Their Virgin Hostage (Masters of Ménage #5)(34)

       
         
       
        

"I hear that, man. We just need to do the job. The rest will sort itself out."

It had to.

"You're right about one thing," Dominic said as he stared at the files in his hand.

"What's that?"

"Law never stood a chance with her. If he's wrong about her, then what I'm about to do won't mean a thing to Kinley, but it will shatter all of Law's illusions."

"And if he's right?"

Dominic grew grim. "Then I'm about to tear her down and rip her world apart. And after this evening, she'll never forgive any of us."





Chapter Six


Kinley kind of wondered why they didn't just bring in a spotlight and shine it directly into her eyes. The evening had become surreal, like she'd been dumped on the set of Law and Order: Kitchen Edition. In contrast to the sleek, modern room, the three big, alpha men who occupied the space were all displeasure and brute strength.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she swore. "My charity gives clothes to the homeless. I do not work for the mafia. Unless they could wear husky boys jeans. Then I could likely help them out."

She was getting a headache. Worse, Gigi was getting antsy, probably because Dominic had brought in his hulking bulldog, who sat by his master's feet as though he was a physical extension of the big guy's bad mood. And the dog growled up at Gigi like she was dessert. Kinley sighed.

How long had she been in this interrogation? It felt like days, and Dominic just kept asking the same questions over and over again, with occasional help from Riley. Law barely looked at her. It might be ridiculous, but his indifference hurt. When she'd been brought into the room, she'd tried to smile at him. He'd returned a blank expression, his gaze sliding over her like she wasn't there at all. He hadn't said a word since Riley escorted her from the bedroom that functioned as her cell, into the kitchen, then sat her down in front of a ream of deeply boring accounting reports.

Then the rapid-fire questions had begun.

What do you know about account 433629? Account 775410?

Tell me about invoice 35249. When was it paid out? Who received the funds?

What were you doing on May 15th?

And she'd answered the same way every time.

"Kohl, Kinley. Bride-to-be. 4325510996."

Her name, rank, and serial number. Well, her Neiman Marcus credit card number. It was the only number she knew by heart. If they wanted to steal it and buy high-end shoes … well, they were in for a shock because she was at her limit after buying wedding clothes.

She wasn't going to give them anything else, especially answers to questions she didn't know. 

"Are you even going to look at the files?" Dominic asked. He stood over her, placing his hands flat on the table. He was a gorgeous man, even when he frowned, though now that she thought about it, she'd never seen him smile. In fact, no one was smiling now.

"There's no point. I don't know what you think is going on, but someone took funds out of my charity. They didn't use it to launder money. My accountant would have alerted me to that or any abnormalities." But why hadn't Steve told her about all the missing funds … unless he had something to do with it. Come to think of it, he'd been quiet lately. God, none of this made sense, but she wasn't going to look at these reports when they'd only try to use them to hang her.

"Then why is all that money missing? And when did you get in bed with Third World manufacturers?"

She thought about answering, but when she couldn't tell them what they wanted to know, then what? They kept claiming that they didn't intend to hurt her, and some hopeful part of her wanted to believe that. They'd probably sent Law/Mike in earlier to butter her up. But she wasn't falling for it. When it became apparent that she couldn't fill in the gaps in their information, would they kill her? Or would they extract everything out of her they could, no matter how minute, then off her? Either way, her best shot was to say nothing.

"Kohl, Kinley. Bride-to-be. 43255-"

"Do you know what RICO means?" Riley asked.

"Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. And the grand jury cleared him." Greg had explained that there were corrupt people in the government trying to help his competition. After her kidnappers' accusations that Greg was a criminal, she might at least think it over. Or not. Greg was a pillar of the financial community. The men who kidnapped her were … well, kidnappers. Yes, Greg had been hauled in front of a grand jury, but there wasn't an indictment. Even more compelling, one of the prosecutors who had tried to indict Greg had been found guilty of fraud himself not a year later.