“It’s done,” Isaac beamed.
“Publish it.”
“You don’t want to read it first?” I asked.
Michael’s groggy tone let us know he had been up anticipating the document. I felt a moment of pride that he trusted us enough to publish without any oversight. “I’ll read it when it’s up on the website. Congratulations. Go get some sleep.”
An overwhelming feeling of apprehension balled in my gut. I placed my hand over Isaac’s as we clicked publish, and within seconds all of our hard work was up on the internet for everyone to see.
Isaac called Payton and Kieran, who both croaked their hello’s. They’d both been woken from their sleep because their work started now. We divided the news outlets between the two so that they could conquer the time-sucking task of getting HRI publications on the radar. They had slept the first half of the night, and now hat their work started, Isaac and I crashed into his mattress to sleep the second half.
“Do you think things will change?” I whispered into the darkness.
I felt Isaac’s sigh against the nape of my neck. “I think, at the very least, this one crime ring will be stopped.”
“Another one will just pop up in its wake,” I said. The fall from the high of finishing the story was waning as I settled into the quiet of night. The blossoming hope in my chest started to shrivel, quicker now that Isaac hesitated to reply.
“Don’t let that rob you from celebrating this victory.”
“What if the media silences the story? What if they cover it all up?”
Isaac was quiet for a long time. I turned in his arms to face him, nose to nose. He tucked my bangs away and asked me, “What if what we’ve reported starts a huge investigation that takes them all down and the world is a little bit better for a little while?”
“I hope it lasts longer than a little while.”
CHAPTER 46
Isaac
We bloody fucking did it.
That was my first thought, followed by the urge to shake Celeste awake and scream like schoolgirls. Her breathing was still slow and measured, her soft body tucked into mine. I reached over her and grabbed my phone.
Our social media was exploding. We were on the front page of every news outlet. Sarah’s story was viral everywhere and it was only mid-morning. Our names were trending on several platforms and there were several hashtags calling for awareness of sex trafficking.
I shook Celeste gently. “We did it.”
“Hm?”
“Look.” I handed her my phone and she sat up, scrolling, a hand to her mouth. After a few minutes she flung the phone to the side and pounced on me. Laughing, kissing, embracing one another until we were a tangle of sheets and limbs and mirth.
I loved this woman. And together we had brought to light a darkness that had plagued the world for decades. Together we had incited change.
We walked into the office after lunch to deafening applause. Celeste looked up at me, her black bangs fallen in her beautiful eyes. I brushed them back and she rose to her toes and planted a hard kiss to my lips. The gasps and screams got louder around us. Our colleagues shocked. Several I-knew-its later, I pulled away.
Michael was the first to shake my hand.
Kieran pulled Celeste close, kissed her cheek, and smacked me away.
Payton stood on the fringes of the crowd. When our eyes met, he nodded, and I understood why he couldn’t be a part of this. Celeste noticed it also and shrugged. I took her hand in mine as we walked to our office.
“What do we do now?” Celeste asked as I shut the door to a riotous crowd begging for us to kiss again.
“We wait,” I answered. “And in the meantime, Miss McAlaster,” I threaded my fingers through her silken hair, felt her smile against my lips, “I think we ought to organize this chaos.”
Epilogue
Kieran
I stepped out into the alleyway and slumped against the brick wall. I soothed the pounding in my head with the pads of my fingers, massaging my temples.
“Come out here to hide as well?”
I shat a brick and turned to find Payton smoking a fag, long legs crossed at the ankles. He took a long drag and blew out the smoke slowly, pointing his nose to the sky and watching it dissipate.
“No. It’s stifling in there,” I replied.
“Michael is having someone come up to fix it. But it’s not the broken air conditioning that’s stifling, is it?” Payton scuffed the concrete walkway with his shoe and peered up at me through his long, full lashes.
“I don’t know what you mean.” I wiped a bead of sweat from my brow and shook off the feeling that I was being watched.
“Don’t you? I imagine you and I are both out here for the same reason.”
I always liked Payton, but lately he had become an insufferable ass. “Yeah? What’s that?”
“Can’t stand to look at them is all.”
“Who?”
Payton tipped his head to the side and took another drag of his cigarette. “C’mon Kieran. I see the way you look at her.”
I sputtered, scoffed, and folded my arms across my chest. How dare he? “She’s my best friend.”
“Isaac was mine, too. Sucks that we both patched ’em up only for them to fall for each other.”
“You’re insane,” I retorted, shaking my head. Because maybe if I denied it out loud, it wouldn’t be true.
“It’s amazing what you can see when you recognize what you’re watching.” Payton flicked the butt into the bin near us and came up next to me, leaning against the wall.
“I’m happy for them,” I said more for myself than for him. I was. I had to be.
Payton laughed. “And I’m straight as an iron rod.”
I chuckled in response.
“I’m leaving the company. It’s been made very clear that I’ll never make senior writer here. Hell, they didn’t even put my name in the acknowledgements.”
“You did that to yourself.” I pointed at him, and he pushed my finger away.
“And even with all my scheming, it wasn’t seen as initiative. I could have broken the story, you know.”
Payton had a tendency to exaggerate his importance. I took that bit of information with a tablespoon of salt. Yet, curiosity got the better of me and I asked, “Who was your source, anyway?”
“If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
“Why? You sleeping with a diplomat?”
“Something like that,” he said, letting out a tense chuckle. He pushed off the wall and brushed the back of his trousers. “Good luck with Celeste,” he said.
“You’ve got it all wrong,” I denied one more time.
Payton stilled, then looked over his shoulder at me. He sneered. “You’re all wrong about Sarah Taylor, by the way. She lied about everything. And you all ate it up because it fit his agenda.”
“What do you mean by that?” I felt unsteady, a flash of Sarah’s piercing gaze surfacing in my memory.
“You’re a smart girl, Kieran. Think about it. Isaac needed a victim. Sarah played you all like fools. Perhaps, if I hadn’t been kicked off the project, we’d have gotten to the truth. Doesn’t matter. She was always meant to get away with it all.” Payton’s dark laughter hung in the alleyway as he returned to work.
I stared at the spot where he smoked his fag. A bead of sweat trickled down my breastbone, right above the pounding of my heart.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tiffany Costa lives a happy double life in the suburbs of New York City. She spends her time writing spice by day and teaching dance by night. When she isn’t writing, or teaching, she can be spotted hiking with her kids or playing couch potato with her unfairly handsome other half.
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day: An Office Romance (Weekday series Book 1)
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