Chapter 17 - NO MORE FAKE RING

Three months later, Ava took the Harbor Foundation job.

The board interviewed six candidates and chose her; Ava made sure Lucian had not arranged it.

Her first events raised more money, ran under budget and landed her in a trade magazine.

Lucian stayed away unless invited.

At a spring fundraiser, he arrived alone.

No fake engagement.

No performance.

Ava wore blue. “You look beautiful,” Lucian said.

“Thank you.”

They walked onto a balcony.

“Can I ask you something?” he said.

“Depends.”

“Dinner.”

“That isn’t a question.”

“Will you have dinner with me?”

“As what?”

“Two people.”

“No contract?”

“No.”

“No investigation?”

“No.”

“No surprise fiancée announcement?”

“I’ve retired that strategy.”

Ava smiled.

“One dinner.”

She pointed at him.

“That face is why people fear you.”

“What face?”

“That one.”

He relaxed.

Then his phone rang.

Naomi.

Lucian answered.

His expression changed.

“What?”

Ava waited.

He put the call on speaker.

Naomi said, “We found the transit contractor’s archived payment ledger.”

Ava’s heart stopped.

There was a payment from a Langford-controlled shell company.

Date: forty-eight hours before Michael Knox died.

Memo: corrective maintenance.

But the amount was wrong.

Far too large.

And beside it was an authorization code linked to Charles Langford’s private office.

Naomi continued. “The contractor kept voice messages.”

One had been preserved on old backup media.

Charles Langford’s voice said:

Make sure Knox does not get to Monday.

Ava closed her eyes.

May you like

My Son Sat There While His Wife Slapped My 4-Year-Old Granddaughter Hold...

MY SON WATCHED HIS WIFE HIT MY FOUR-YEAR-OLD GRANDDAUGHTER—BUT WHAT LILY WHISPERED NEXT MADE MY BLOOD RUN COLD.My four-year-old gr...

**My Wife Secretly Unplugged the Nursery Camera, Then Approached My 6-Mo...

My Wife Secretly Unplugged the Nursery Camera—Then I Saw Her Standing Over My 6-Month-Old Son With a Red-Hot Iron. But What She Sa...

I Came Home Early and Found My 5-Year-Old Daughter Eating Scraps Beside...

I thought I was coming home to an ordinary dinner.Instead, I found my five-year-old daughter sitting on the kitchen floor beside t...

For twenty years, her father’s death had been called an accident.

Now there was finally a sentence that sounded like intent.