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“You wanted to see me?” she said, her voice raspy and her brown gaze jumping warily between the two of us.
“Yes.” Jak drew out his wallet and showed her his press pass.
She grimaced. “Fucking press. Man, I’ve done enough talking to you lot.”
She turned to go, but I reached out and stopped her. “We’re doing a story on your ex. We want to out him for the bastard he is.”
She sneered, obviously unimpressed by this bit of news. “He’ll wipe the floor with you. And then he’ll get his press buddies to complete the hatchet job.” She eyed Jak. “You, my friend, won’t even be able to get a job at McDonald’s afterwards.”
“Oh, I doubt that’ll happen,” Jak said calmly. “I’ve got more than a few friends of my own.”
She studied him for several more seconds, then drew up a chair and sat down. “I haven’t talked to you. Understand?”
We both nodded, and she relaxed slightly. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything you can tell us about your brief time with him. Who he associated with, what companies he had at the time, who his friends were, and what he really did to you and your family.”
Her smile was bitter. “That could take more time than I get for a break. And I know squat about his businesses.”
“Just tell us what you can.” I hesitated. “I’ll make it worth your while.”
She eyed me, distrust obvious, then shrugged and began talking. Her story proved to be more than a little harrowing—she’d barely been eighteen when she’d met Nadler, and had been attracted to both his power and his money—the same power and money that had all but destroyed her. Even Jak looked a little sickened by the end of it all.
“If you hated him so much, why not change your name?” I asked curiously. It’d be one of the first things I would have done had I been in her position.
Of course, if I’d been in her position, I probably would have shoved a hand into his chest and ripped his black heart out.
Jacinta grimaced. “Because ‘Nadler’ is easier to say than my maiden name—Gutierrez.”
“We’re talking about a man who did everything he could to ruin your life. Even if you hated your maiden name, you could have changed it to something else. Why keep his?”
Something flickered in her eyes. Shame, perhaps. “I kept it because it annoyed him.”
There was more to it than that, I thought, studying her. “Money.”
She glanced at me sharply. Jacinta Nadler, I suspected, had never been the innocent she portrayed herself to be.
“He paid you to keep it, didn’t he?” It was a guess, but I knew it was right.
She looked away. “I deserved it after what he put me through. And if keeping his name meant I got it, what harm is there?”
“But why would he want you to keep it?”
She snorted. “Why do you think? Men like that never like losing their possessions. At least this way, he retained the illusion of ownership.”
I wondered what other terms she’d agreed to. Wondered what had happened to the money. Surely she wouldn’t be working in a place like this if she still possessed it.
Jak said, “What about Nadler personally?”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Well, did he have any particular habits—”
She snorted. “Aside from smacking the shit out of me, you mean?”
He grimaced. “Yes.”
She frowned. “Not really. Although he did love polo. Used to play it every week.”
