Page 52 of Kisses and Paperclips

I stared down at the image.

Rachel stood in a sequined gown, posed beside a man in a tailored suit. But it wasn’t the glitz that got me—it was her face. Her eyes were empty. Her smile? Forced. The way his hand gripped her waist made something in me go cold.

“Is that—?”

“Yeah,” Kameron cut in. “That’s her.”

My jaw clenched. “She looks… different.”

“She is different,” he said, voice flat. “That man beside her is Diego Martinez. One of the owners of Echelon Ventures.”

“And he’s her—”

“Husband,” Kameron confirmed, eyes dark. “Married her two years ago. You know how long he’s been out of prison?”

I didn’t answer.

“Five years,” he said. “Racketeering, assault, drug trafficking. Did a full bid, came out clean on paper—but he’s still dirty, Julien. Real dirty. And worse? His brother Alejandro added him to the LLC as soon as he got out.”

The name stirred something, but I couldn’t place it. Kameron leaned in.

“I went deeper. Julien, Echelon isn’t just a shady investment firm. It’s a front. And your girl, Serena? She’s got ties to them.”

Everything inside me stilled.

“What kind of ties?” I asked, my voice low.

Kameron looked me dead in the eye. “That’s what I’m still trying to figure out. But if Serena’s connected to this… she’s in deeper than you think.”

The air between us shifted. My jaw tightened, eyes locked on his. “Diego Martinez,” I said, the name hitting like a punch I didn’t see coming. “You’re saying she’s somehow connected to him?”

Kameron flipped the folder open again, this time laying out the full scope—ledger sheets, financial reports, blurred receipts, offshore routing maps that made my head ache just looking at them.

Then he tapped the page. Once. Hard. “This isn’t just money laundering. Julien—” his voice dropped, quiet but heavy, “—I think they’re trafficking women.”

The words hit like a gut punch.

“Trafficking?” My voice came out rougher than I intended.

He nodded, the look in his eyes enough to tell me he hated saying it as much as I hated hearing it. “Payments to ghost names. ‘Consulting fees’ wired to shell companies. Travel expenses with no destinations, just black holes on paper. And the deeper I dig, the more it looks like Rachel’s not the only woman stuck in this.”

I looked down at the photo again, Rachel, standing next to a man with shit grin and a grip around her waist, a bruise visible on her arm.

“If Guilty Pleasures is linked to Echelon in any way, then either your mother or Serena, or both, are standing in some very dangerous water.”

My stomach turned. I wanted to believe Serena couldn’t be involved in something like this. Not knowingly. But business is messy, and money has a way of hiding the truth until it’s too late to clean your hands.

“Does she know?” I asked, the question catching in my throat. “Does Serena know what she’s tied to?”

Kameron didn’t answer right away. And that silence? It was louder than any confirmation.

“I don’t know,” he finally said. “But if she does… she’s not just in deep. She’s drowning.”

I sat back, ran a hand over my jaw, heart pounding like a warning bell.

“Get me more,” I said. My voice was low, but there was steel in it. “Everything you can dig up on Echelon. I want names, accounts, paper trails—anything we can use.”

Kameron nodded, gathering the files with a tense precision. “Be careful, Julien. These people don’t play games.”

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