Page 68 of Six
“Roger that,”she answered.“Going dark.”She then texted the same thing to Gavin, who managed to get her a quick“be careful”message before she switched her phone to silent. Then pulling on all her years of experience, she stilled her mind and her body and waited.
In her meditative state, time both passed and didn’t, and she had no idea how many minutes had ticked by when footsteps finally sounded outside the office. A few seconds later, the door clicked open. Six slowed her breathing and crossed her fingers that Julia wouldn’t come straight to her desk. Six both needed and wanted more time to let things unfold in the way she knew—from years of experience—they could and should.
“Christ, I need a drink,” Austin said.
“I’ll second that,” Kaden said. The door shut behind them and someone—judging by the footsteps, Julia—walked to the small bar area set up on the other side of the office.
“None of this would be happening if you hadn’t sold that information Michelle Reiner let slip,” Julia snapped. Six’s ears perked up. Michelle Reiner was a third-term senator from one of the Midwestern states. “We were doing fine until you decided to sell that. Now everything is falling apart.”
The sound of the small refrigerator opening then closing filled the room, followed by the sound of ice cubes landing in glasses.
“You’re so fucking dramatic,” Austin said. “That was months ago. Your husband and DePalma didn’t die until this week.”
“The first time may have been months ago, but that wasn’t the only time,” Julia said. Despite her rancor, Six could hear the woman pouring drinks for the two men in her office.
Austin laughed. “I hardly think Michelle has anything to do with Julian’s or Victor’s deaths or those two bitches who came here. She might have let slip troop movements in Afghanistan all those months ago, and we might have made some money off the information, but if she calls attention to it now, she’ll be tried as a traitor. The first time, it might have been a mistake. But the third or fourth time she gave me information? No way. She has nothing to do with what’s going on now. She has too much to lose.”
Six was pretty sure that the most important thing Michelle had to lose—her integrity—had already been lost.
“Then what the fuck is happening? First Julian, then Victor? And what were those two women doing here?” Kaden demanded, then, judging by the sound of ice hitting glass, took a sip of his drink. Six cringed when he finished his swallow with a big “ahhh,” as if he’d gulped down sixteen ounces of fluids rather than taken a sip of something.
“What about Percy and Shelton?” Julia asked. She was on the move, and Six tensed as her footsteps came closer to the desk. Eight strides closer, Julia stopped. In her mind’s eye, Six saw Julia leaning against her desk, her back to where Six now sat. She didn’t know if this was a true imagining of where Julia was, but Six was going to go with it.
Judging again by location, it was Austin who swirled his drink in his glass before taking a sip, then answering. “We pay those fools enough to turn a blind eye when we use their ports for our shipments. I talked to Percy yesterday and I can promise you, he’s not involved. He’s a nervous creature, and I would have known if he was lying to me when he assured me the next shipment would go as smoothly as the last ones. And like Reiner, he has too much to lose to be a whistleblower.”
“I agree with Austin on Percy and Shelton,” Kaden said. “Both of those men like the money too much and besides, it’s not like the weapons stay here. Every shipment has gone to some fucked-up country that then requires businesses to hire Department of Defense contractors any time they want to do business there. It’s a win-win for those two since they both have ties to the companies that get called in to do that work.”
Six’s stomach flipped at the thought. She’d studied too much history not to be aware of how easy it was to destabilize a country and make money off that destabilization. Colonization wasn’t the first or last example of that—though it might have been the most destructive. What Kaden was alluding to meant it was likely that thousands of lives had been affected because of Representatives Percy and Shelton’s hunger to get rich. Or richer, as the case may be.
“Then what the fuck is going on? Why, of all times, did those women show up now?” Julia demanded, slamming her drink on the desk. Six barely managed to not jump at the sudden sound ricocheting through the office.
“I don’t know why now,” Austin answered. The sound of the leather sofa creaking and squeaking told Six he’d sat down. “But I guarantee they were here for no other reason than to fish for dirt.”
“They seemed pretty confident to me,” Julia muttered.
“Confidence is easy to fake, you know that,” Austin shot back. Six cringed at the low blow to Julia’s public persona.
“Look,” Austin said on an exhale. “It’s nothing. It’s just a civil suit that will allege something happened in Indonesia. Not only does that rule out Reiner, Shelton, and Percy being involved, but it’s acivilcase. How many times has a lawsuit been brought against us since we started this company?” He didn’t wait for an answer and continued. “I don’t know the exact number, but I know it’s dozens. And none of them have amounted to anything. You know what they do have in common with what happened today though?” Austin asked.
Kaden murmured a “What,” but Julia remained silent.
“Like the two women today, the lawyers in each of those cases came to talk to us before filing suit. And they come to talk to us because they hope we’ll give them something to use, or in some cases, that we’ll settle.”
“This is different,” Julia said. “Not about the suit being filed, but with Julian dying and Victor and that other person being found dead at the quarry…” Her voice had cracked on Victor’s name, and a sudden wave of sadness washed over Six for the marriage Julian and Julia must have had. They were both despicable human beings and likely deserved each other, but to be stuck in a shitty marriage, well, it was shitty.
“Look, even if they have something, they can’t have much,” Kaden said.
“I agree,” Austin said. “They would have just filed the suit if they had the evidence.”
“But even if they have something, what would it be?” Kaden posited, then continued. “Maybe it’s statements from the women, but if it is, those are easily argued against. After all, who do you think a jury is going to believe? Us or some ass-backward native who can’t even speak English? I can promise you, a jury will understand that that lawyer, and whoever else she’s dragged into this, is only in it for the money.”
Six’s blood pressure shot up so fast she could feel the capillaries in her body expanding even as she forced herself to remain still. This conversation—all of it—was why she was here.
“Kaden has a point. What kind of evidence could they have? If it’s only the word of the women, then it’s a ‘he said-she said’ situation and I think we all know who will come out the victor of that fight.”
“What if there’s more?” Julia asked.
“There’s not,” Kaden said. “Aside from interviewing the women, whom we’ve agreed we can undermine, what more could they have? Come on, Julia, it’s not like there’s a video or anything.”
