Wicked Bad Boys Read Online Free Page B

actually. He wasn’t the… ”
    Before she finishes, Mandy speaks up. “Jonathan darling, I’ve got to run. I’ll have Juanita make your favorite if you stay for dinner. It’s so good to see you, son. I’ll talk to you later.”
    She hugs me, and kisses dad and Claire on the cheek before she leaves. She’s carefree and walking on a cloud. I’ve known the woman for eight years, lived under her roof for five of those, and I can tell something’s up with her. I’m not here to meddle in my dad’s and step-mother’s affairs, so I wrap up with Claire—promising to pop by her room after I’m done with Dad—and I follow him to his office to hear what he has in mind.
    “Lay it on me, Dad. What is it? What do you want me to do for you now?”
    “Have a seat, son. Care for something to drink?”
    “Vodka. Make it a double. No ice.”
    “I’ll have one with you. No son of mine is drinking double vodkas alone.”
    He walks around to his bar and pours us each a glass. He’s stalling. The man never hesitates, so I’m figuring that after he throws back the vodka, he’ll loosen up and give it to me straight. I sit back, relish what’s in my glass, and wait for the axe to fall.

Chapter 4 - Rebecca
    W e’re driving in Kara’s limousine. The antagonistic phone calls from other law firms and her top clients do not stop. She puts every call on speakerphone so I can hear. She even signals to me when she wants me to take notes on my tablet. I know I’m learning from this woman. I feel it in my bones. Every second around her is like a year at law school. She’s authoritative and brilliant—and above all, she commands respect.
    The thing is, those aren’t the only adjectives people at the office use to describe her. While most of Kara’s closest staff and associates respect and adore her, there are the odd few staff members who revile her. Some of them are longstanding, trusted associates. To them, she is a conniving, underhanded, ruthless control freak who is pulling the strings behind the scenes for some of the most powerful organized crime bosses. They would never directly accuse her, but there have been subtle hints, placing Kara at the butt of distasteful office jokes.
    I sometimes feel these associates are testing me when they say some of these things about Kara. They may be checking to see where my loyalties are. I may be new around her office, but I wasn’t born yesterday. I know how the mind games work in these places. Barnaby warned me a long time ago, and now, in just three months of working here, I’ve already seen seven junior associates and legal analysts fired on the spot, and escorted out of the office within twenty minutes of being canned. There is always more to the story, but rumors are they were set up by their own colleagues.
    This is why I never react when they come to me with rumors. I’m like the three monkeys—I see, hear and speak nothing. All I do when they approach me is nod. When they’re done, I duck my head down and do the best possible work that’s been assigned to me. There is nothing they’ve ever told me that has made it back to Kara or another employee of Henry, Miles and Rothman—not through me, anyway. Conversely, there’s nothing that Kara has ever said to me that’s made its way back to a soul. This may be the reason Kara is taking me to meet the Sloans.
    I get this trait of keeping secrets from both my reticent parents. My mother is a psychiatrist to many notable Washington, D.C. politicians, and my father is a federal crypto-analyst. Growing up, our house was a vault. I think they had become so secretive, they didn’t know what was okay to share and what was off limits anymore. Asking either of them the weather was like waterboarding a loyal federal agent if he had dealings on Russian soil.
    They were also deeply committed and entrenched in their careers. If I asked my mother to help me with homework, she would psychoanalyze the mental underpinnings of the question.