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Hearing steps nearing the study door, I look over. Bastian strolls in, his white-blond hair looking freshly bleached, dark eyebrows pinched together as he looks down at his laptop, holding it while he walks.
“I have some more intel on Governor Morrissey,” he mutters while plopping into the one-seater near me, his eyes still roving across the computer screen.
The Governor is Mayor Hawkins’ uncle. Nepotism at its finest. And also the reason why I’ve spent the last year cozying up to him. Hawkins is malleable and turns a blind eye to most of the illegal activities I partake in, but he’s also not a complete idiot.
As one would hope.
He has his eye on a chair in the Supreme Court and only a select few know how truly corrupt he is. And I have a feeling his dear ol’ uncle doesn’t know the extent of the bribes he receives on any given day.
Is that to say that Morrissey is a saint? Hardly. But it’s proving more difficult to pinpoint what angle to approach him with when his nephew isn’t allowing me into some select spaces.
I’ve been working on the long game. And Lenix might be the very key to unlock some previously locked doors. Hawkins knew my father, and knows who I am underneath the polish. But my public persona precedes me. And most of these men are stuck in decades long past, where a married man is inherently more trustworthy than if he’s single.
Sitting on the leather couch near Bastian, I watch him continue to type on his keyboard and wait for him to speak but it looks like he reached his talking quota for the day.
“And?” I bite out, kicking his shin with my winged-tipped shoe. “Are you going to tell me or just fucking sit there staring at your screen?”
Looking up, his eyes almost black and nearly lifeless, he stares at me for a long miserable beat. Probably the most reaction I’ll get from him. Fucking weirdo.
“He has a mistress here in Noxport. Pays for her condo downtown,” he finally says.
Well, well, well,thisI can use.
“Let me guess. Barely legal?” I say half amused, half disgusted.
“Yep.”
How painfully unoriginal. It’s always the most God-fearing ones out of the group too. Blackmailing the governor with this almost feels too easy. But I’m not above this kind of chess move. If he’s dumb enough to do it, I’m smart enough to use it against him. I just need to play my hand at the perfect time and place. So I’ll sit on this valuable tidbit of information until the timing is just right, then I’ll strike.
In the meantime I’ll use my other valuable chess piece—the queen.
Lenix is a shiny new toy I can finally play with. She’d castrate me if she ever heard me say that out loud. Doesn’t stop me from dragging my tongue over my teeth, my smile growing wider at the thought.
Bastian promptly stands up. “I’ll have the intel ready for you by this afternoon,” he says nearly incomprehensibly. He’s already closing his laptop when I realize I should inform him of my new… complications.
“Wait. I need to tell you something,” I sigh. Jesus fucking Christ. Why am I getting flustered?
Bastian doesn’t sit back down but studies me like a code he’s trying to decipher. “Does it have to do with Lenix staying in the bedroom down the hall?” he says flatly.
“You noticed?” My voice rising with surprise.
He rolls his eyes. “Or the fact that you’ve been married for the past two years?”
I choke on my tongue and stand up feeling suddenly awkward sitting there like a jackass while Bastian reads my horoscope or whatever the fuck you call this.
“You knew?” Is all I manage to say while raising an eyebrow.
He just shrugs his shoulders, the same unimpressed look he always carries around glued on his face. “You pay me to know this kind of shit.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Wasn’t my place to say something was it?”
It’s my turn to stare at him, admittedly a little dumbfounded.
“We’re not together,” I mutter, the words stumbling out awkwardly
“I don’t care,” he drawls, aloof as always.
