The Consequence by Karin Tabke Page A

who died that day, Kat. Instead,” his voice choked, “My little brother caught the bullet with my name on it.”
    “What happened?”
    “I’d been working a big human trafficking case in the South Bay. I busted the ring leader Jae Won Moon, a Korean boss who was importing little girls and selling them to the highest bidder. It was a crazy trial. I don’t know if you remember it but there was jury tampering, one of the clerks was assassinated as well as a jurist’s wife. But damn if that jury didn’t suck it up and convict that prick. When the verdict came down, Moon stood, turned to me and swore in open court that he would destroy me.
    “Things with Amanda and Mark had hit a rocky patch. Hell, from the beginning it wasn’t right. But he loved her. The day after the trial, Amanda and Mark got into it, and to hurt him, she told him I had slept with her. He was furious and drove out to my house to kick my ass. I don’t know if he was pissed I didn’t tell him or pissed I’d slept with her. I’ll never know. As he came storming up the sidewalk to the front door, one of Moon’s henchmen drove onto my fucking lawn and, thinking it was me, gunned him down.”
    “Oh, Simon,” Katy softly said. How horrible! Hugging him close she pressed her cheek tightly to his chest. “It wasn’t your fault!”
    “I should have gone with my gut the day he brought her home and come clean with Mark. He may have disowned me but he’d still be alive today if I had.”
    “Simon, you didn’t pull the trigger. You’re not responsible. It was a terrible, unfortunate chain of events. You had no control over any of it. Please, you have to let go of the guilt.”
    His arms tightened around her. “It’s been two years and I’ve let the guilt eat away at me. Every time I look at Livy, I see Mark and the dad she will never know.”
    “And to compensate for that, you’ve allowed Amanda have her way with things because it eased your guilt.”
    “Yeah. It didn’t matter to me, her always being around.”
    He reached down and nudged her chin up. “Until you stumbled into my life.” He grinned. “I’ve never been so happy to be bumped into as the day you came out of that elevator.”

 
     
     
     
    m glad we bumped into each other too, Simon.” She smiled and snuggled into him wanting to move away from the sad subject of his brother’s death. There was no reason to push him for more because there was nothing else to say. She was thrilled that he had finally opened up to her and laid his heart on the table. Now he needed to work through his guilt issues and she would be there every step of the way.
    This was the first hurdle, him talking to her and sharing how he felt and why. She would take special care of his trust.
    His arms tightened around her.
    For a long time they sat quietly holding each other. But Katy’s brain was a whirlwind of activity, pondering ways to bring Evan down and save Simon’s job.
    “I want you to wire me,” she said, turning out of his embrace and looking up at his hooded eyes
    “What?” he asked not understanding what she was referring to.
    “Wire me,” she determinedly said. “I go to the gala this Saturday with a flash drive that has his texts on it and say, ‘this is what the cops
could
have on you.
If
I choose to give it to them.’”
    “No.” He scowled, pulling her back into his arms.
    “Why not? When he freaks out, I draw him into admitting what he did, then tell him I want half of the money since it was my research he sold.”
    “No.” He just as determinedly said.
    “I’ll also give him a heads up on getting out of the country fast because you know that he’s behind the bacterium lab break-in and you’re just waiting for a subpoena to confiscate all of his records.”
    “No.” His tone was adamant but Katy was going in for the kill.
    She pushed out of his arms and stood. Turning with her hands on her hips she demanded, “Why not?”
    “Because you have no training