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“Your team,” she repeated, brows furrowed. “What team? Like your employees?”
“Like my coworkers.”
“CEOs don’t really have coworkers.”
“This is separate from my family business.”
“Why would someone like you need a second job?” she asked, brows furrowing. “You’re ‘my-yacht-is-bigger-than-yours’ rich.”
“I wouldn’t say I needed it. At least not for the cash.” The mental release, however, was a different thing entirely.
“Bellamy,” she said, exhaling hard.
“Yeah, love?”
“You want me to trust you, right?” she asked.
“It would make all of this a lot easier, yes.”
“Then stop bullshitting me. Tell me the truth. Without all the fucking runaround. Who do you work for? Why? And why the hell were you at Adams’s house that night in the first place?”
They were all fair questions. And in this case, I had very little to lose since I already had her on the attempted murder. Why not give her what she wanted? If it got her to trust me, things would be much easier moving forward.
“Alright. Have you ever heard about Quinton Baird & Associates?” I asked.
“What, am I not a part of the rich inner circle?” she asked, rolling her eyes. “I know the names of all the so-called ‘fixer firms’ around here.”
“Okay. That makes it easier. I work for Quin.”
“You’re… you’re a fixer?” she asked, dubious. “I mean, aren’t you more likely, you know, the client of a fixer?”
“You’re not wrong. And before I worked for them, Quin had fixed some of my issues before. But he tried to get me to work for him for years.”
“As what? His playboy, ultra-rich secretary?” she said, rolling her eyes.
“As the team executioner.”
“Wait…what?” she asked, sounding a little airy.
“The executioner,” I repeated. “They call me in when there is someone they want killed.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head.
“Yes, love.”
“No. It makes no sense. You’re like… you’re like a headline in like Rich Guys Gone Wild magazine or something.”
“Shawn, baby, think about it for two minutes,” I suggested.
Her gaze raised, looking at my eyes, trying to find a lie there, but there was no lie to be found. “The scars,” she said, watching me for my reaction.
“Yeah, love, the scars,” I agreed, nodding.
“And you’re a trained fighter,” she added.
“Yes.”
“You’re… you’re ex-military in some way.”
“Yes.”
“But why?” she asked, shaking her head. “You were born with a silver spoon in your mouth. You had the whole world at your fingertips.”
“I had a dick of a father who didn’t like how I turned out, despite never lifting a hand to help raise me. He gave me a choice when I was about to turn eighteen. I could go into the military and ‘learn how to be a man,’ or I could forfeit my right to take over the family business. And to dip into the family fortune.”
“I mean, I can see how the military can help some people get their lives on track.”
“It can,” I agreed. I’d seen it time and again. With kids who had minor behavioral issues.
“But it didn’t for you?” she asked, picking up on what I wasn’t saying.
“Sometimes, when you go into the service, they give you personality tests to see where your strengths and weaknesses are.”
“Okay. Makes sense.”
“And sometimes those tests reveal some dark things about your psyche. Dark things that tell the men in charge that you’re capable of some really terrible things.”
“I kind of always thought black ops was, you know, a made-up thing to make action movies more interesting.”
“They’re not. They’re real. And they do things to you. Things that leave permanent marks. Inside and out. Even after you get back and get to your life again, that darkness is still there. And it needs an outlet.”
“So you started working for Quin?”
“That’s not exactly how it went, no. First I got a reputation for finding my own outlet.”
“I thought you weren’t going to mince words anymore. Your outlet… I’m assuming it was killing people.”
“It was,” I agreed, nodding. “In my defense, it was people who deserved it.”
“People like Brandon Adams?” Shawn asked, putting the pieces together.
“Yes, like Brandon Adams.”
“He raped a girl I knew,” Shawn admitted. “Melanie Franklin,” she added.
“Yes, he did. My coworkers were working on a deal between Franklin and Adams. It seemed to have all been squared away. But then Franklin backed out of it. Adams retaliated by having Melanie assaulted.”
“Fucking bastard,” Shawn hissed. “I’m kind of glad he didn’t die. I want another chance to have another go at him. Really drag it out the next time. So that was why you were there?” she asked, finally getting the full picture.
“Yes. There was no way the team was going to stand for that.”
“Good. I know fixer firms do a lot of shady shit, but I’m glad you have some morals.”
“You were there to kill Adams for what he’d done to Melanie?” I asked. “Was she a good friend of yours?”
“I, ah, I talked to her once. No, no. Twice.”
