I remembered that day as if it’d happened just yesterday.
Rome had given me the confidence to be strong. That day, I’d gone into the fireworks store for sparklers. When I’d turned the corner to get them, the first thing I spotted was Rodrigo. The second was the pregnant woman, and a girl that had to be about sixteen or seventeen standing as far away as she could be but still be with the group.
My eyes had been so focused on Rodrigo that I hadn’t given the other two more than a passing glance.
And I hadn’t hung around long.
I’d gotten my sparklers and hurried out, not stopping to see if they’d noticed me or anything else.
It might seem like I’d run, but technically I’d gotten what I’d gone in there to get. Before Rome had instilled confidence in me, I would’ve straight up left never to return.
Somewhere that Rodrigo frequented was not a place that I wanted to be.
“Holy fuck,” Rome whispered, tilting the phone to Wade, who took it.
He went through the photos around ten times before he said anything more.
His eyes were lit with an inner fire that looked like he was about to start spewing venom any minute.
“Did he catch you?”
I shook my head and leaned into Rome when he pulled me under his arm.
“He was outside swimming laps in his Speedo,” I muttered darkly. “Unless he has cameras set up in his house—which wouldn’t surprise me because he’s paranoid—then I think I’m in the clear.”
Both men tensed.
“How do you mean he’s paranoid?” Wade was the one to ask.
I sighed and stood up straighter, turning so that my back was to the bar, and I was wedged in between the two men. I was touching from armpit to thigh with Rome. Wade was a few inches away from me, but I could still feel his heat.
I scooted closer to Rome, who twisted on his bar stool so that I was now in between his thighs. His arm was around my waist, and one large hand was spread out along my thigh. I would not think too hard about how close his hand was to my unmentionables, either.
“Well,” I said, wiggling slightly so that I could find a more comfortable position—one which Rome accommodated by moving the hand on my thigh and wrapping it around my waist and pulling me even tighter into him. “He won’t let me go into his office unless he’s there with me, watching my every move. And the minute that I’m done, and he’s not going to work in there, he locks it up. I’m also to keep all the doors to the house locked while I’m there. And if his wife is the only one home on the days that I clean, then I’m not allowed to clean his office at all.”
Wade hummed.
Rome snorted. “I wouldn’t have thought too much into that. There are things that I wouldn’t want you to see on my home computer—like my vast porn collection or my bank work—but he is a US senator. He might very well have sensitive documents in his office…which begs me to question, why weren’t these in his office, or better hidden? It’s like he wanted you to find them.”
I shivered.
I sure hoped that wasn’t the case.
Why would he want me to find them?
“I clean everything. And those weren’t there last week when I cleaned, I would know. I pull that same drawer out every week to clean. It has this weird lip on it that collects dust, and if you don’t pull it out to clean along the top, the crease gets this grayish tint to it and Senator Antilles’s wife complains about it.”
“That all seems very convenient to me,” Rome admitted.
Wade grunted in agreement. “I agree.”
“Think maybe you should do some quiet digging, Wade,” Rome admitted. “I’m not sure where this is going, or why she’s involved in whatever she’s found herself involved in, but it’s more than obvious that he wanted her to find those.”
Wade grunted. “I know a guy.”
“Anyway, do I quit or keep doing the job?” I asked hesitantly.
I was praying that he said keep the job.
I’d been looking at cars over the last week. I couldn’t afford one if I didn’t have that money from cleaning his house once a week. And furthermore, according to the driving school that I’d looked up online, I had to have a vehicle of my own to drive at the school because the student cars with the dual brake pedals on the driver side and passenger side were a thing of the past—at least in this county.
Though I guess technically I could just pick up a few extra jobs, but then that’d take away from my Rome time, and I wasn’t really looking forward to that.
“No,” Wade grunted. “But I think on top of looking into this, I still need to report it. Which I can do. I can claim I have a confidential informant. Got the email through a throwaway email address, and since you can name off one of the individuals in the pictures with the women…”