Page 106 of Boss

“Calm down,” Tarek said.

“No! I thought you came here because... for me. Get out!”

He sighed. “I came here because I care about you.”

“You came here to pay me off. If you cared about me you'd give me answers instead of an envelope full of money. You don’t know me at all!”

“You’re right!” he yelled back. “I don’t know you. We spent what, four or five months together? That’s it. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t care about what happens to you. This is me helping you.”

“That is you helping you,” she declared.

“Fuck!” he slammed his hand to his forehead. “You are the stubbornest woman I have ever met. The press will have your name soon. They’ll be all over this place. Think about them Kassidy. You know what my brother and father are capable of. I don’t want them coming after you.”

“They will come after me. They don’t know we slept together, or that we are… whatever the hell we are. But they suspect I have the USB. If I run they are coming after me.”

“I'll take care of that. I'm going to have it under control.”

“I can't trust you,” she said. “I want too, but I can't.”

He grabbed her face. “Listen to me. This stopped being a game for me a long time ago. I can’t protect you here. Not here. And I swear if you give me your trust I will protect you.”

“Let me go.”

He did what she asked. She put her hand to her waist and the other to the back of her head and massaged her nape to release the anxiety building along her shoulders and down her spine. She glanced over to him. The stitches on his forehead were the worst. But even with his bruises he was handsome. And the way he looked at her softened her heart. She was human. The time she shared her body and soul with him left a mark. Without intending to she’d developed feelings for the man. And they went past 'caring' the moment he saved her life.

Tarek tossed the money to the top of the bed. “I don't fucking want to do this. Send you out there, alone.” He looked up at her. “I want to protect you. This is me protecting you. And as soon as I figure out how to stop my brother I am coming for you. So please Kassidy. Get out of town. Warn the Garcia’s not to speak to the police or the press. Tell them not to give any interviews, no matter who calls. And don't look back. I will find you,” he said and started out of her door.

“You don’t want to leave me, but you can't kiss me goodbye?” she asked.

He continued to face the door when he responded. “If I kiss you I'm not going to leave.”

Tarek shook his head and left.

“Wait.” Kassidy went after him and caught him the living room. Tarek stared at her curiously. “There’s something I've been doing the past two days and I'm glad you came so I can give it to you.”

She went to her room, and then to the side of her bed she slept on. She drew open the top drawer and removed her laptop. She came back inside the living room and went to the small kitchen table where Tarek joined her. They sat together.

“We look a sight. You and me,” she said as she tried to connect to her Wi-Fi.

He forced a weary smile. “Yeah I guess we both do.”

“So Cash wasn’t working for you. He was always working for someone else,” Kassidy sighed.

“I gathered that.”

“I came home and started going through my old emails between Daniel and me. Here in this email Daniel asked me about your brother Dale, why his name was suddenly appearing on the wire transfers to a bank in Sweden. It was a dead end though. After I dug, I found out about an office to be opened there. Daniel and I dropped it because we thought it was useless information. Remember we didn’t care about the federal indictment.”

“That’s what’s on that drive. Proof that Dale was stealing from the company? That’s all,” Tarek said and he let go a big sigh of relief. Kassidy didn’t see any reason to celebrate it unless he was expecting something different.

“What did you think was on the drive?” she asked him.

“Never mind what I thought. This is good. I knew it. Fucking bastard. That’s the proof to open my father’s eyes.” Tarek pointed to the email.

“Not just your father's eyes but the government's eyes. You can go to them and make your own deal,” she suggested.

“I can’t do that,” he said. “You don’t know the whole story.”

“How can I know the end of the story if you don't?”

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