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“Always happy to be your knight in shining armor, my lady,” I grinned, waggling my eyebrows. To my delight, Lauren giggled at my antics.
“Well, I appreciate it,” she admitted, her mesmerizing eyes crinkling with her smile. They were already slanted, and when she let herself smile genuinely, they almost looked like they closed. I liked that she kept her eyes on me anyway. “I don’t know exactly what you said to him, but whatever it was, it had him looking like he was going to shit his pants. I’ll carry that expression with me forever now.”
“Yeah? Gonna pull it out when you have hard days? Remember the time your stuck-up asshat of a boss had his soul forcefully evacuated from his body by just a few words?” She chuckled as I started the car.
“Y’know, I think I just might,” she grinned. “Where are we going?”
Part of me wanted to play with her a little more, but I decided to let it lie. It was going to be hard not to cross the line between banter and flirting, I could tell.
“The Aria,” I answered instead. “We’ll be in a private niche, so we can talk freely.” Lauren’s eyebrows went up.
“Alright,” she agreed, sounding a little impressed. I puffed up at that just a bit. “I have to admit I’ve never been.”
“It’s usually fully booked,” I shrugged. “Not many people can get in last minute.”
Lauren scoffed, rolling her eyes with a smile as she adjusted one of her earrings. I never understood how girls just knew when one was about to fall out. “It was more because of my wallet, but yes, that too, I suppose.”
“What, all that fancy lawyer money, and you can’t get a good meal?” I asked, only half joking. Aria wasn’t the most expensive restaurant we owned by any means—the most popular, sure, but that was partly due to the relatively low prices for luxury dining. Someone with a salary like hers should be able to eat there without a problem. Was it because she hadn’t won any cases yet?
Lauren just shrugged self-consciously, as if realizing what she’d just said. “Oh, just—student loans, is all. Takes a significant bite out of my check each month.” I hummed, nodding my head in understanding. While student loan debt wasn’t something I would ever personally understand, I was no stranger to how desperate it could make people. A lot of our new recruits were joining to pay off their college education, and being a well-respected mafia soldier could pay just as well or better than being a defense attorney in some cases.
“Put yourself through law school, huh?” I asked, pulling out into the street. “Impressive.”
“Thank you,” she said honestly. “I worked my ass off in high school to get the scholarships I did, so my loans aren’t as bad as they could have been.” I smiled. I liked that she took the compliment gracefully, but without undermining her achievements—most people never quite struck that balance.
It was interesting, but I was starting to get the feeling that she was someone who, for all her confidence, wanted and needed to be praised.
I’d keep that in mind.
Chapter Ten
RICHARD
By unspoken agreement, we didn’t start talking until we were seated in one of The Aria’s many small private nooks. Well, we didn’t talk about business, anyway.
By the time we ordered, I’d learned that Lauren wanted to open her own firm within the next five years—an ambitious timeline for a woman who was working on her very first official case—and that of the senior partners, Mr. Carter was the most openly hostile to her.
I offered up a little information about my family, particularly about my younger sister Selene, who was in law school as we spoke.
I thought it was funny that my brother and sister both had had more freedom of choice than I had regarding what they studied, but Selene, especially, who could have learned anything she wanted, chose law. She couldn’t be directly involved with the family business, but clearly, she wasn’t about to sit around and slouch.
I’d hoped that by bringing up my sister would allow me to glean a little something about Lauren’s own family. I found myself interested in knowing more about her, but even though she talked happily about my family, I noticed she expertly avoided any mention of hers.
Sadly, I’d have to let that sleeping dog lie for now.
“So, what is it that got you so excited to talk to me?” I asked. “You said you found something?” Immediately, Lauren switched into business mode.
“I did,” she said, sitting straighter. “I have a connection to a technical genius, and she was able to locate the video of the police. Based on the time stamps, they arrived even before you did.”
My eyebrows flew up. “We got there with the ship,” I said.
Lauren nodded.
“You really managed to get bodycam footage?”
“That’s right,” she smirked. “The cams Chicago PD uses have a constant memory buffer of 90 seconds, so those seconds prior to the camera being turned on are saved once the camera is actually turned on. A lot of cops forget that, including the ones that made your father’s arrest, because they said plenty of things in that minute and a half that they shouldn’t have.”
“Such as?” I asked.
