Page 115 of Push

I arched my eyebrow. “What were you expecting?”

“I don’t know. Dirty concrete floors. Mean-looking cops. Perps huddled in corners demanding to see their lawyers.” Unimpressed, he scrunched his nose. “This place has gray carpet and big windows. It looks like our accountant’s office.”

I laughed.

Wayne swiped his entry card for the interview room. “Lucky you got out of the prosecution team when you did,” he said over his shoulder. “You hear what happened?”

I frowned. “No?” It wasn’t like my former colleagues would reach out to me. My old boss had made sure of that.

Wayne held the door open for us to slip past. “It was all hush-hush.” He tapped the side of his sunburnt nose. “The hammer dropped a month or so ago. The boss man was suspended while they run an internal investigation. The shit’s about to hit the fan.”

I carefully schooled my expression to be as blank as possible.

“Don’t tell my wife. I’m supposed to be losing a few”—Wayne patted his stomach—“but I treated myself to a steak with all the trimmings on the way home after I heard the news.” Bitterness crept into his voice. “That asswipe screwed us all over on the Bankstown raids.”

I didn’t need reminding. “Six arrests, and not one case went to trial. I’d say the Morrelli family had a pretty amazing run of good luck. Witnesses disappearing. Missing evidence.” I barked a laugh. “Missing, my ass. What a joke.”

“It was a tough year,” Wayne agreed. “You did good. A lot of other people took the bribes.”

“Virtue did nothing in the long run. Morelli’s men still rule the city.” And the taste in my mouth was as bitter now as it had been the day I’d walked out of the office with my belongings in a box.

“For how long, though?”

Interested in this tidbit, I cocked my head. “Are there still rumors of someone coming up the ranks? Please tell me people aren’t whispering about the imaginary boogeyman lurking in the shadows.”

Wayne threw his head back and laughed. “You were never a fan of the Widowmaker.”

“That’s because he doesn’t exist, Wayne.”

“I dunno. People are shit scared of the guy—real or not. My boys were getting closer to unraveling all the secrets when I was reassigned to a desk. Some reward for being one of the few to keep my nose clean.”

“Sorry you got dragged into the mess.”

“Not your fault. I was pissed as hell about what happened to us, but I’ve decided this new life is growing on me. I don’t miss hauling ass around Sydney at all hours of the night, tailing some punk-ass teenager dealing shit-quality coke and pretending to be a big mafia boy.” Wayne grinned. “And there are other perks.”

I doubted that. “Such as?”

Wayne’s grin grew wider. “I took up golf.”

I laughed. Golf sounded worse than the night shifts, but maybe he liked hooning around in the buggy.

Toby stood motionless in the doorway, his eyes wide, mouth hanging open. This was all news to him. I never used to talk about my work. Icouldn’t. I certainly hadn’t shared the devastation of wasting months of work on an untouchable organized crime family and the drug busts that had gone wrong.

I laced my fingers through Toby’s. His stunned eyes dropped and grew even wider.

“You okay?” I asked softly.

He nodded, his eyes still on our joined hands. “Yeah.” His eyebrows furrowed. “Gwen, is what he said…? The names…? I’ve read about that Morelli guy in the news.” He swallowed. “He soundsdangerous.”

“Ancient history.” I waved him off.

Toby didn’t look any less bothered. The crease between his eyes got deeper.

I flashed him a reassuring smile. “I was never in any danger, okay? The Morelli family are your typical mafia bad guys. They’re not stupid enough to take out a prosecutor and end up with the entire police force on their asses. Don’t worry. Those days are behind me.” I wiggled my eyebrows. “I work for a new type of bad guy now.”

Toby grunted. There was no love lost between him and my brother.

He pulled out a chair, and Liam was forgotten in an instant as he watched with a stunned expression as Wayne set up his computer, switched on the camera, and ran through the basics—asking Toby who he was, where we lived, and running over the process for giving a statement.

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