“Stand down,” I said to him as if he were a threat to me. “Drug trafficking is an insane accusation. I appreciate you stopping by my office, pretending to be here on a goodwill mission, but my attorney isn’t present. You can either wait for me to call him, or you can leave. Oh, and if you could tell the reporters hanging around outside that I didn’t do jack shit, that would be fantastic.”
Standing up behind my desk, I stuck my hand out.
I was guessing he’d leave at the word attorney and I’d shake his hand, sending him on his pitiful way. Poor sap, he earned shit money doing civic duty. But he wasn’t going to win this one. I’d greased enough county officials’ palms to learn about the skeletons he had in his closet.
I’m guessing that’s why he made this little visit—to see what I had in my back pocket.
No one bested me at poker. Not to mention, I had a lot of issues, but shipping and receiving drugs certainly wasn’t one of them. Whoever planted that shit and set me up was going to pay . . . big fucking time.
The idiot, I mean the district attorney, continued to stand there, staring me down.
Although I’d perfected the tough-guy outer shell, I really wanted to slump down in my chair. But I knew better than to let my composure crumble. I’d been groomed all my life to keep my poker face securely fastened on.
Of course, I’d been faced with a shit-ton of problems over the years, but my lack of business integrity was a new one. Not my personal integrity, though. That had been attacked for years, although not in the newspapers.
“So, you admit that two years ago, you were—”
“That’s not why you’re here. Now, if you don’t mind wrapping this up, I have a business to run, and I need you to leave.” I stood a little taller, puffing out my chest out as I stared down at the short, bald district attorney.
“Mr. Prescott, it’s not going to be that easy. Someone has to take the fall here, and it’s not going to be me with a dead-end case. I know you’ve got yourself some hotshot lawyer who has you walking around like a free man, but I’m telling you, it’s not for long.”
“You should’ve never searched my factory, but you were in such a hurry to take me down. The rushed search-and-seizure bullshit you tried, for real? But, honestly, I’m done with you, Myers. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. And next time, make an appointment before you show up.”
That’s basically how I’d spent the last two weeks. Telling every Tom, Dick, and Harry that I didn’t do shit. But the DA? The sucker was ballsy as hell showing up at my office like that.
Worse, as a condition of my bail, I was restricted to staying in Reno, where I have my office, and Carson City, where I now live. Originally, it was a vacation place, but since the divorce, it served as my full-time humble abode. No more weekend trips to Santa Monica or Vegas for entertainment or stress relief.
I’d had to let go the private investigator who’d worked for me for years, so I no longer had his weekly report. That was my own freaking doing. Two fucking weeks, and no updates on her other than my own nighttime stalking, which had proven unfruitful.
I was crawling out of my skin from lack of information, but I couldn’t risk keeping official tabs on her for all these years seeping into this, or any of my other legal affairs. If questioned, the investigator would be bound by law to admit that I hired him to look after the love of my life, so I cut ties. The less I had to do with him, the better.
Just thinking about all of it made me laugh out loud—again.
I’d been tethered to this stupid town since I came back the summer of my senior year. Yeah, I’d left again to go to business school, but guilt and family politics brought me back to a place I’d come to despise. Now I was really stuck here, and the only thing that actually made it all worthwhile . . . well, I had to let go of that too.
You’d think it would finally be time for me to get what I deserved, but it wasn’t working out that way.
Who the fuck is importing drugs through my company?
I leaned back in my chair, propping my feet up on the desk, and made a mental list of my enemies. I didn’t think I had many.
Milly, maybe? But she was a stay-at-home-mom, not a drug lord.
After wasting most of Friday afternoon thinking and plotting what I’d do when I found out who used my warehouse for their illegal operations, I went home and poured myself a whiskey on the rocks.
The house felt emptier than usual. I should have relished the quiet, but it ate away at my soul, nibbling at every cell in my body.
As I watched the ice melt and condensation drip from my tumbler onto the couch, melancholy set in. Typically, I’d tamp those feelings down with a young woman and a long night.
Not tonight, though.
Tonight, I cuddled up with my good friend, Jack.
Sometime in the middle of the night, I’d taken myself up to bed.
The next morning, I woke up, naked and twisted in the sheets, a burning pain in my chest and an even bigger ache in between my legs. My morning wood throbbing, I stumbled into the bathroom. Desperately trying to keep my dick in line with the toilet, I held my length in one hand and braced the other on the wall in front of me.
Neither a shower nor a double shot of espresso brought me out of my funk.
For fuck’s sake, I was an innocent man until proven guilty . . . that’s how I got dressed and ready for
