Chapter 20 #2
He winks. The look in his eyes promises wicked things.
Funny, because I feel like the lucky one right now. “I’m Mia.”
“A pleasure,” he says, kissing my cheek. “Dinner’s at eight, any day you’d like.”
My laugh chases him out the door, but we both know I’ll be there.
* * *
I read through so many pages of transactions; I’m starting to see them in my sleep.
Rows and rows of numbers and codes, none of which raise any alarms. It’s so boring; anyone else would have given up by now, and that’s what keeps me going—because what if that’s the point?
To bury the dirt under so much monotony that it’s barely worth the struggle to look for it.
“When you said it was boring, you weren’t kidding.”
His lips barely move, but the humor in his eyes feels like a win. I’ll take it.
Eventually, we’re all that’s left in the office, and I dive into my stash of drawer candy to quell my grumbling stomach.
“It’s late. You should go home, get some real food.”
Sterling loosens his tie, and I try not to stare.
I should.
For weeks, I’ve been promising myself that I’ll order in less, but between the unpredictable hours and constant restaurant reviews, sometimes, the easiest meal is the only option.
“Sorry,” I say, closing my drawer. “It’s a bad habit.”
“I take it, there’s no one waiting at home with a hot meal?”
Not unless my neighbor counts.
“Not anymore. He, uh, met someone else and moved back home last month. I’m free to eat as much candy as I’d like.”
A yawn I can’t stifle escapes me, cracking my jaw. This week has been long, but I wouldn’t give it up for anything.
Sterling is currently grinding his teeth, so I know he’s had enough.
“By the way, who is it?” I ask.
Sterling grunts what sounds like a question mark—first time I’ve ever heard anyone articulate punctuation before.
“Your source. You didn’t pick Monday arbitrarily. You’re on a time crunch to interview someone, and you need this to back it up.”
I know I’m right when he spins around to face me.
“Going directly to Cox would never work,” he says. “He’s too prepared for it. Better to talk to his PA, Rose. She’s with him constantly, and she would have intimate knowledge of his calendar and everyone he talks to.”
“Wouldn’t she be covered by an NDA?”
“Yes, but there are options, if I find the right angle. I know she’s in the market for a new apartment, so if I can catch her at a viewing, I might be able to arrange an interview.”
I don’t like it. If she works as closely to Cox as Sterling says, he’ll be paranoid about her spare time.
“That’s a big if.”
“Which is why it’s only a backup. Rose has a single appointment each week that she never misses—lunch with her sister-in-law, Tegan.” Sterling pulls up a photo on his phone and passes it to me. “Guess who works at the same bank that manages all of Cox’s business and personal finances.”
“You want to interview the sister-in-law?”
“I want her to help me convince Rose to go on the record.”
A chill licks up my spine. This is serious stuff. “She has to know if he gets spooked, it’s her sister taking the fall.”
“Perhaps. Unless he’s got something over them that’s keeping them quiet.” His voice is steady, assured, and why wouldn’t it be? He’s probably dealt with this situation a hundred times before. A thousand. He’s probably dealt with worse. I’m the one who has been pushed into the deep end.
Cox isn’t who I would have pictured as a real-life villain, but I won’t pretend to be surprised.
He fits the profile easily enough—generational wealth, a lifelong love affair with fame, with catchy sound bites the press continually eats up.
But Sterling is right; if there is any wrongdoing here, Cox has spent a lot of time ensuring it’s as buried as it can be.
“You know if you do this, your life is going to get difficult?” I might not stroll the political beat very often, but even I’ve seen Cox buddied up next to our owner, Hayden Lee.
“It wouldn’t be the first time.” There’s no sign he’s bothered by the possibility of a billionaire coming after him. He notices my concern. “Don’t worry; The Observer’s lawyers are very good at their job.”
It’s not the lawyers I’m worried about.
“And if he wants to do more than simply sue you?”
A muscle in his jaw jumps. “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”
It’s infuriating. How can he be so blasé about his own safety?
“You really care so little about your own life?”
It’s impossible to read anything in his expression. It must be exhausting, staying closed off all the time.
“I know others will pick up where I left off.”
The cold spreads, sweeping through my veins and sinking deep into my bones. I can’t imagine a world without Sterling Ross in it. I don’t want to.
“That isn’t the point. You mean something to people.” You mean something to me.
“A movement can’t survive on the back of one person—because what needs to change is bigger than that.
These systems are insidious; they’re everywhere on purpose.
You need to be everywhere at once, you need to get people to listen and hear you, and you need to keep convincing them, over and over again until, as a collective, the system is replaced with something better.
That’s why we do this. It’s difficult and frustrating, and at times, you’ll never be more alone. ”
My heart aches for him, for all of us, deserving of so much more than the world we find ourselves surviving in. A world crafted on purpose by so few, to harm so many.
“You’re not alone now.” It’s as much for me as it is for him. Someone to understand. Someone to see. “I’m here. I can help. Let me. Be here with me.”
“I’m not very good at letting people in.”
“Oh, I’ve noticed,” I tease, my pulse fluttering at a high speed when Sterling cracks a smile.
I wonder how offended he’d be if he knew how much I wanted to kiss him right now.
“How do you feel about dumplings?” he asks, the app already open on his phone.
“I feel good,” I reply, and when he looks up, I know he knows I’m not only talking about the food.
* * *
By the time I’m full, I can barely keep my eyes open.
“I can’t look at another routing number,” I groan. “Please don’t make me.”
He chuckles, a low, grumbly sound that I’m growing quickly addicted to.
“Go home, Mia. I can handle this.”
“No, I’m not going till we find something,” I say, but I pick up my phone instead.
Sterling is convinced that the connection between Rose and her sister-in-law is being exploited, but there’s no money trail to back it up. There’s more to motivate than money though.
If Cox really is an evil mastermind, is Rose even aware? It seems unlikely that someone in close proximity could be fooled, but cults have survived for years on leveraged faith and manipulation.
Her social media matches Cox’s public promises of philanthropy.
Photo ops fill her feed, with captions extolling the virtues of working with “such a brilliant mind.” It takes a few minutes of scrolling to get beyond the fan worship to anything more personal, but she must have scrubbed anything related to family when she took on the higher-profile role.
Hmm …
Her followers sit at eighty thousand, but she’s only following nine hundred, so I start there, checking first for variations of her surname.
Tegan comes up on search two, her profile photo one of the two of them from the wedding; it looks to have only been a few months ago, which explains why she’s using both her married and maiden names still.
Alice and I have planned our dream wedding many times, the groom changing as often as our crushes were formed, but I always knew I wanted to keep my name.
Why wouldn’t I? It’s mine. I love it. I’ve worked hard to see it in bylines, although I admit, the idea of something formal, tangible, and legal that stakes a claim on my partner runs a visceral thrill through my veins.
I can see why Tegan would keep both.
Rose might not have any personal posts anymore, but her sister-in-law is full of them, including a lot of the two of them together.
It’s clear they get along well and were friends before Rose’s brother even came into the picture, and the more I scroll through Tegan’s posts, the more I see Rose’s comments and jokes. It makes me miss Alice even more.
Then my breathing stops.
It’s an innocuous photo, smoke rising off a brightly colored cocktail, tagged to a bar two states over. It’s not the bar, or the cocktail, or the caption that has me transfixed.
It’s Rose’s comment.
Peachee is back!!!
Then I see it again on a mirror selfie and again on a photo of the two of them in finery at the races.
That name … I’ve seen it. I know I have.
I scramble for the stack of papers I dismissed.
When it first appears, it feels like déjà vu. I’ve been staring at invoices for long enough now that I can’t really be sure if I saw this line already or if I’m simply imagining it.
But, no, there it is again, twenty-six pages later.
Forty-five minutes and two paper cuts later, I have enough evidence that I’m certain. Peachee Holdings, founded last month, with the address of a postbox and no other details.
The same company whose multimillion-dollar donation to the campaign is exactly what Sterling has had me looking for, and I almost missed it.
Cox was clever—I’ll give them that. Tying the money to a name that would implicate both Rose and Tegan means hitting two birds with one stone.
Cox is connected by the barest of threads, and outside of an explanation for where the money came from—a question I can immediately guess would be answered by claiming Rose embezzled it without his knowledge—his hands are clean.
“Fuck,” I whisper.
If we’re not careful about this, Cox won’t see a single fine, and we’ll destroy these women’s lives.
“What’s wrong?”
In a blink, Sterling is at my side, the spicy warmth of his cologne making my head swim. My vision fogs over while I picture him tearing off his shirt, no care for the buttons, and commanding me to taste.
“Mia?”
Fuck.
“I’ve found it. Look at this.”
I turn to Sterling to find him watching me. My heart is beating rapidly, fragile as butterfly wings under my skin. Our fingers brush as I pass the papers over, but he makes no move to look away, and I’m all too aware of the heat of him, drawing me in, as if this is where I’m meant to be.
Where he wants me.
“Thank you, Mia.”
I hardly dare to breathe, pinned by his gaze and the collective weight of every wish I’ve cast in his direction.
I’m overcome with the need to know, to see, what it would take to break through his restraint.
What he would do with all of that intensity if I asked.
Not that I’ll ever get the chance. I imagine he can read every thought as though it were written clear on my face, and his avoidance of me is as good of a sign as any that what I feel is one-sided. I drop my eyes, turning back to my desk and pushing my foolish hopes away.
* * *
This case is kind of intense.
I like it! I’m ready to get to the bank (go to 33)
go back (go to 10)