65. Cassandra Walker
“How did you get these?” Edmund barked at me after the video ran its course
I held his gaze, refusing to flinch under the cold steel of his rage.
“My source wishes to remain anonymous.”
“We need to turn this evidence over to the police,” Vivian said immediately.
Edmund’s lips pursed, and I could tell he was clearly agitated by the suggestion.
“We have to, Edmund,” Vivian repeated firmly. “These girls are minors. It falls under the mandatory reporting law. We can’t just drop the man and bury this. If it gets out, we’re fucked.”
Nolan scoffed next to me, clearly enraged that the partners were putting the firm before the reverend’s victims.
“Why the fuck would we bury this?” he snapped. “He’s raping these children!” Nolan shouted, his face turning red with fury. “What if it were your daughter in one of these videos?”
Edmund paled, and for a moment I thought he might hit Nolan for even suggesting such a thing.
“Enough, Mr. Cross,” Vivian snapped. “Obviously, we’re reporting this. It’s just… we need to be very careful here. There’s… complications that the two of you aren’t aware of.”
Oh?
My monster’s ears pricked, and I cocked my head to the side, eyeing Vivian curiously.
“What complications?” I asked, and Edmund looked almost ashamed for a moment.
“When the reverend first approached us, we were… hesitant to accept his case for the very reasons the two of you have previously voiced. However, when it became clear that we were on the fence, Mr. Sterling started… dropping names.”
‘This is very interesting,’ my monster hummed, and I almost outwardly nodded in agreement.
“What names?” Nolan asked, sounding just as suspicious as I was feeling.
Vivian downed the rest of her martini before setting her empty glass on the table in front of her.
“He mentioned he had a close relationship with Victor White.”
What?!
My mouth dropped open in shock before I had a chance to school my face.
“The fucking attorney general?” I asked, completely taken aback.
Vivian nodded gravely. “The implication was that it would be in our best interest to keep the reverend happy, lest we find ourselves on the receiving end of an investigation.”
“What the fuck does some megachurch leader have that would put him in the same room as the attorney general?”
But even as Nolan said the words out loud, all four of us seemed to quickly put the pieces together.
We all glanced down at my now dark phone, which had several videos of the reverend grooming and sexually assaulting young girls on it.
It wasn’t a stretch to believe that if the reverend felt comfortable enough throwing Victor White’s name around, it was because he had something on the man…
And considering what we knew about the reverend, it was easy to come to the conclusion that Victor might be involved in whatever sick ‘program’ Sterling was running.
If the attorney general was involved in this, that meant whatever I’d just stumbled upon was much bigger than I’d originally thought, and I would need to let Vox know before I moved forward with my plan to get rid of the reverend for good.
I needed to figure out just how deep all this went, and quickly, before more people got hurt.
“Well, regardless of his connections, we still need to report this. Not even the attorney general could easily wipe a case with clear video evidence like this. Not without a great deal of public backlash and speculation,” Nolan pointed out, and Vivian nodded.
“Indeed. It would appear our hands are tied.”
“This is a nightmare,” Edmund muttered, getting up to make himself a drink. “An absolute fucking nightmare.”
“You think this is a nightmare? Imagine how all those little girls are feeling!” Nolan growled, glaring at Edmund like he’d lost all respect for the man.
Edmund sighed, and suddenly, he didn’t look like the powerful, untouchable man I’d spent my career looking up to. He just looked tired.
“It’s not that I’m not sympathetic. I am. But this could ruin us,” he said. “You both want to make partner? Well, there needs to be a firm for you both to be partners of.”
Nolan didn’t reply, and I found myself reaching out to place a hand on his clenched fist in an effort to soothe him. He jumped slightly and shot me a surprised look, which I returned with a soft smile.
“Relax, dearest,” Vivian said to Edmund with a wave of her hand.
“What matters is Mrs. Walker was able to dig this up before opposing counsel could blindside us with it in court. We can draft a termination of representation letter to Sterling, then release a statement to the press announcing that, due to new evidence, we can no longer represent the reverend in good faith.” She stood up, smoothing out her pantsuit brusquely before sliding her bag over her shoulder.
She looked pensive for a minute, then continued.
“We have leverage now that we didn’t have before, thanks to Cassandra, and frankly, I’m glad to have a reason to publicly distance ourselves from this case.
Once the press release is out, I think we should throw a fundraiser.
Perhaps we can donate proceeds to a foundation that supports survivors of sexual assault as a way of giving back to the community. ”
Edmund gave Vivian a relieved smile before taking a sip of his scotch.
“I think that’s a wonderful idea, Viv.” He grinned, and while I was annoyed that they were clearly only throwing this fundraiser as a PR stunt to paint the firm in a more favorable light, I supposed this was really the best-case scenario.
I had what I wanted.
I wouldn’t need to represent that fucking asshole in court, and I could spend the time I would have wasted building a case for him carefully planning his death.
“Well, it seems my EA has a busy week ahead of her. Cassandra? If Alyssa has some bandwidth, do you think she could support Sophie with planning the fundraiser? I’d like to get it organized as quickly as possible to proactively combat any negative press this entire ordeal might kick up.”
I nodded, knowing that Alyssa would actually love to be assigned a task like this. That woman loved event planning, and without the reverend’s case on my plate, it would clear up both our calendars quite a bit.
“Sure. I’ll see if she has some availability.”
Vivian smiled brightly. “Excellent! Once we have the details ironed out, I’d like you both to attend if you can. Cassandra, you should bring that lovely wife of yours. I’d love a chance to finally meet her.”
Despite the insane emotional roller coaster that this day had become, my stomach warmed at Vivian’s decision to include partners at the fundraiser.
Both my monster and I preened at the thought of parading Theo around on my arm and making sure the entire fucking world saw that she belonged to us.
Plus, it meant I was going to get to dress her up.
I’d only ever seen her in gym clothes and that one off-the-rack suit she’d worn to our wedding.
Oh my god. I couldn’t wait to put her in Dior… Or maybe Tom Ford!?
The possibilities were endless.
Fuck. She was going to look so damn good.
My mouth was watering just thinking about it.
I smiled at Vivian and nodded.
“We’d love to attend,” I replied politely as I prepared to leave as well.
“Yeah, sure. I’ll be there, too,” Nolan muttered, though he was clearly still feeling a little salty.
He barely looked at Edmund on his way out, and the older man sighed, mumbling something to himself about early retirement.
“I’ll talk to him,” I said, giving Edmund and Vivian a meaningful look. “He’s just a little shaken up. Give him time.”
Edmund nodded, pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation.
“I don’t understand why people can’t just leave the fucking kids alone. Jesus Christ. It feels like every day there’s another story about some rich asshole out there touching kids. That video is going to haunt me until the day I die.”
Fucking same, Ed. Fucking same.
Obviously, I didn’t say that out loud. Instead, I just nodded in agreement and turned to leave.
What a long fucking day.
“Cassandra?” Vivian called, and I glanced back at her, doing my best to keep my face devoid of any emotion.
Vivian smiled at me. “Good work. I knew he was hiding something from us. The initiative you showed here may have saved us from a PR nightmare we might have never recovered from.”
I lifted a shoulder, both unimpressed yet unsurprised by her parting words.
“Anything for the firm,” I replied dryly before following Nolan out to help him with the termination letter I was sure he was already drafting up.
Once that was done, I had my work cut out for me.
I needed to ask Vox to figure out how involved the attorney general really was with the reverend’s church. I needed to understand just how deep this went.
Knowing how many cops, judges, and public officials Cal’s old boss from Apex had on his payroll, I wasn’t naive enough to believe it was impossible that the reverend was involved in some sort of human trafficking operation that just hadn’t surfaced yet.
I needed more information before I made a move. So, unfortunately, I would need to wait before I got to kill anybody.
But I would get him.
Something about all this just felt so brutally personal, and I was so tired of fighting the bloodlust I’d been burying deep inside me for the majority of my life.
My monster paced its cage in anticipation as I imagined all the ways I could make that man scream before I finally allowed him to die.
I smiled as I made my way to Nolan’s office, my blood red heels clicking on the marble floor, as if counting down the seconds leading up to the end of Reverend Sterling’s pathetic life.
He may be a monster, but so was I.
And I was a much more dangerous monster than he was.