Womanizer (A Standalone Novel) (A Steamy Alpha Billionaire Romance) (24 page)

Chapter 38

Alicia was all set in her office and ready to talk to Bill. I felt like I
was going to puke. Alicia was so brave to move forward with this investigation
and to agree to wear a wire. It surprised me just how strong she was.

We waited patiently for Bill to arrive at Alicia’s office. In painful
silence, we all looked around the room and tired to be patient.

“Hi, Bill,” Alicia said.

We could hear her over the recording device that Rosalynn had set up in
the room.

“I’m sorry for yelling at you before. I’m just so tired of people
thinking I had something to do with the fraud before. I love you like you’re my
own daughter. I would never do anything to hurt you.”

I felt like puking as I heard Bill laying on the suck-up nice and thick
for Alicia. I wasn’t sure what their conversations were normally like, but I
suspected that didn’t sound anything like the one that was going on.

“Bill, I have evidence that you are living in a multi-million dollar
condo here in New York. How can you afford something like that?”

Bill laughed and then saw that Alicia was serious because his voice
calmed down right away and he answered her question seriously.

“It’s my parent’s condo.”

Alicia was silent. We all waited patiently to see what she would say
next.

“That’s an awfully expensive condo for your parents.”

“My father didn’t believe in investing his money in the stock market.
Instead, he wanted to have his money in real estate so when he died he could be
guaranteed of the value of his estate.”

“Oh, yes,” Alicia said. “I remember you said your mother didn’t want to
live there after you father passed away because it was too big.”

“Exactly,” Bill replied.

There was another long silence and Alicia seemed to be stuck. She didn’t
know what to say and there was no way to communicate with her.

“Bill, someone’s stealing from me. Is it you?”

The direct approach was something I was very fond of. Even if someone
lied to you it was typically possible to see their physical reaction to the
question at the very least. I hated that we weren’t able to see how Bill had
reacted when Alicia asked him if he was stealing from her.

“No, I wouldn’t do such a thing and I think you know it.”

Again Alicia was silent as she pondered what to ask Bill next. But she
didn’t have to wait long.

“It’s Ryan and Isabella,” Bill said. “I’ve been following them. First it
was because of the duplicate invoices that people were saying they had gotten.
But then I wanted to see why we didn’t have enough merchandise, either.”

Alicia was quiet.

The silence filled the room uncomfortably and I kept looking over at
Natasha to see what her reaction was to things.

“Where are they today?”

“I don’t know. I tried calling them and it went to voicemail.”

I looked at Mike and Natasha, I knew exactly where those two were going
if they were the ones steeling from Alicia. They were going to the warehouse.
They needed to get the money and documents to hide what they at been doing.

“Rosalynn, you have to get people out to the warehouse. That’s where they
will be,” I said as I wrote down the address to the warehouse.

She nodded and passed the information on to the young man that sat next
to her, so she could continue to listen to the conversation between Alicia and
Bill.

I had to admit, Bill wasn’t sounding very guilty to me at the moment. As
long as the ownership of that condo checked out, Alicia could have been totally
right about him.

Rosalynn called Alicia and told her she could let Bill leave the office.
They were going to try and track down Ryan and Isabella and see if they had any
more information.

“We have a team that is about thirty minutes from the warehouse, we
should know something soon,” a man in a black suit said as he opened the door
to the room we were in.

There wasn’t much talking going on as we all sat quietly and waited for
Alicia to return from her office. I desperately wanted them to find Ryan and
Isabella and hoped it would be the end of Alicia’s nightmare.

Even if she decided never to talk to me again, at least I would have
helped save her company. It was the least I could do for putting her through
the hell I did with Rebecca.

I told Rosalynn about the armed security guard at the warehouse and the
side opening I had snuck in through. Hopefully the officers that arrived would
be able to safely get into the building. I suspected that the security guard
would put up a good fight, even with the FBI; he had been so insistant when I
visited before. He was probably instructed that people would pretend to be law
enforcement to get in. Or maybe he would just let them in without an issue.

Rosalynn picked up her phone and I saw her face turn intense right away.

“Be safe,” she said and then hung up. “They are at the warehouse and
about to approach.”

Just then, Alicia was escorted back into the room. She looked totally
exhausted.

There was an empty place next to me on the couch and another chair over
by Mike. I expected that Alicia would choose to sit by Mike because of how
angry she was with me. But to my surprise she sat down next to me and let her
head rest on my shoulder.

Again, tears started to flow and I looked at Natasha to see if she could
help.

“It’s almost over,” Natasha said as she rubbed Alicia’s back.

We all sat there and silently watched Rosalynn as she waited for a call
back from the officers who had arrived at the warehouse.

Over an hour went by before the phone finally rang.

“Hello,” Rosalynn said and then shook her head up and down at us all.
“Wow, really? Is everyone safe? Great job. I’ll send a team out to back everything
up. Bring those three in for questioning.”

Relief washed across Rosalynn’s face and instantly across mine as well.

“What happened?” Mike blurted out.

“The officer’s found the security guard, Ryan, and Isabella loading bags
of cash into a vehicle. There was a gun fight and the security guard was shot
in the leg. Everyone else was unhurt.”

I reached over and put my arm around Alicia and pulled her toward me in a
hug. It was an instinctual reaction to the great news and I did it before I
remembered she was mad at me. But again to my surprise, she didn’t pull away.

Alicia leaned into me and let me hug her for a good minute before she
pulled away. She got up and went over to Rosalynn and gave her a hug. The two
women talked for a little bit while Mike, Natasha and I chatted about the news.
We had all worked hard to figure out what was going on, it felt really great to
know it was over.

I was still in a bit of shock that Bill Yobi had not been involved. He
seemed like a shady character to be for the longest time. But after hearing how
he talked to Alicia with such respect, even when faced with her accusations; I
had to change my opinion of the man. She obviously knew him much better than I
did.

We all stayed at the FBI office for about an hour as we talked about
everything that had happened and made sure Rosalynn had our contact information
so we could give statements later.

“I can take you home if you would like,” I offered Alicia.

“I don’t want to go home. I can’t be alone tonight.”

“You can come to my place,” I offered.

I instantly saw the look of disgust on her face. It was probably a bad
idea to bring her back to the place that a woman had pointed a gun at us just a
few short hours before.

“Yes, I guess that will work,” Alicia replied.

She surprised me that she was willing to go back to my place at all. The
shock must have been visible on my face because Alicia made a comment about it.

“I can’t avoid your place forever just because of the memories there.”

“Tomorrow is a new day. We can erase the memories and start fresh.”

***

We walked into my apartment and Alicia went straight up to the floor to
ceiling window again. She looked out over the city for a moment and then turned
on a bunch of lights in my living room.

“Fuck me right here,” she said to me as she started to take off all of
her clothes in front of the window.

My mind went crazy as I looked at her. Who was this woman? Alicia didn’t
seem like the kind of girl that would have sex in front of the window. Surely
she understood that after turning all the lights on like that everyone would be
able to see us.

“You know people can see us, right?” I said and pointed to the restaurant
across the street.

“Oh, yes. I know. I once sat at those tables outside and watched at
pretty elaborate scene.”

Alicia winked at me and my face went ghost white. I looked at her and was
totally shocked.

“What do you mean?” I said as I followed her lead and started to take off
my clothes as well.

“Oh, that blonde had nothing on me though. I can put on a much better
show,” Alicia’s smile was the same as when I first met her.

She laughed, and I knew I was hers forever.

Click here to get an email
when my next book is released

Get a
free copy of my never released book Collide

Click
here to get your free book

This
book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are
products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not
to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual
events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Copyright
© 2015 Nella Tyler