She’d never talked to him about it. He’d always pretended it hadn’t happened, and she knew why. But Lara had been desperate to understand why she’d been seeing a psychiatrist at eight and why she sometimes had panic attacks. So she’d investigated. She hadn’t had much to go on, but she did remember overhearing her mother and father talking about it one night. She’d put their exchange in the back of her mind, but she remembered one thing. Gravely Construction. When her father had said the name, there had been bile and vitriol in his voice. She’d never heard her gentle father get so angry.
“I’m curious. I heard you mention a firm once. You and Mom were arguing. I remembered the name and a few years back I looked it up. They received a highly lucrative state contract the year I was four. They also have ties to the Mafia. At the time, there was a single holdout who didn’t want to award them the contracts. You.”
“I had no idea you had looked into that.”
She’d spent months researching. She’d gathered data and put the clues together. Lara had always known how much her parents loved her but her father had basically sold his soul that term to get her back. “They took me.”
A sob caught his voice. “Yes. They took you from your mother’s arms. They knocked on the door and before she could do anything, they hit her over the head with a gun. I found her there with a note stating that if I contacted the police, they would kill you. The vote was the next day. I was promised if I granted the contract to Gravely, you would be returned to us within twenty-four hours.”
How scared had her father been? He’d been placed in a horrible situation, but Lara was certain she would have made the same choice. She put a hand to her belly as though she could feel a child growing there. Hers and Connor’s. She would do anything for that baby. Anything.
“Two days after the vote, a check was deposited into Mom’s account,” Lara continued the story. “That was the guarantee that you wouldn’t take action after the fact, wasn’t it?”
“They made me look guilty so I couldn’t go to the police. I should have anyway. I should have been braver.” Her father sobbed. Her heart ached at the thought of her big, strong father weeping. “It doesn’t matter now. I’ll deal with the fallout. I love you, baby girl. You are everything to us. You know that, right?”
Tears filled her eyes but a few things didn’t add up. “What does this have to do with Roman Calder meeting you instead of the president?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“And how did Calder even know about this? Gravely wouldn’t have told him. The patriarch died and his son sold off the company. Why does the president’s chief of staff care? You tend to vote with the party. You don’t outwardly criticize the president.” It hit her and her stomach dropped straight to the floor. “Oh, god. This isn’t about you. This is about me. This is about Capitol Scandals.”
“Like I said, it doesn’t matter,” her father continued. “I won’t let you give in to his blackmail.”
“Dad, how many people knew about what happened back then?”
“It was mob business. They keep things quiet. I never told anyone. I’m surprised you figured it out.”
She’d been determined to know why she had nightmares about being watched and held in close spaces. She’d figured that finally knowing what really happened might help her sleep at night. “I had a lot of circumstantial evidence. Sometimes that’s enough to get a good picture. Dad, they can’t indict you. It was over twenty years ago.”
“The scandal alone will crush me. It’s best I step down as quietly as possible.”
“What did he want?”
“A total shutdown of Capitol Scandals. A promise that you’ll stay out of politics for good. Like I told him, he can bite my ass.”
So she could give up doing what she loved, or Roman Calder and Zack Hayes would ruin her father’s legacy and reputation. There was no choice. “Daddy, I’m shutting down.”
“Lara . . .” he began.
“No. You can’t talk me out of it.” Especially since her ambition had landed them in this mess.
It couldn’t be a coincidence that Calder had been in her building just days before and suddenly he had information that was locked away in her safe. How would he have gotten access to her building? Her unit?
Suspicion crushed Lara. Yeah, sometimes circumstantial evidence could paint to an accurate picture when it was all laid out.
“Dad, have you ever heard of a man named Connor Sparks?”
“Um, the name sounds familiar. Why do you ask?”
Because her lover was keeping secrets even while he demanded truth from her. “Something someone mentioned to me.”
“Lara, we’ll talk about that later. But Capitol Scandals . . . You can’t give up your passion.”
But he’d been willing to sacrifice everything for her. “I can. I can find another passion.”
She bit back a sob because she had a feeling her passion wouldn’t be a man with dark eyes and a low, rumbling voice.
Would he even come back? Certainly he would since the site wasn’t down yet. She could do it remotely. She had the capability on her phone as long as she had an Internet signal. After she did that, he would likely walk out of her life and she would never see him again.
“Lara, don’t,” he insisted.
She needed to do it now or it would be too hard to. She needed to save her father and deal with the fact that her lover wasn’t what he seemed.
“Connor Sparks,” her father repeated, sounding as if he snapped his fingers. “He was one of the six.”
“The six?” Freddy had said something about that. Now his words were coming back. Freddy had used the name Sparks. He’d said he thought Connor was Sparks. How could she have forgotten that? Oh, yeah. Her vagina had a bad short-term memory.
“The Perfect Gentlemen. There were six of them who went to prep school together. Connor Sparks is one of Zack Hayes’s closest friends. They grew up together. They’re considered unbreakable. A lot of people on the Hill credit more than just Roman for Zack’s career. He’s had backing financially from Gabe Bond and Maddox Crawford. Dax Spencer was the military man. Sparks was the sneaky one if I remember correctly.”
Connor Sparks. Her lover. The man who had betrayed her utterly. This Dax person must be the reason he’d called himself Spencer. A little inside joke. “Thanks, Dad. I’ll take care of this. Don’t do anything without talking to me.”
She hung up and was immediately assaulted with texts from Tom. She groaned but opened one to write him back that she was busy and would get in touch with him later. She couldn’t deal with Tom when her whole world was collapsing.
Please, Lara. You have to listen to me. After talking to your father, I was suspicious. It’s too coincidental that Roman Calder was in the building and then blackmailed your dad. So I checked with the doorman. Calder needed a code to get in. You can only get a code if you live in the building. He used your code, Lara. He had to have gotten it from that bastard you’re sleeping with.
Calder had used her code to do his dirty work. Tom was right. There was only one person who could have given it to him. If Calder had gained access from the building manager, the man would have given the chief of staff a guest code. She’d given hers to Connor without a second thought since he was living with her, protecting her.
And he’d used his cover to lull her into a false sense of trust and stolen her secrets for his real boss.
She stared at the phone, looking through the texts. Her father had called Tom, it seemed. He’d been trying to find a way out of the trap Calder had put him in. Tom had always answered her dad’s legal questions. It wasn’t so surprising that he’d called Tom. Despite their breakup, her dad had always liked him.
Tom had gone to the mat for her dad. He’d called in every favor he had and he’d discovered Roman Calder had entered her building at just before two a.m. The elevator had been used shortly after that and had gone straight to her floor. A few hours later, it descended directly to th
e lobby again. Kiki had entered the building and she’d passed Calder on his way out the door.
So Hayes’s right hand man hadn’t visited her building in the middle of the night for a clandestine meeting with a congressman or a lover. He’d come to break into her apartment and steal her secrets, and there was only one man on earth who could have let him in.
Connor had made love to her for the first time that night. He’d kept her in bed for hours. She’d woken in the middle of the night and he hadn’t been in bed with her. She’d gone to find him and he’d hustled her back to the bedroom and seduced her again.
Had Roman been in her house all the while? Had he been right there in her living room?
Apparently, he’d found the code to her safe in her day planner. She never remembered numbers so she’d written it down.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.