Total pages in book: 176
Estimated words: 164533 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 823(@200wpm)___ 658(@250wpm)___ 548(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164533 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 823(@200wpm)___ 658(@250wpm)___ 548(@300wpm)
Piotr dug deeper, utilising his contacts to find out if Charli was in any way connected. It turned out she and Jesse were still married when the investigation began, and the FBI had already looked into her but subsequently ruled her out as a person of interest. In the end, it was a good thing she’d left their marriage with nothing because a lot of Jesse’s assets had been acquired illegally.
Just last week, they’d raided his office and gathered his computers, hard drives, and files as evidence. It was looking like his skimming and money laundering amounted to millions of dollars, and being that it was his own firm he’d stolen from, I imagined they intended to have him punished to the full extent of the law. The maximum prison sentence was twenty years.
I still hadn’t found the right moment to tell Charli, worrying she might get upset with me for looking into Jesse in the first place. I knew she’d be mad when she found out I’d called in a favour from another ex-legion friend of mine, Leon.
I wasn’t entirely sure where he resided nowadays, but I did know he worked for a shady organisation who did black ops work for various governments around the world. That was the thing about my time in the legion, I had friends in all manner of professions, normally security or military adjacent.
Leon, who was already in the US on other business, was more than happy to round up one or two of his colleagues and break into Jesse’s apartment to reclaim Charli’s collection. Yes, it was an extreme measure, but the way I felt for her was all-encompassing. I had this gnawing need to right the wrongs I hadn’t been there to prevent from happening in the first place.
Leon wore an earpiece and linked me up to a live feed from his bodycam so I could witness it happening in real time. You should’ve seen my face when Jesse walked into the apartment while they were rifling through the place to find the collection—and promptly pissed his pants. That gave me a good, satisfied chuckle.
The coward proceeded to fall to his knees and begged for them to take whatever they wanted and leave. I imagined Charli would be amused by his snivelling cowardice, too, once she stopped being angry at me for orchestrating the whole thing in the first place.
And yeah, I should’ve told Leon to let him be, that the pathetic prick was going to suffer enough once the FBI were done with him.
But I hadn’t.
I’d let the darker angel of my nature take over as I told Leon to rough him up a little. Jesse was left with a dislocated shoulder, a broken nose, and two black eyes. He deserved a far worse beating than that. Christ, he deserved permanent disfigurement for every scar he’d left on Charli’s body.
As far as I was concerned, he’d gotten off easy. Leon left with not only the collection but other valuables, too, which I was happy for him to keep. I couldn’t let him only take the Lladrós because then Jesse might suspect Charli was to blame, and I wanted none of this coming back on her.
In the bathroom, I grabbed a glass and filled it with water before returning to the office and kneeling before her.
Charli lifted her head, but her gaze went over my shoulder, and the way her eyes flared told me she’d spotted the boxes.
“Rhys, what are those?” she whispered.
I placed my hand on her knee, softly stroking as I held her gaze. “First, just let me explain.”
35.
Charli
Two large cargo boxes sat open on Rhys’ office floor. Several items had been removed, bundled carefully in bubble wrap, and I recognised the figurines instantly.
“How … how do you have these?” I asked, standing before promptly sitting back down again. I was in shock.
“Charli, there are some things I need to tell you about Jesse,” Rhys said, and I swung to face him, heart suddenly pumping.
“Please tell me you didn’t,” I begged. I wasn’t sure what the hell he did to get my collection back, but Jesse would be murderous. What if he … what if he tried to ...
I was starting to hyperventilate when Rhys took my hands into his large, warm ones, his expression somewhat remorseful. This was going to be bad. I could sense it.
“First off, please don’t panic. Jesse will never know you were involved. My guys raided his penthouse and took a bunch of other valuables so it looked like a regular burglary.”
“Your guys?” I whispered, startled.
“An ex-legion friend and two of his colleagues. They, well, they specialise in this kind of thing.”
“Burglaries?”
“In a sense, yes.”
“My goodness, Rhys, what on earth have you gotten us into?”
“Listen, Leon owed me a favour anyway. And as I said, they made it look like a run of the mill burglary. You aren’t connected at all. Besides, Jesse’s currently got way worse problems to contend with right now than a home break in.”