1. Sullivan

1

SULLIVAN

T here was a chance I’d win a Pulitzer for the story I’d been working on for the last six months, but I didn’t care about that. Exposing Eric Weber as the boggen minger —foul-smelling scumbag—he was, motivated me far more than accolades ever would.

Tomorrow, the Edinburgh offices of the Crown Herald News Agency, the UK’s most trusted investigative news organization and my employer, would lock up for the holidays for all but late-breaking news stories. Which meant I’d no longer have access to some of the more secure servers I relied on for my research, at least until after the beginning of the new year.

I’d make do, of course, since the current story I was working on required me to find and cultivate my own sources—ones I had no intention of revealing, let alone sharing, even within my department.

Given I’d spent the day attempting to come up with every conceivable thing I might need to use the classified servers to find, my desk, that my editor typically referred to as a “muddle of epic proportions,” was worse than usual.

Scraps of paper where I’d jotted down random thoughts to follow up on were buried under days-old cups containing no-longer-discernible beverages. That I didn’t give a fuck was only one reason my colleagues, which was far too nice a word to call them, avoided my corner of the office. Actually, my untidiness was what had landed me at the desk shoved off in a windowless alcove.

That, along with my tenacity, had earned me the nickname bulldog. I was more often called Bully than Sully—short for my first name, Sullivan—not that the two rhymed. It was meant to be insulting, but I considered it high praise.

“Rivers, my office, now,” barked Clive Edwards, executive editor of investigations, as well as a former recipient of the prestigious Pulitzer. He was also my mother’s brother. Before I was hired for my current position, he’d made the importance of us concealing our relationship clear.

Given he headed up the investigations team, I doubted we’d be successful in keeping the secret for very long. That my coworkers still hadn’t figured out I was related to the boss spoke volumes about the caliber of reporters most of them were.

Had they discovered the truth, they wouldn’t have been able to cry nepotism at my rapid climb within the department; it certainly hadn’t been because of my uncle. He wasn’t responsible for my getting the job, in the first place, nor did he cut me any slack. I’d gotten where I was by being the bulldog I’d come to be known as.

“Yes, sir,” I muttered at his command, digging around for a notepad and pen, and racing into his office before the door shut in my face.

“Where are you with the Tower-Meridian investigation?”

“Getting close, sir.”

He raised a brow. “That’s hardly an answer, and you know it.” He leaned back in his chair and looked out at the view of Edinburgh Castle afforded by his corner office. “I received a message from the higher-ups.”

My eyes scrunched as I processed what such a statement could mean. “Regarding?”

“They’re pulling the plug on the story.”

My eyes practically bulged out of my head. I’d dedicated the last several months of my life to this investigation to the exclusion of nearly everything else. I couldn’t fathom being forced to quit now when I truly was close. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am. The new editor in chief, Fallon Wallace, is taking a close look at each department’s budget and making significant cuts. We won’t be able to fund the kind of expenses we have in the past.”

“Understood. I’ll rein in expenditures.”

He turned his chair to face me. “That isn’t all.”

“Go on.”

“The news agency has received threats.”

I raised a brow. “Can you be more specific?”

“We kill the story, or you suffer the same fate.”

“Someone wants me dead?” If there were ever a threat that would achieve the exact opposite response than intended, it was this. It nearly made me giddy. “I’m closer than I thought,” I said under my breath.

“This is no laughing matter, Sullivan.”

“Look, what kind of investigative journalist would I be if a death threat deterred me?”

“A living one. Your mother made me promise?—”

“Please don’t,” I whispered. I’d spent my entire life defending my inquisitive nature to my mum, starting as far back as I could remember.

“Your teacher complains that you disrupt his lessons with your constant questions,” she’d said after returning from a conference with the man. “It’s bad enough that we have to endure it here, at home.”

While I didn’t remember his exact words, my father had probably muttered something about letting me be before returning to the book he was reading.

I couldn’t recall a single time I’d seen him without a tome in his hand or at least close by. I supposed I’d inherited his quest for knowledge, albeit with a different approach. I was an incessant question asker while he read voraciously.

“When we return from the holiday break, you’ll either be assigned something else, or if you don’t let this go, you’ll be fired.”

“But—”

“The decision is final. Am I making myself clear?”

“Yes, sir,” I responded.

I stood and walked out of his office, my mind reeling from the edict. The only thing I knew for sure was I had no intention of following orders. If not to the Crown Herald, I’d eventually sell the story to someone else.

As I slowly made my way to my desk, I glanced around, realizing that, in the short time I was in Clive’s office, everyone else had cleared out early without as much as wishing me a pleasant holiday. It didn’t matter. There wasn’t a single person in this department, or any other at the Crown Herald, who I considered a friend.

I cleaned up the worst of the trash cluttering my workspace, shoving the random scraps of paper into my computer bag and smashing them down in the bottom by jamming my laptop in the same compartment. I was about to turn my desktop PC off when an alert popped up on the screen.

“Eric Weber, infamous and elusive CEO of Tower-Meridian Consolidated, is rumored to be making a rare public appearance at this evening’s fundraiser at Edinburgh Castle,” read the message on my screen. Tonight, I would finally come face-to-face with the man who’d managed to keep his likeness out of the press to the point where neither I nor anyone else I’d spoken with had any idea what he looked like.

I glanced over my shoulder to make sure Clive was still in his office, then dug through my desk drawer, frantically searching for my press badge. I’d so rarely used it that I wondered if it was even current.

“Yes!” I nearly shouted when I found it beneath several file folders and what looked like a moldy piece of cardboard that had probably started out as pizza. I dumped it and the paper plate it was stuck to in the rubbish bin, grabbed my coat, and stuffed the badge and lanyard in my pocket. I was about to rap on my uncle’s door to wish him a happy Christmas when I heard him on the phone. “I’ve done all I can. The rest is in your hands now,” I heard him say. I eased away from the door and had just reached the lift when I heard him shout my name.

I hit the call button and spun around. “Good night, sir,” I said, ducking in as soon as the door opened. I leaned up against the back wall and thought about what I’d overheard. Had he been speaking with my mum? Was the death threat a fabrication meant to scare me enough that I’d abandon my investigation? Surely, he wouldn’t have gone that far just to appease my mother’s worry. But then why would he have said the rest was in “your hands now”? He had to have been talking to someone else and not about me at all.

Once home, I scoured the internet for whatever I could find about the event taking place later that night.

“Young People’s Trust,” I muttered in disgust, reading the list of charities the fundraiser supported. That a man I was certain funded human and maybe even weapons trafficking would dare show his face at such an event sickened me.

While I had no intention of confronting him—What would I say if I did?—I certainly intended to make sure he knew I was there. And when I stared into his undoubtedly coal-black eyes, he’d see without any doubt that he didn’t scare me. Not one bit.

The only drawback to going was that the event was black tie. I pulled the one gown I owned from the back of my closet, praying that it still fit and wasn’t a wrinkled mess. I couldn’t wear a bra with it, and it was too long to go without heels, which I’d also managed to find buried beneath several pairs of more practical footwear.

I’d spent thirty minutes searching for a place to leave my car before giving in and forking over the fifty pounds at the gate in order to park in the valet lot.

While waiting for the attendant to appear where I’d been instructed to proceed, I felt around inside my bag for my press badge. “Where in the bloody hell did it go?” I muttered just as another car pulled up closer to the castle’s entrance and stopped. Given it was a limousine with darkened windows, there was at least a chance the person being transported was none other than the man I’d been investigating—Eric Weber.

Rather than continue waiting for the attendant, I eased the door open and got out. When the credential I’d been searching for, that had apparently been on my lap, fell to the ground, I knelt down to grab it. Seconds after I stood and brushed off my dress, I froze.

“You were warned,” a man’s voice said before he put his hand over my mouth, and the gun he held against my temple cocked.

The limousine sped off, leaving me alone with the person I was sure intended to kill me once it was far enough away. I always figured this would be the way I’d go—on the verge of the biggest story of my career, one that would take down a man as vile as I could imagine.

I held my breath, shut my eyes, and sighed. If this was how I’d die, I could at least take satisfaction in knowing I was right about the bloody bastard.