Total pages in book: 38
Estimated words: 35660 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 178(@200wpm)___ 143(@250wpm)___ 119(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 35660 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 178(@200wpm)___ 143(@250wpm)___ 119(@300wpm)
“Hi, you must be Sylvester’s mom. I’m Fawn Peterson, said woman in your son’s life. I’m sorry we haven’t met yet. We’ve been kind of dealing with one catastrophe after the other,” I try to lessen the blow, holding out my left hand to shake hers. Two more days until hopefully, I’m free to move around easier.
“Hello, dear. I’m Clara. I’d say I’m surprised, but catastrophe or not, Sly’s manners have never been the greatest, much to my chagrin. He does have a phone he can pick up.” I wince. She is not wrong. I keep my lips closed. What else can I say? She looks at my hand and ignores it, going in for a hug instead. “Welcome to the family, sweetheart. My friends tell me they’ve seen Sylvester walking around in the middle of the week, not working. Thank you for bringing my boy back to the life of the living instead of working,” she whispers in my ear. I’m instantly blinking back the tears. Clara is wrong; I didn’t bring him back to life. We brought each other back to life, him calming down on his workaholic ways and me finding my way while not being taken advantage of.
“Alright, alright, quit hogging my woman. I’m done for the day. You ladies want to have an early dinner, call dad, and see if he’ll meet us?” Sylvester places his hand around my lower back and bends to kiss his mother’s cheek; she does the same to his.
“Wow, someone is finally showing their manners. The answer is always yes. I’m suddenly parched and famished. We’ve got a lot to catch up on, too.” She pulls out her phone. I head to my desk to shut everything down and grab my purse, excited to spend time with Sly’s family.
“Alright, you don’t have to throw me under the bus. I’ve been rather busy, Mother.” The two of them tease one another while we get ready to leave. Something tells me our dinner is going to be full of excitement, much like how it would be with my own family.
TWENTY-FIVE
Sly
“Thanks for coming. I know you’ve had to travel a lot lately; not always easy with Amelie. This was too good for you not to be here. After our talk the other day, I called Jack Peterson, Fawn’s father. He works with private investigators in family court. I touched on what we spoke about on the phone.” What I didn’t do was go into detail, only telling him I got a lead, one that could make Wescott cry like a baby and give us both the retribution we want when it came to him hurting Fawn. Though, I’d still like to have an hour with him in a warehouse deep in the outskirts of town where no one knows, take my time using my fists on him, doing what he did to Fawn but on a grander scale. “Anyways, he let me know of a few business entities to look into. Wyatt did the rest, and here’s what we’ve found.”
“Fuck,” comes from Boston. He’s looking at the file each brother received. Parker grunts under his breath, while Ezra remains quiet, each of them reliving their own version of hell. Parker witnessed his father beating his mom at a young age until she finally got shot of him, giving the two of them a better life. Ezra spending more time in foster care in a not-so-loving environment is keeping him quiet. Shit, I hate to even think about what he went through.
“What’s the next plan of action?” There’s the Theo I know. He’s a doer, not a sit around and talk about shit with your dick in the dirt kind of man.
“Well, besides the picture you’re looking at, turn to the next page.” Wyatt’s digging unearthed up each and every escort he paid for. Most girls came out looking like they were put through the wringer—battered, bruised, some needing medical attention, and most walking away with hush money, never to be seen again within the Fire Bird Elite Dates business, who offered these women up without any protection. “You’ll see that while Boston’s money has dwindled, no longer accruing the interest it once gained, it’s Mrs. Wescott’s accounts that took the brunt of his addiction. We kept digging deeper. Campaign funding was piling in and then funneling out just as fast. Wyatt did the digging and realized his latest victim didn’t want the hush money. She wanted to hit the media, to make Wescott pay even if it meant being slandered with being called every name under the sun.” Jack Peterson is now representing her. Could Governor Wescott try and say there’s bias? Sure. He won’t, though. It’s one thing to be a bastard to all these women; it’s another entirely to take money away from your campaign funding, hitting Wescott where it hurts the most, in the public eye.