Chapter 7
SAMAIRA
T he files that Dominic gave me on Sophie were quite thorough.
There were transcripts from Sophie’s conversation with the cops, the medical reports of her injuries, and the tiny morsel of findings from the private detective he’d hired.
There was also information on Sophie’s life before the incident.
The Park family was among Manhattan's richest. Per my quick search on the internet, Dominic’s father had passed on his mantle to Dominic eight years ago, right after Dominic turned thirty. He’d built the company into the billion-dollar establishment it is today.
I sat in the Den, spreading all the papers and the laptop on the large couch with Shadow lying at my feet on the floor. We’d gone out for a little walk when I woke up since both of us needed some fresh air.
I’d started researching and surfing through the materials as soon as we were back, which was still pretty early in the morning.
Tara and I were working out last night when I received that call from Dominic. I worked out twice a day and preferred the quiet of the night. Tara also preferred as few people as possible around her when she exercised because of her scars.
I was in the middle of my deadlift set when Dominic called.
Tara’s eyebrows reached her scalp, and a smile tugged at the corner of her lips when I dropped my weights right in the middle of my set and grabbed the ringing phone.
I was so lost in conversation with him that I completely lost track of what I was doing.
One minute, I was giving Tara the finger for laughing at me, and the next, I was sprawled on our couch in the Den, sipping my milkshake.
As if that wasn’t enough, my mouth just chose to whisper out my name to him before my mind could grab the reins of the conversation. To top it all off, I’d drifted off to sleep on this cursed couch and woken up with my phone plastered to my cheek.
I blamed the couch for last night’s malfunction. It was like sitting on a cloud. Anybody would fall asleep on it after they’d exercised like a machine.
It was definitely not the soothing, gruff timbre of Dominic’s voice that put me in a dreamlike state. Absolutely not.
I shook my head, pulling myself back to the present, and focused on going through the file while sipping my coffee right on this cloudlike couch.
I was reading through Sophie’s medical report—the sheer number of injuries that had been inflicted upon the woman made my skin blaze hot with rage—when the door to the Den pushed open.
Shadow immediately jumped up and ran to the door to welcome Lena with his barks and kisses. She laughed and dropped to her knees to give him cuddles.
Lena was the founder, leader, and mother of the Wildcats.
I was the first person she took in as a member—more like, I hounded her to the point of extreme exasperation until she agreed to train me and let me help her save other women.
She gave purpose to my life when I’d lost everything.
She was not just my savior but also my best friend and was currently sporting deep frown lines between her eyebrows.
Once she’d given Shadow a sufficient amount of love, she plopped on the couch next to me, dropping her purse on the coffee table.
I looked down at the file in my hand and pretended to read. “You better stop frowning like that, or you’ll have that line permanently etched between your eyebrows. FYI, it ain’t pretty.”
“Fuck you, bitch. I’m the hottest shit out here.”
I scoffed. “Sure you are.”
She truly was. In her bold red suit over a black lace corset, her matching red pants, her short hair styled to perfect waves, and her six-inch high heels, she was a lethal beauty.
Her Japanese heritage endowed her with the skin of an angel and the discipline of a ninja.
She was one of the fittest women I knew and could beat any of us in a fight despite being nearly a decade older than the remaining three Wildcats. She was almost six years older than me.
Her parents own a fighting gym in downtown Manhattan, a thirty-minute subway ride from our bar in Brooklyn. She grew up learning how to fight—karate and the naginata being her strength—and boy did she give us hell while training us.
She also dressed like a boss. Her shirts and pants never had a wrinkle, her accessories were always on point, and her custom-tailored suits could rival Dominic’s. She kept her hair at shoulder length and always wore makeup that was applied to perfection. She was a powerhouse all by herself.
She pulled out her thick notebook and started clicking her pen, a telltale sign of her gearing up to talk about something unpleasant .
“Just spit it out, Lena.”
She rolled her eyes and looked at me. “I know you took on Sophie Park’s case, but I want to make sure you’re okay handling it. It's a bit too close to home for you. We help people but not at the cost of our own trauma.”
I looked down at my calloused hands. They once belonged to a girl who dreamed of dancing and acting on a stage.
A girl who had soft hands, shiny black hair, and dreams bigger than the ocean.
A girl who died thirteen years ago when she turned nineteen.
“We help and fight for women because of our trauma. Every punch I land on a fucker’s face, every dick I chop off, every life I take, it’s because of my history.
Does this case hit a little too close to home?
Yes. But that just makes me more determined. ”
Lena nodded. “And it isn’t because of a certain smoke show in a suit?”
I snorted at her description. “He is pretty. But no. A pretty face doesn’t make me rash.”
Her lips curled at the corners, her eyes shining with mirth. “So only impulsive, then?”
I sighed. No denying that. I was impulsive when I accepted the case, just like I was impulsive last night.
I could have ignored the call. I could have kept the call short and professional.
But both times that Dominic Park had talked to me, my brain had melted into a puddle of illogical goo. I needed to get myself sorted.
With a loud groan, Lena got up from the couch and shouted out loud, “Team meeting, ladies. Conference room, stat.”
She bent down to give some more love to Shadow, cooing at him. “You like that, baby? Yes, you do. Now, go call your mommy Tara, and I’ll give you a few more rubs. Yes, yes, I will.”
Shadow gave an excited yip and ran toward Tara’s room, now barking loudly .
Our Den occupied two subbasement levels, complete with three bedrooms, a large conference room, a kitchen, a large yet cozy living room, an interrogation room, and a fully equipped medic room. If we all chose to leave our own places, we could just all live here.
For a while, we actually did.
But we all needed sunlight and windows, as well as some personal space. Now, we just slept here when we were too deep into a case, too drunk, or simply too lazy to go home. Which, I suppose, meant we ended up sleeping here most days of the week.
I grabbed myself a fresh cup of coffee and carried it with Sophie’s files to the conference room.
Lena had already taken a seat and was looking through her thick notebook.
Naomi entered the conference room looking as fresh as a daisy.
Her dark skin glowed under the warm light of our conference room, and she wore a maroon vest with white pants.
She seemed to have even gotten a haircut because her curls were freaking bouncing.
“Anything special today, Doc? A date, perhaps?” I asked, placing my coffee and the files on the table and taking a seat beside her.
She scoffed. “Nope. After the long-ass procedure of getting those four losers to survive, I treated myself to some self-care. No more bloodshed today, Sami. I’m not ruining my cute vest. I’m going to organize my clinic today, see some patients, then treat myself to a nice bottle of wine in the evening. ”
Lena instantly piped in, “Noted, Doc. You deserve it.”
Tara and Sloane arrived with their coffees and took a seat. Tara was still in a black sweatshirt and was half asleep, her half mask in place covering her scarred side, while Sloane wore loose blue denim with a cute yellow crop top.
“Looking good, Sloane,” I said. That girl loved to have her efforts appreciated. And I made sure to do it as often as I could.
A bright smile lit up her face, and she pressed a finger to her cheek in a cute manner. “Thanks, Sami.”
I shook my head at her antics and sipped my coffee.
“All right, everyone. Let’s get started,” Lena said. “Tara, please pull up the schedule and our database.”
Everyone turned serious, and Tara went from drowsy to alert in the blink of an eye.
The screen displayed a list of our clients, sorted by the person who had taken the lead on the case, the crime committed against them, the date they came to us, and important dates to note, such as whether they have an ongoing case or a pending police hearing.
“First up, Monica.” Lena turned to Tara for the status update.
Tara leaned forward in her seat, dropping her elbows on the table as she looked at the screen.
“The perpetrator, also her husband, is roaming free. Monica wants him out of the picture since he also started beating their young daughter. He threatened to kill the daughter if she ever involved the cops. So this is going to be a quick and silent affair.”
“Does the guy have any family we need to be worried about?” Lena asked.
Tara shook her head. “A deadbeat father who lives in California. I went through the phone records and emails, and there’s been no contact between the two in the past eight years.”
“Perfect. How many of us do you need for the extraction and execution?”