“You…you’re blackmailing me.”
“All you have to do is dismiss the cases against me and my cousins, and no one else will ever see those videos except me.”
The club doesn’t allow phones, so how the hell did he sneak his in? And based on the angle of the other videos, he had to have installed a camera in the ceiling.
But then, who checks the security team? As an employee, he’d have time to sneak into the room and plant the device without anyone else knowing.
It wasalla set up.
Even the night before. I just wonder how he knew I’d come back…
“You planted the man in the alley so you could swoop in at just the right moment!”
“No.” The way his jaw ticks and his face goes from smug to angry in half a second is scary. “That wasn’t me.”
“Then how did you just so happen to be there at the exact second he shot at me?” I exclaim in disbelief. “Were they blanks?”
“No, the bullets were real. And I was there because I’ve been watching you for weeks. When you left the club, I left too.”
Watching me? “You mean you’ve beenstalkingme?”
A shiver races down my spine at the thought of him following me without me knowing for weeks. I look up at the ceiling in my bedroom, wondering if he planted a goddamn camera in here too.
“This is the first time I’ve been in your apartment,” he remarks, knowing exactly what I was searching for.
I feel so exposed, so ashamed and angry, really fucking angry. I throw his phone at him so fast it smacks him in the nose before he can grab it out of the air. “Get out, or I will put a bullet in your goddamn head!” I yell as I use both hands to hold the gun in a stronger grip.
Glaring at me, he rubs the bridge of his nose. “That fucking hurt. And was completely unnecessary.”
“GET OUT!” I scream loud enough for the entire building to hear.
“Are you gonna dismiss the cases?” He’s still reclined in my bed but with his arms lowered in his lap in case I throw more shit at him.
No.
The word pops into my head because it’s my first instinct to not bend to the pressure.
I knew it wouldn’t be easy to be the District Attorney of New York City, but I was determined to make the city a safer place by locking up the criminals. I swore to myself I’d never take any bribes or do any other shady shit. The guilty should all be treated the same.
“You’re really going to throw your career down the drain for three little gun charges?” the asshole asks. “I mean, you’re obviously a gun owner as well. It’s all about personal safety, right? Why should we be denied that right just because the city says we can’t carry a weapon?”
Dammit.
The choice between my career and letting three cases go…I want to say screw it; I’ll give it up and go into private practice.
But the thought of my parents seeing those videos, of the entire world finding out what I did to a criminal, what I let him do to me, is too shameful.
“Fine,” I grit out.
“Really?” the smug bastard sits up and smirks, causing the sheets to fall to his lap and display the tattoo across his chest and chiseled abs. It should be illegal for evil men to look so good.
“Yes, but only if you get the fuck out, right now!”
“Mmm,” he mutters before he throws the covers off and climbs out of my bed, revealing every bare inch of himself. I try not to glance down, but my eyes lower to the long, hard inches I’m, unfortunately, intimately familiar with already.
He comes to a stop in front me, close enough that there’s only a few inches between us. I hold my ground, refusing to back up a step or show fear which means the muzzle of my gun presses into the center of his chest.
He’s a brave bastard; I’ll give him that. And he’s incredibly aroused by his blackmailing. His erection would be touching me if it wasn’t standing straight up against his abdomen.
