Page 78 of Worth of Waste

“We can talk about this,” the agent said across from him, “all of these charges—”

Nope, he wasn’t playing that game, either.

“Get my lawyer.”

It was his mantra.

Dino was sticking to it.

“You’re going to take twenty-five years—probably more—for what?”

Loyalty.

Honor.

Respect.

He’d take it for a lot of things because that was just what made men did.

Except he wasn’t going to take it at all because he had his whole life waiting for him across the city. It had just taken him a long damn time to find her.

“I’ll wait in a holding cell until my lawyer gets here,” Dino said.

The agent scowled.

That was that.

Karen

THE soft knock on the studio door had Karen turning away from the toddler dressed up in her very best dress. The girl’s mother went to distract the child as Karen asked for a minute of privacy, and excused herself from the room.

Her boss waited as Karen put her camera safely away and came out to join her in the hallway. Unfortunately, the woman wasn’t wearing her usual smile. It was the first obvious sign that something wasn’t right.

“What’s up?” Karen asked. “Something wrong?”

She liked her job, for the most part. Photography was her thing—she took a great deal of pride in it. She didn’t get to freelance as much as she used to, but frankly, it didn’t make her as much money as the standard family shoots that the studio provided did.

She was still holding a camera, though.

She was still taking pictures.

Karen figured that was the most important part.

“I don’t know, maybe you could tell me if there’s something wrong,” her boss said.

Karen’s brow furrowed. “I’m not sure what you mean. I’ve been working this session for a half an hour now. The mother wanted the nature backdrops.”

“No, not that. You have a visitor.” Then, her boss frowned, her voice lowering as she added, “If you’re in some kind of trouble, Karen, I need to know.”

What?

The confusion on her face must have been enough of an answer for her boss, because the woman only nodded.

“I’ll finish the session—the detective is waiting in the main room.”

Oh, fuck.

Somehow, Karen managed to keep her composure, but barely. As her boss said, the detective—the same one that had approached her months earlier—was sitting on the leather couch, sipping from a cup of to-go coffee.