AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Sometimes, I make my wishes known toone fucking guyin the legal system.” Mason’s expression is steely. “And I don’t see how it matters if Lily’s grandfatheristhe legal system. He’s manipulating it, too.”
I settle in against the pillows and look at the crown molding instead of directly at Mason.
“Uh-oh,” Gabriel sings. “I think he’s having an idea.”
“Get your pen and paper,” I tell him. “You’re going to want a record of this.”
The general speed of my thoughts is not helping.
“Well?” Gabriel asks, like he’s on a soap opera and we’re thirty seconds from a commercial break. “What is it?”
“All he did was push paper,” I say to the crown molding. “He probably took a bribe from Bettencourt, and Bettencourt probably sent it through an intermediary. Beau-Beau doesn’t get his hands dirty.”
Gabriel snorts, then bursts out laughing. It’s extremely difficult to keep my face stoic when he’s laughing like that.
“Oh, Christ,” he wheezes, stumbling into view. He’s trying to walk it off and failing. “That’s someone’s—oh, fuck. That’s someone’s—”
Even Mason has given up by this point and cracked a smile. He has an advantage, because he’s better at laughing silently.
“You can’t call him Beau-Beau,” Gabriel gasps. “He’s someone’s grandfather.”
“Grandpapa.”
“What?” he shrieks.
Mason shushes him harshly.
“Lily calls him Grandpapa.”
Gabriel covers his mouth with folded hands, looking like he’s ascended into religious ecstasy. “Okay. Wow. Okay.” He closes his eyes. Maybe heisgoing to do a prayer. It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing to happen in the last two weeks. “Jameson. Tell us the rest.”
I lift my chin. “If you’re finished.”
“I’m done.” His voice shakes.
“This guy’s not getting his hands dirty now. That was the rest. There’s no way he hired a hitman by himself. I doubt there’s a paper trail linking him to the cops.”
“Oh, fuck,” Mason says softly.
The smile dies off Gabriel’s face. “You think he’s working with an independent third party?”
“Mason tells his wishes to the prosecutor all the time. What’s to say there’s not a super-PAC of assholes doing whatever they think the judge’s bidding is?”
We’re all quiet for a minute.
“They could be anywhere,” I point out.
It’s not a comforting thought.
14
LILY
It turns out that Charlotte, who told me she wasMason’s wife,is actually a famous fashion designer. A little bit world-famous, butreallyfamous in New York and on the East Coast. I walked past ads for her clothes every day on my way to class at NYU and always thought they were classy and beautiful and probably too fashion to wear for my stint in law school and definitely too fashion for my serious prosecutorial aspirations.
And now she’s making my wedding dress.
Like, actually working on it while I stand on a pedestal in her atelier, which is on the floor below the penthouse.
