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“Coming!” Danielle’s voice couldn’t have sounded less defensive, less suspicious; she knew that Victor was supposed to have his meeting with Brad only a little bit before, and she knew that they would be discussing her work—so Victor told himself that either the woman he loved was truly innocent of any of the suspicions his lawyer had against her, or she was a consummate actress.
The door opened a moment later and Victor was face-to-face with Danielle. She’d done something new with her hair, which now hung in long twists that fell to her shoulders, and she was dressed in—he thought—possibly Chanel. She was certainly using the stipend he’d given her to good effect. “That was fast,” she said, smiling at him.
“It was a quick meeting,” Victor agreed. “I wanted to talk to you really quickly about something Brad brought up.” Danielle nodded and let him into her office.
“I’m surprised you didn’t buzz me to come over,” she said. Victor shrugged.
“I wanted to talk over here,” he said. “We can go over to my office in a bit, if you want.” Danielle raised an eyebrow at that before sitting down on the couch in her office, looking up at him.
“This sounds serious, then,” she observed.
“Brad was looking through some of the donations, and he found out that some of them seem to be linked to Bey family members,” Victor said quickly. Danielle’s eyes widened, and Victor knew—knew without any shadow of doubt—that no one could mimic surprise that well.
“I’ll fucking kill him,” Danielle said.
“Who? Brad?” Victor looked at her in surprise of his own.
“No! No—of course not,” Danielle replied. “Sam.”
“So, I was right to assume you knew nothing about this,” Victor said, keeping his voice carefully neutral. He did believe it—but he also wanted to calm Danielle down; she seemed more agitated by the disclosure than he would have expected.
“I should have triple-checked the things I was donating to,” Danielle said. “I had thought that Sam had given up on the idea because I’m an idiot.” She shot him a bitter look. “I actually thought Sam had my best interests at heart.”
“He’s in the business,” Victor pointed out. “I don’t blame you for not giving every single thing you contributed to the harshest look you could.” He sat down next to her and took Danielle’s hands in his.
“That’s just it: I should have,” Danielle countered. “I should have known Sam would pull something like this.”
“Do you know for sure Sam’s even involved?” Victor gently said. “After all, it could just be a coincidence.” Danielle sighed.
“I don’t think it is,” she said. “He knew that I was working with charity stuff for you. He wanted you to invest in things. He knew I wasn’t going to give anything to you unless I was 100% certain that it wasn’t related to ‘family’ operations, and even then, I might not.” Danielle groaned and took her hands from him, bringing them up to her face. “I can’t believe I actually thought he wanted my safety to be a priority.”
“He’s your brother, of course you believed him,” Victor said, reaching out to her slowly. He wanted Danielle to have the chance to pull away if she didn’t want comfort, or physical contact.
“I should have known better though,” Danielle insisted. “I should have known that he would pull some behind-the-scenes shit like this, and not just come to me directly when he thought I might turn him down.”
“We don’t know that he set this up,” Victor countered. Danielle accepted his touch, but he could feel her trembling underneath it, as if there were an electrical current thrumming through her. “We don’t even know it was him who set you up to do this.”
“I don’t think it was some kind of crazy coincidence,” Danielle told him. She sighed, and he saw—for the first time since they’d met, months before—that there were tears in her eyes. The strong woman who hadn’t flinched or hesitated in leaving the club in the midst of a raid was on the verge of actively crying over finding out her brother might have put her in a position to endanger her boss’ legitimacy.
She could—if it were a different situation—lose her job over this. Of course, she’s emotional, Victor thought. But then, he countered himself: no. It isn’t the prospect of losing her job, or even losing me, that she’s upset about. It’s that her brother could do this to her. That he could put her at risk like this.
“We don’t even know that it’s a scheme, first of all,” Victor said gently. “It could be a legit charity situation.” Danielle snorted.
“What are the odds of that?” Victor smiled slightly.
“Nikolai has legit charities,” he pointed out. “Maybe the Bey family has a few too. You know these families like to generate some good will towards them if only so they can keep people from testifying against them.” Danielle sighed.
“I just don’t trust it. And now I can’t trust anything I look into for you to donate to—and on top of it, you might get in trouble. And if you get in trouble…” Danielle shook her head, not finishing the sentence.
“If I get in trouble I have a lawyer whose entire pay is based on his ability to get me out of trouble,” Victor told her firmly. He thought for a moment. “But I don’t think I’m wrong here. You probably want to confront your brother about this, right?” Danielle met his gaze for a moment and he could see her thinking about it.
“I do,” she said finally. “I need to know if he did this on purpose, and if he did...then he doesn’t really care about me, does he?”
“I don’t think it’s that he doesn’t care about you,” Victor said. “I think it’s more likely that he doesn’t see why it’s a problem for you.”
“I told him why, though,” Danielle insisted. “So he knows.” Victor gave her hand a squeeze and saw more tears leak free of Danielle’s eyes. She took a deep breath.
“What do you want to do? I am behind you—but I want you to think it through completely before you do whatever it is.” Danielle licked her lips and Victor saw her expression firm up as she thought about it.
