I grin, still blushing.
“Fiona!” she shrieks. “You bad girl!”
“Zoey—”
“Tell me! Did you finally…” she wags her brows. “You know.”
I groan as the blush blooms hot on my face. “It’s not like…” I bite my lip, grinning. Zoey squeals next to me.
“Yeah, I’m gonna need details.”
“That is never happening.”
“Oh come on! Fiona, just—”
“Fine! Okay? Another time?” I lie. “Can we get back to getting him out of police custody?”
Her face turns serious. “Right, sorry. Okay, just tell me what you need me to do.” She frowns. “Is it anything illegal?”
“No.” I quickly shake my head. “I just need your text messages.”
She furrows her brow. “Um… okay?” Zoey glances around outside the windows. “Hey, we’re in your neighborhood.”
“When you told me about my dad texting you…”
She turns back, her mouth open. “Whoa, you’re not…” She blinks. “Damn, Fiona. This is cold.”
“I’m out of options,” I mutter. “And he did what he did.”
Zoey scrunches her face. “C’mon, Fiona. You really want to go there?”
“Yeah, I do.”
She frowns.
“Was that really when you were seventeen, Zoey?” I ask quietly.
She looks away. “Yeah.”
It’s disgusting, but I also know it’s the bullet I need.
“Still have those texts?”
She nods. “Yeah. I back up everything constantly. You know that.” She turns to me. “You’re not really doing what I think you’re doing, are you?”
“Blackmailing a district attorney and mayoral candidate with his inappropriate text to a high school girl in order to get him to drop the charges against a known Bravta kingpin?” I smile thinly. “Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m doing.”
The car stops in front of my dad’s townhouse. I’ve got the bullet. Now it’s time to see if I’m strong enough to pull the trigger.
“Fiona!?” My father rushes out of the living room when he hears the front door slam behind me. He stares at me in shock for a moment before smiling broadly. “What are you—I mean, you’re here!”
I smile thinly. “Yeah, dad. I’m here.”
“That’s great, honey! Great!”
I frown. “Where did you think I was? I mean that was you that sent the cops to Viktor’s house, right?”
“Well, I was so worried, honey!” He fumbles out quickly. “When they said you weren’t at the house, I was distraught! We had people looking all over!”
I frown. His shirt is half undone. And there’s lipstick on his collar. My eyes roll.
“You raided the house of the man who was holding me, didn’t find me, and you… what, came home for a cocktail or something?” I hiss quietly.
“A cocktail?” he stammers. “Oh, no! No, honey, I’m just running the operation from my office here!”
Behind him in the dimly lit living room, I hear a tumbling sound and a crash. Then a woman’s voice swearing in pain.
My dad smiles weakly. I just sigh.
“Who is she?”
“She?” he blurts.
“Hi, hello?” I yell past him. “You can come out, it’s just me. I’m his daughter.”
A second later, a girl my age with messed up hair and a half-buttoned blouse stumbles out of the living room holding her heels.
“Um, hi,” she says awkwardly.
My dad looks frazzled. He clears his throat quickly, trying to cover his ass. “Oh, yeah, honey, this is, uh…”
“Trisha,” the girl mumbles.
“Yeah, Trisha! She’s one of my secretaries.”
“Personal Assistants,” Trisha blurts.
“Hi Trisha,” I say icily.
My dad chuckles nervously. “Trisha is just helping me with the uh… the…”
“Finding me? The desperate manhunt?”
He nods quickly. “Exactly, yeah.”
I sigh. “Wow.” I shake my head. “The cliches just don’t stop, do they, dad?”
He frowns, switching tracks. “Having an adult relationship with another consenting adult isn’t a crime, Fiona.”
“Looks pretty sleazy to be sleeping with your secretary, though.”
“Personal assistant.”
My eyes slide back to her. “Trisha?”
“Yeah?”
“I think you should go now.”
“Oh, yeah, okay.” She quickly walks past me but stops. “Nice to meet you, Fiona. And congrats on your medical degree!”
“Law.”
She smiles awkwardly. “Right. Well, um, bye.”
She scoots out the door. Then it’s just me and my dad.
I sigh. “You need to release Viktor.”
He frowns. “I what now?”
“You need to release him and drop the charges.”
My dad scowls, buttoning his shirt up. “That isn’t happening, honey. He’s a known criminal element in this town. This bust is huge for me, especially in an election—”
“An election year! Oh wow, I totally forgot!” I mutter sarcastically. “How could I possibly forget!?”
“Now, honey, listen to me—”
“No,” I snap. “No, now you’re going to listen to me, okay?” I jab a finger at my dad. “What do you have on Viktor?”
“Well, that, uh, that’s confidential. Court sealed and all—”
“It’s not about what he did for you—the favor he did you?” I frown. “That would implicate you as well. So I’m guessing it’s…” I smile thinly. “Handwritten notes? Found in his trash?”
The pale look on his face tells me I’m right.
“It’s circumstantial evidence, dad.”
“Well, we’re going to nail that prick with it,” he mutters.
“Not without the author of those notes testifying.”
He smiles thinly. “Like I don’t know that? Honey, I know your handwriting.” He steps towards me. “And I know you’ll take family over some… some… criminal any day of the week!”
I shake my head.
“Fiona, you’re going to be a lawyer for Christ’s sake!”
“I am, you’re right,” I say with an even tone. “And a really damn good one, too.”
“Heck yeah you are!”
“I had great schooling.”
“I know—”
“Great tutors.”
“I know that. Hey, I paid for—”
“And I paid attention to all of it,” I hiss. “Every nuance, every detail of the law.” I shake my head. “Dad, without my testimony that I meant anything I wrote in those notes, you have no case. Zero.”
His look hardens. “And without my generosity,” he grunts. “You have no credit card, no home—”
“You’re wrong.”
He frowns in confusion. But then suddenly, he looks furious. “With him?!” He balks. “You can’t be serious!”
“You’re the one that sent me there,” I sneer.
“Did he… oh my God, Fiona! Honey!”
“The charges,” I say thinly. “You’re dropping them. Now.”
My dad’s jaw grinds. His nose wrinkles as he glares at me and sighs. “I hate to do this, Fiona.”
“Do what?” But I already know what his next move is. It’s the card I
