“Same reason he brings you to every other function: A pretty wife on his arm makes him look like a respectable man instead of what he actually is. But these aren’t steakhouse dinners with boring lawyers and bankers, Cassandra. These are dangerous people. If anything goes sideways in that room—and with Raymond, something always goes sideways—you won’t be coming home. They’ll keep you and use you as leverage… Or worse.”
I try to swallow and find I can’t. “How do you know all this?”
“Oh, yes, of course,” I say breezily. “As one does.”
“Don’t sound impressed. It’s lazy on his end. The point is the ticking clock. Six weeks. That’s our window.”
I’m nodding so much I probably look like a bobblehead. But I’m doing some other, very important math in my head as I do it, and my brain is screaming
