Page 123 of Stolen Kisses

"Dude, next time you call us here, maybe give us more details or answer your damn phone," Wyatt complained. Clearly they'd received the same message as me.

"Okay, now that you're all here, we can start," Duncan began in his usual no-nonsense tone. "Want to sit down?"

"No," I replied.

"I prefer to stand," Griffin added.

"Listen, we have a lead on the transactions that the SEC flagged," Duncan shared.

"Wait, you've looked into this?"

"Yes." Duncan explained, "Knox and Finn traced it back to a shell company." His eyes flashed for some reason. "And it was set up by Farley & Gottlieb.”

“Cyrus’s tight with them,” I said instantly. Bile rose in my throat. "You think he was behind this?"

"It's as good a theory as any."

"Come on, I know the man dislikes me, but he wouldn't do this. How did you even find the shell company?" I asked.

"Hannah looked at the transactions. Finn and Knox checked the information, and—"

"Wait, Hannah knows about this?" I asked. "Fucking hell. I had sent her the info, but she didn't tell me anything about it."

"Yes, she was here tonight too," Duncan explained.

"Why did she leave?"

Finn rubbed his temple, keeping his head down.

Knox stood up. "Because she accidentally found out about the company we set up, and we told her everything."

"What the fuck?" I exclaimed. "Why didn't you lead with that?"

"Because it was important for you to know about Cyrus," Duncan explained.

"I don't care about fucking Cyrus right now. How did she take it?"

"Badly," Finn replied.

"She said she needed to get out of here and clear her mind," Knox said.

"No shit. Why didn't you message methat?" I glared at Duncan.

"Because I'm dealing with another crisis too," he replied cooly.

"The rest of us can deal with it," Griffin spoke up. I realized he and Wyatt had been quiet all this time. Knowing them, they were simply processing it. We all had different ways of coping with bad news. Finn and Knox usually declared that they were up for anything. Wyatt and Griffin liked to mull things over, but also like my younger brothers, they usually did whatever it took to solve an issue.

"Listen, can you focus on our issue with Cyrus for a second? I think we should get the SEC on it," Duncan said.

I shook my head. "I can't focus on anything right now."

Before meeting Hannah, I would've stayed all night at the office with my brothers. But right then I wanted to make things up to her and explain my reasoning. To let her know I did everything because I couldn't bear seeing her face difficulties. Especially not ones I could so easily fix. She was everything to me, and I needed her to know that right then. This could wait. I trusted my brothers to deal with it.

"Hang on. The bright side is he's not planning on killing us," Knox said.

"Yeah, we're really sorry for dropping the ball, dude," Finn added. "But she saw the folder on Knox's desktop, and we couldn't just lie to her face."

"No, I did that long enough," I admitted. "I need to go deal with this."

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