Page 6 of Inside the Maelstrom: Part Two
Tobias popped the trunk, and I loaded in all of Aviva’s luggage. I kept everything in a briefcase and a duffel bag. But Sampson had given Aviva a lot of things over the last few weeks, and her suitcase was bulging at the seams.
She slid into the backseat, while I slid into the front. I wanted to drive, but there was no way Tobias would hand over the keys to this baby.
“Hendrick and Otto? Are they okay?” she demanded.
Tobias hesitated, and I sighed. “You may as well just get it all out there. Sampson will be pissed, but I figure he told you to keep her out of it, so he’s already going to be shitty.”
The lawyer shook his head. “You aren’t wrong. But he’s my client, and it’s my job to protect him, even from his stupid noble self.”
Aviva tapped the back of the driver’s seat. “Talk and drive, Lawyer Boy.”
While this might have annoyed most people, it made Tobias grin. Yep. Tobias liked her.
He checked his mirrors, merging into traffic, before he slid his eyes in my direction. “Hendrick assaulted a police officer, and he’s currently out on bail.”
She sucked in another gasp. “Has he fucking lost what little good sense he had?”
Tobias snorted. “Don’t underestimate Hendrick Kenley. That kid knows what he’s doing more than he likes to let on.” He paused, looking at me. “What does she know about Hendrick’s family?”
“Hey, I can hear you, you know? I’m crazy, not deaf,” she muttered, and I couldn’t stop the smirk on my face. “I know his dad used to beat him, and judging by the way everyone’s face twists whenever he’s mentioned, I get the impression that the senator isn’t a good person.”
I grunted. That was an understatement. For the better part of a decade, I’d had to sit back and listen to Hendrick’s excuses about why he was beat to hell. Fell off his bike and broke his arm. A kid at school beat him up, and that was why he had a black eye. Fell down the stairs, busting his knee.
But I knew. I knew deep down in my soul by the way he flinched at sudden movements, the way he’d fall into silence, the way he held himself always coiled to protect his organs in bad situations. I knew his father was abusing him.
And I did nothing. Could do nothing. Sampson had said I was of more value outside of a maximum security prison, rather than stuck in some cell there, making fucking Ted Kenley a martyr. Sampson repeatedly told me I had to trust that they were getting their pieces into place, though when seventeen-year-old kids say shit like that, it’s hard to take them seriously. But I bided my time, protected Hendrick and Otto the best I could, as well as Sampson, and waited for the day that I could beat that cowardly fucker into the ground.
“Not a good person would be an understatement. He is a slimy, crooked piece of shit. He trumped up those charges to get Sampson out of the way.” The disdain in Tobias’s voice was the only chink in his professional lawyer facade.
Chaos was still shaking her head in confusion. “Out of the way for what?”
“So he could commit Hendrick to a mental hospital and take control of his fortune. Because Senator Kenley is broke.” He paused. “He’s trying to get conservatorship over his son, but more importantly, over his son’s money.”
God, I hated that fucker.
Chapter4
Aviva
“You have to admit, Miss Robinson, this all seems very suspicious. If you’re in trouble, we can help you,” the officer insisted for the millionth time. I couldn’t tell whether he was waiting for me to slip up or he legitimately felt like maybe I was being coerced into silence. Either way, it was beginning to piss me off.
I sucked in a deep breath. “Officer, look. I know it sounds… odd. But trust me when I say it was my idea. Everything from flying to Europe right down to when we parted ways in Yokohama. I called my parents on the way over here. They know I’m alive and well, and not a victim of some elaborate trafficking scam. Unless he had someone stuffed in his suitcase that I didn’t see?”
Sampson’s lawyer cleared his throat. “The police do not get sarcasm, Miss Robinson.”
Oops.
The cop in front of me raised an eyebrow, but wrote down notes. “You and Mr. Rubio had a relationship?”
I hesitated. “I wouldn’t say we were boyfriend and girlfriend, but we fucked, if that's what you mean?”
The cop nodded. “And Mr. Hendrick Kenley?”
Heat flushed my cheeks, but I held the man’s gaze. “We did it too. There may have been orgies.”
Tobias’s slate gray eyes sparkled, though he kept his face purely professional.
The cop didn’t so much as blink. “So the agreement was sexual acts in exchange for a trip around the world? We could charge you with prostitution.”
