Evie relaxed back on the cushions at the confirmation that he didn’t really know anything about her past. “It’s more than just a guy, Eric. And I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you the details. It really is safer for you the less you know. And it’s probably a good thing you’re out of the country.”
“What about my family? My parents…”
I shook my head and spoke up. “They wouldn’t go after a senator and his wife. Too high profile. They’re safe. If anything changes to make me think otherwise, we’ll get someone there to protect them.”
Eric was quiet for a minute, then said, “Riley, is it?”
“Yeah.”
“I trust you’re capable of keeping her safe?”
I looked at Evie, at the girl I thought I’d lost and who, despite all circumstances, had somehow come back into my life. The girl who’d sent my world spinning at seventeen. The same one who sent it spinning at twenty-three. The girl I’d do anything for to make sure she was safe. And I said the only truth I knew: “I’d die to protect her.”
Chapter Eighteen
EVIE
Riley hung up the phone with a promise to keep Eric informed as much as possible. And now his gaze was fixed on me, those eyes narrowed and questioning, and I knew why. He wanted to know what the hell they would go digging around in my house for. But more than that, I knew he’d want to know why I’d kept this from him.
If only he knew this wasn’t the only thing I was keeping from him.
“What were they looking for, Evie?” His voice was low, smooth, despite the tension that sat heavily on his shoulders.
And I knew there was no point in keeping it from him any longer—not this secret.
I blew out a breath and got up from the couch, then went to grab my purse. Fumbling into the side pocket, I pulled out a zippered pouch that to anyone else would look like a makeup bag filled with various cosmetics. It was the same bag I’d carried with me all the time, no matter where I went, despite wearing very little makeup.
I walked back over to Riley with the bag and settled it into my lap when I sat down, then rummaged around inside it until I found what I needed and pulled it out.
Riley’s forehead was furrowed when I handed it over to him, and he rolled the small black tube around in his fingers, flipping it forward and back, looking at it from all angles. With his eyebrows raised, he looked at me. “They’re after your lipstick?”
Tipping my chin toward it, I said, “Open it.”
He uncapped the top, and instead of finding the tube of color he no doubt expected, he found the end of a USB drive. Pinching the base of the lipstick case between his thumb and forefinger, he raised his eyes to mine. “What’s on here?”
“All the evidence I found when Max had me dig into what Ned had done.” I paused and swallowed. “Plus all the evidence I found proving it was actually Max who was stealing from Blaine, and Ned was only doing as he’d been told.”
As much as I saw frustration gleaming in Riley’s eyes, no doubt at the fact that I’d kept this from him, I also saw what looked like appreciation. “How old is this information?”
“I got it all right before … before everything happened. So five years, give or take.”
“Does Max know you have this?”
“I can’t imagine how. You’re the first person I’ve ever told and the first one to see it.”
He raised his hand to his jaw, the sound of his fingers scraping against his harsh stubble loud in the otherwise quiet room. “If you were Max Cavett, would you really go to all this trouble for evidence on something that had happened so long ago? On something that was buried and done?”
Furrowing my brow, I said, “I don’t follow…”
Riley narrowed his eyes at the flash drive, then capped it again, gripping it in his fist before looking up at me, his arm propped on the back of the couch. “If you were Max and had gotten away with stealing a million dollars without being caught, would you stop after someone had—successfully, in his eyes—taken the fall? Especially when the only person who knew what you’d been doing was dead?” He fixed me with a hard stare. “Or would you keep stealing?”
I raised my eyebrows at him. “You think he’s still doing it.”
“I’d bet money on it.”
It made sense. Max was a businessman above all else—a corrupt businessman, yes, but one who would find the most effective way to make fists of money. And stealing from someone without that person being wise to it was the quickest and easiest way for him to do so.
“He’s a paranoid fucker, and given the kind of shit he’s pulled in the past … well, it’d make sense that he thinks you have something more on him. Something other than what you’d found five years ago.” He tossed the flash drive to me. “How long had he been skimming off the top when he accumulated that million?” Riley asked.
I tucked the drive back into the bag and zipped it up while I thought back to what I’d found so long ago, the information that had been burned into my brain. “Um, not quite a year. Nine months, give or take a week or two.”
“So imagine how much he could’ve racked up in five years.”
Riley stood from the couch and paced in the room, his fingers tugging at his hair. He was like a caged animal, all coiled energy, his lithe legs eating up the length of the room in five quick strides. “Maybe we’ve been looking at this all wrong. We’ve been on the defense the whole time, but maybe it’s time we went on the offense.”
“How do you mean?”
“Is there a way for you to dig into what Max has been doing the past five years, look for what you found last time?”
“I … I don’t know. All the records should be computerized, so maybe. I’d need Aaron’s help, though. I know where to start looking, but I’d need his hacking expertise to get me in.”
Riley nodded and reached for his phone. “I’ll make a call.”
RILEY
I should’ve known Evie had some sort of evidence in her possession to pin on Max. She was smart enough to know that any bit of information she could get could potentially be used to cover her ass. And that she’d carried it with her this entire time in a fucking tube of lipstick was so ingenious, so Evie, I had to smile.
I walked into the kitchen, thumbing through my phone until I got to Gage’s name.
“Riley,” he answered after only a single ring. “Everything okay?”
“We’re all right, but something’s happened.”
“I’m listening.”
I told him about the break-in, about the evidence Evie had against Max. After letting him know our plan to see what else Max had been involved in these past years, Gage was going to get in touch with Aaron and get a laptop to us tomorrow morning. The thought of sitting idle while waiting for him, knowing Max was actively hunting Evie, had me edgy as fuck, but there wasn’t anything else we could do.
After hanging up with him, I slid my phone into my front pocket. Evie hadn’t moved from the couch, her jaw working back and forth as she bit at her fingernails, her gaze focused out the window.
I walked over and settled on the couch next to her. “Gage will be by in the morning with a laptop for you to use. And he’s gonna get in touch with Aaron. See what he can do from his end.”
She nodded, dropping her hand from her mouth and looking at me. “Good. That’s good.”
I reached out and wrapped my hand around her leg, running my thumb along the smooth skin of her ankle. “We’ll find something.”
The look she fixed on me was so full of fear, it gutted me. Then she said, “That’s what I’m afraid of. What I found the first time was enough to put a bull’s-eye on my back. It was enough to send a guy to kill me. And now? If I find this when you and Gage and Aaron are all involved, too?” She blew out a breath and closed her eyes, shaking her head. “What’s Max going to do when he realizes I have even more evidence on him? It’s going to put everyone else in even more danger, just by being aligned with me.”
The thing she
was forgetting was that I’d stand by her, protect her till my last breath if that was what it took. “That’s why we’re doing it this way—on our terms. If we go after him first, he won’t have a chance to come after you, because we’ll already be at his fucking front door.”
Chapter Nineteen
Sunlight poured into the loft, the brightness outside a contradiction to the mood within these four walls. Evie was restless, pacing back and forth in the space, while we waited for Gage.
I was in the kitchen, fixing a cup of coffee, when my phone buzzed in my pocket. I slipped it from my jeans, and after a quick glance at the screen confirming it was him, I answered. “Yeah.”
“We’ve got movement.”
I stiffened, my arm freezing as I brought the cup toward my lips, my entire body going rigid at his words. Evie noticed, her pacing having stopped once I answered the call. She moved over to stand by me, her eyes focused intently on me. I met her gaze as I asked, “By who?”
“One of the guys—not anyone high up—just asking questions. I think Max is covering all the bases, trying to get a lead on anything, and tracking down all the people who’d known Evie is where he’d start.”
Setting the coffee cup on the counter, I asked, “How’d they find out where you are?”
“Anyone could find me if they looked hard enough. We never went under the radar.”
Not like Evie had.
With my eyes connected with hers, I asked into the phone, “What’d you see?”
“Chuck was over by the campus when I dropped Madison off today. With all the shit that’s happening, I didn’t want her walking by herself. He was twitchy as fuck, not at all covert. Fumbled his way through some bullshit excuse about why he was asking about Evie.”
I blew out a breath, scrubbing a hand over my face before shoving my fingers through my hair. “Fuck,” I bit out, consumed with worry. Knowing I hadn’t been able to protect her last time only fueled the fire currently burning up inside me. “Okay, so what do we do?” I asked.
“We wait,” he said, which was the last fucking thing I wanted to do. Sitting and waiting wasn’t in my nature. I was a doer, and I wanted to fix this, right the fuck now before Evie could get hurt. “We’ll continue with what we talked about last night. Evie can dig for info, and let’s hope she finds something. Something big that we can use against Max, because this shit isn’t gonna blow over. It’s only been a few days, and they’ve already tossed her house and sent guys out beating the streets, tracking down info.”
“You still think it’s a good idea for you to come this way?”
“Better than you two being out. If I’m seen, it’s no big deal. I live here. Someone sees you strolling around town, and flags are gonna be raised. I’ll circle around, weave in and out, make sure I’m not being followed. I’m waiting to hear back from Aaron, but I’ve already got the laptop. I’ll be by in a couple hours.”
I nodded, knowing he was right. Despite every instinct I had telling me to go out and do something, it was safer for everyone—safer for her—if we stayed put. “Sounds good. See you then.”
“Later. And Ry? Keep your eyes and ears open.”
The line disconnected, and it took everything in me to calmly slip my phone into my pocket. Because what I wanted to do was throw it across the room, smash it into the brick wall. I wanted to stalk out of this too-small apartment and hunt down everyone who was after her. I wanted to grab her and hold her, protect her from it all, because they were coming for her. No matter what I did, no matter how well I hid her, I wouldn’t be able to keep her safe forever.
And it fucking killed me that after everything she’d already been through, she still had to deal with this shit. It was never going to end for her.
With a muffled curse, I braced my hands on the counter and hung my head. Evie’s footsteps sounded behind me, then her fingers were on my back, lightly tracing, and I wanted more. I always wanted more with her.
“What happened? Are they here?” Her voice was low, resigned, and I hated that she’d already accepted this as her future.
I would do everything in my power to keep it from being so. Everything.
I turned around, leaning back against the counter and tugging her between my spread legs. With one finger hooked through a belt loop on her jeans, I kept her close to me. I raised my other hand and brushed her hair back from her face, pushing it behind her shoulder. She was in that oversized sweater again, the one she’d been wearing the night I’d seen her for the first time in five years. And just like that time, her shoulder was bare and so fucking taunting. All that creamy skin, so silky and smooth. I hadn’t had my lips on enough of her yet.
I didn’t take my eyes off the freckles that decorated her pale skin as I said, “Not Max. Some guy low in the ranks was poking around, trying to get a read on Gage. Gage thinks it was to see if he knew anything about your whereabouts.”
She shivered as I brushed my thumb over her skin, ran it up the column of her neck, rested it against her pulse point which, despite the circumstances, was steady. “But Gage is still worried,” she said.
“I wouldn’t say worried.” My brother didn’t do worried. He did prepared. “He’s cautious. Thinks there’s a reason Max is moving so swiftly with everything and wants to make sure we have our shit together if anything goes down. How long will it take you to find something, assuming you can?”
“I … I don’t know. It all depends on how well he’s covered his tracks. If he’s pulled in others to help him, or if he’s still running it by himself. Maybe a couple of days?”
I stared at her, my eyes speaking everything that I wasn’t prepared to say aloud yet, but the way she inclined her head to me, the softness around her eyes, told me she heard me anyway and knew as well as I did.
We might not have a couple of days.
Needing that reminder that she was here, she was safe, I wrapped my fingers around her neck and pulled her toward me. Lowering my face, I swept my mouth across hers, and I went from half hard to hard enough to pound nails when she melted right into me. She rested her hands against my chest, and a breathy little sound left her lips when she connected them with mine, her tongue licking along my bottom lip.
I dropped my hands to her ass, cupping it and hauling her up against me, letting her feel exactly what she did to me. With a moan, she tilted her head and opened her mouth to me, sliding her tongue against mine, and I wanted her. Right then.
While it had always been good between us, it’d never felt like this. I was a junkie needing a fix when it came to her now. I didn’t know if the change was simply the time that had passed, how we’d both changed as people, and what that meant for the chemistry between us …
Or if it was something else, something more. If the fire between us sparked so brightly because we both knew how it was without the other.
We knew exactly how much we both had to lose.
* * *
It was a couple hours later when the intercom buzzed and crackled, the sound breaking over the speaker by the apartment door. Evie was on the couch, her back straight as a board as she looked to me. After the phone call earlier from Gage, after our brief but intense make-out session, she hadn’t said much of anything in the hours we waited, too lost in her head.
Glancing out the window, I saw it was Gage standing at the back door, and I walked over to buzz him in. His boots thudded up the stairs, then he knocked twice before I opened the door.
“Hey.” He entered the loft, a bag slung over his shoulder, and I shut the door behind him, locking up before following him into the room. He tipped his chin in greeting at Evie.
“Anyone follow you?” I asked.
Gage turned around and leveled me with a stare, his eyes hard and his jaw set. “I might’ve been out of this shit for months, but I’m not a fucking idiot, Ry. Jesus.” He shook his head, running his thumb along his jaw.
I gave a nod of acknowledgment. I knew he wasn’t an idiot, but I couldn’t take chances with Evie.
Gesturing to the bag he had with him, I asked, “You bring the laptop?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged it off his shoulder and placed it on the floor by Evie’s feet. “I had no idea what kind of specs to get, but hopefully you can do what you need to with it.”
“Thanks,” she said as she unzipped the bag and unloaded the laptop, powering it up a second later.
Gage turned to face her fully, his arms crossed. “I know you kept everyone in the dark because it’d be safer, but that time’s passed, Evie. We need to know what we’re going up against here. I need to see exactly what kind of dirt you have on Max so we can try to figure out our endgame.”
“Well, that’s just it. If—when—I find this other evidence, what then? What are we going to do with it? Knock on his door and hand it over in exchange for freedom?” She shook her head. “I don’t trust him to do that, so it doesn’t leave us with a whole lot of choices.”
Gage glanced over at me, and I could see every unspoken word reflected back at me in his eyes. We’d do whatever it took to make sure Max couldn’t threaten any of us. “Don’t worry about that now. All you need to worry about is finding whatever you need, and finding it as quickly as fucking possible, because the clock’s ticking faster every day. And Max isn’t going to stop until he gets what he wants.”
Chapter Twenty
EVIE
I’d only been running jobs for Max for a couple of months when I’d run into my first problem. By then, Riley had been going with me to every single job, making sure I had cover. At first, I’d dragged him along because I’d liked him. It’d been as simple as that. I’d wanted him around. Wanted to flirt and laugh and talk, pretend for a minute that I was a normal fifteen-year-old girl. Of course, I hadn’t been a normal fifteen-year-old girl. I’d been one who made bad choices and got myself into shit situations all because I hadn’t wanted to go home. But Riley had been with me nonetheless, and on that particular night, I’d been thankful for it.
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