.

Lawrence at the helm driving the debauchery.

Round and round.

I quickly flicked through the pictures of Reed.

My eyes squinted, studying the grainy photos.

Every single one of the women had a tattoo on her shoulder, a broken circle with a number.

The realization slammed me.

These women were numbered.

Possessions.

Marked.

Disgust churned, and I struggled to see through the haze of repulsion.

The proof of what Lawrence had been involved in mixed with the horrors of my childhood ripped me open wide, old wounds bleeding, that hatred and shame of what my mother had had to do right there at the forefront.

I tried to stop them. But images flashed.

Pulsing from where I’d tried to keep them trapped in the recesses of my mind.

The tattoo my mother had always had since I could remember.

On her shoulder. The full circle with a Roman numeral one in the middle of it.

It was the same as what had been engraved on the bottom of the silver box. The one thing she’d had left of my father.

Nausea rolled, so violently my body recoiled, lurching with a sickness, bowing me in two.

Oh God.

Oh God.

I could barely see.

Could barely stand.

I sucked it down. I could deal with the implications of this shit later.

Grace needed me.

Those kids needed me.

I pushed print on a few of the pictures, before I quickly clicked into the Dear Industries folder and started printing every document in there.

My own personal glowing accolades.

Document after document.

Companies I’d falsified, helped Lawrence create, laundered money through.

I found three that I realized could be directly tied to Reed.

Alarms continued to blare.

My blood pounded in sync.

Harsh and hard.

I froze when I heard the cocking of a gun at the back of my head. I’d been so caught up on this suicide mission, clicking through as many documents to print them before someone erased them, that I hadn’t even noticed that I wasn’t alone.

Sweat gathered at my nape. Cold and clammy. I swallowed hard.

“Having fun?” Bennet’s voice was a growl at my ear.

Hatred flooded out with the low roll of my laughter. “Best day of my life.”

“Make the wrong move, and it will be your last.”

He grabbed me by the back of the collar, gun still rammed tight against the base of my skull, and forced me over to the alarm pad. He punched in the code and the alarm cut off. He reached over and grabbed the receiver from the phone on his desk and dialed a number.

“Yes, this is Lawrence Bennet. I came into the office in the middle of the night because I woke up realizing I forgot to do something important.”

He emphasized the word. Just for me.

“Apparently, I was a little too sleepy and tripped the alarm. I apologize for any inconvenience . . . All is good . . . No need to send anyone . . . Thank you for your help.”

He tossed the phone back onto the receiver.

“Sounds good to me,” I gritted out, facing the wall he had my face pinned against, going right back to the threat he had made. “Won’t be able to look myself in the mirror after seeing all this shit anyway.”

He scoffed. “Don’t act like you didn’t know full well what was going down. You did it of your own free will. Didn’t take a whole lot of twisting your arm.”

“I was a kid.”

“You were growing into the man you were always supposed to be.”

Anger boiled, and I tried to bite it back, biding my time, praying Mack at least got here before Bennet had the chance to take a shot and disappeared with the evidence.

With the gun still aimed at me, he stepped back, releasing his hold.

I slowly turned, hating the man I saw standing four feet away.

“No wonder I ended up with you,” I gritted, bile on my tongue.

He shook his head. Haughty and contemptuous. “Is it?”

I gulped around the fury that flamed at my insides. “Is it true?”

His eyes narrowed, and mine were frantically searching his face for clues, for the resemblance I’d been too much of a fool to look for all along.

“What? That you have always belonged to me?”

Revulsion shook my head. “I’ve never belonged to you.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. You’ve been mine since the day you were born. Your bitch of a mother might have tried to get away with you. Steal you from your legacy.”

He took a step forward. “From your destiny.”