Greed (The Deadly Sins)

She put the signed proposal in her satchel. “Thank you very much, Mr. Ferreira. One of our representatives, Reeva Duckworth, will be in touch with you tomorrow so we can get things in motion,” Shy said, and after more hand shaking and a bit more conversation as he escorted her to the door, she left the office.

In the lobby, two men sat waiting. When they saw Shy leave the building with Chuck, they stood up and proceeded toward the elevators. The men went up to the floor where Andrade Ferreira had rented an office. They went in, one drew his weapon and shot Andrade Ferreira once in the head and then two shots to the chest.

Chapter Sixteen

At the home of Michael and Cassandra Black, it was the same thing every morning. Shy gets the children up and moving around to start their day. At that point, she goes to see about the baby and Joanne takes over to see that they bathe—and yes, I am talking about Easy—and are dressed appropriately for school—and yes, I am talking about Michelle. M makes their breakfast, and after they eat as a family, Shy and Chuck take them to school. After which, Shy goes to work at Prestige. That morning was no different.

After having phone sex with her husband the night before, Shy slept like a baby. She hit snooze a few times when the alarm went off, she got up that morning and headed for the shower, thinking fondly about the mornings when she used to take the children to school, go back to bed, and sleep until noon. Those days now seemed like a distant memory.

But I would love to crawl back under those covers and bury my face in the pillow, Shy thought as she dried herself. Once Shy was dressed and ready, her first stop was Michelle’s room.

After years of conflict between mother and daughter, the relationship between them seemed to be getting better. It took Michelle some time to admit it to herself, and she still hadn’t mentioned it to Shy, but she realized that she was jealous of her mother. Without realizing it, she had come to resent her for taking her daddy away from her.

Before Monika and Travis rescued Shy from that island, it was just Michelle and her daddy. During the years she was gone, Michelle was his constant companion and then Shy came back and she was forced to share her daddy with this intruder.

But since Mansa was born, their relationship had changed. Of course, it helped that with Shy’s attention being on the baby, she had more time with her daddy, but that was beside the point. The point was Michelle and her mother were becoming friends. Shy looked to Michelle for support and help with her brothers.

“Especially Easy.”

Shy remembered her being

a daddy’s girl, and her getting closer to Joanne during her teenage years.

“Before that, you were a mouthy mess, just like that one,” Joanne reminded her daughter, and M laughed.

“It’s the parents’ curse. You get a child who acts exactly the way you acted,” M said, and the three generations of women laughed.

Now that the children had been dropped off, Shy went to Prestige to begin her workday. Generally, she would stay in the office until sometime after noon, before going home to spend some time with the baby before she and Chuck went to pick up Michelle and Easy from school.

Shy had just wrapped up a Zoom conference with Reeva Duckworth and Changpu Zhao, about the deal with Andrade Ferreira, when her personal assistant, Elsie, tapped on her office door.

“Lenecia said that there are three detectives in the lobby to see you.”

“Did they say what it was about?”

“No. She just said that they asked to speak with you.”

“Thank you, Elsie.”

“You’re welcome, Mrs. Black. What do you want me to tell Lenecia?”

“I’ll take care of it,” Shy said; and once Elsie shut the door, she called Patrick Freeman at the law firm.

“Good morning, Shy,” he said when he came on the line.

“Good morning, Patrick. I am sorry to bother you, but there are three cops in the lobby who want to talk to me.”

“Did they say what it was in reference to?”

“No, they didn’t.”

“I’m assuming that since they asked to speak to you, that they don’t have a warrant.”

“If they did, they’d have just came on back here and arrested me.”

“What do you want me to do?” Patrick asked, thinking that he should have had a criminal attorney work out of that office for just this reason.

“I’m going to go ahead and talk to them.”