The Royal Road by Saxon Robin

Author:Saxon, Robin [Saxon, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2013-01-16T16:00:00+00:00

THE minute Weston got back to work, Aiko was in his office, giving him a suspicious glower.

“What the hell was that at lunch?” she asked.

“That was me not finding your gift very funny,” Weston muttered, keeping his head down as he looked through his desk drawers. He wasn’t a fan of confrontation. “You might have noticed that Sidney didn’t find it very funny either.”

“It’s Sidney, now, is it?” Aiko had a distinctly irritable tone as she dropped to sit in the chair opposite his desk. “What the fuck, Weston? I thought you’d find it funny. Henry did.”

“Well, it wasn’t,” Weston surprised himself by snapping. “Come on, you’re not dumb. You know you can’t throw friendly mocking at someone you’re not friends with.”

Aiko sneered. The expression didn’t sit well on her face. “You think that was friendly? That was revenge for Moran.”

“Revenge?” Weston sputtered. He’d stopped drawing altogether in favor of staring disbelievingly at Aiko. “What are you, thirteen years old? He was a drunk, Aiko. Everybody knew it; we just didn’t act on it because nobody wants to fire someone in a small business like ours. Especially not someone with ties to Sanderson. Sidney was just doing his job.”

Even as he said it, Weston felt surprise at his own words. It hadn’t been that long since he’d been incredibly suspicious of Sidney too. The difference was, he’d actually made an effort to get to know the man.

“Doing his job by firing someone from theirs,” Aiko replied.

“Doing the job that Sanderson hired him to.” Weston shook his head. “He just made the suggestion. If you want to blame someone for booting Moran? Blame Sanderson. Or, hell, blame Moran, since he’s the one who came into work hungover every day and barely got anything done.”

Aiko still looked unhappy, but she didn’t immediately shout back, which Weston took as a good sign. “It just sucks,” she sighed then, her shoulders slumping. “We’re like a little family here. I don’t like losing anybody.”

“Neither do I,” Weston admitted. “But Sidney is passionate about his work. And I guess sometimes it can seem like he’s a little harsh, but he has the best intentions in mind.”

No, wait, that was Detective Saunders.

“I think,” Weston amended.

“You sound like you’re getting to know him pretty well.” Aiko’s eyes narrowed, her suspicion not entirely faded.

“Nah.” Lying didn’t come easy to Weston. “I mean, not really. I’m just good at people.”

That made Aiko tip her head back and laugh. “Weston, you’re horrible at people,” she said. “I still remember at our last office Christmas party you tried to flirt by making animal noises.”

“He was a zoologist,” Weston defended himself. “He was interested!”

“He ran away. And he was dating Martha.”

Weston gave a sigh of defeat. “Fine, I’m bad at people.”

Aiko reached across the desk to give him a consoling pat on the hand. “You are,” she agreed. “And maybe you’re right about Moran. But I still don’t trust the Leech. Ever since he walked through those doors, I’ve been triple-checking everything I do.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.