Page 54 of Home Town Knight

Background Research on Genevieve Blake.

“Before you flip out, let me explain.”

I slowly raised my eyes to meet his. “Like you waited for me to explain last night beforeyouflipped out?”

“Which I apologized for.”

“And then you told me how you’re choosing to trust me. Yet you failed to mention this background check until today.”

“That’s because River just finished it. Aiden requested it yesterday after I dropped you off at Last Refuge. I asked River to send it only to me. I haven’t looked at it.”

I brushed aside my annoyance. Honestly, I was still surprised Owen hadn’t done his research on me before I’d arrived in Hartley, but we’d already had that conversation. “Then why are you showing it to me now?”

“Because I wanted to give you the chance to see it yourself. I let River finish it, but after everything that happened yesterday, I didn’t feel right reading it behind your back. If there’s anything there you want to share with me, you can. But it’s your choice.”

I opened the file. “It’s password protected.”

“And heavily encrypted. I’ll give you the password.”

While Owen scrambled the eggs and made the toast, I scrolled through my background report. I’d googled myself plenty of times. I was familiar with the info available about me on the internet, including the bad, the ugly, and the even worse.

But this was thorough.Extremelythorough.

“River did this research? How did he find all of this? Half of it shouldn’t be public record at all.” I pointed at a line about my juvenile arrest for criminal mischief. “This was expunged from my record!”

Owen read the entry over my shoulder. “You were a rebel.”

“Not really. A group of assholes from my school were harassing a classmate at the mall. A quiet kid. It pissed me off, and I jumped in, and of course mall security called the police andIwas the one they took into custody.”

“Were you mouthing off?”

“That’s beside the point.” After my dad had picked me up, he’d taken me out to a nice dinner and said he was proud of me. “Juvie records are sealed and then scrubbed after a certain amount of time. Like they never existed.” Yet River had found mine.

And there were details about my classes in school. My grades. My credit score and the balance of my bank account and the percentage of my income I spent on clothes. A list of the places I’d gone on vacation and the names of myex-boyfriends.

“What the hell, Owen? This isn’t a regular background check.” All the blood had rushed to my face. “This is my entire life. How did River get access to all this? He would’ve had to hack into…”

Owen leaned against the counter, hands in the pockets of his sweats, chewing his bottom lip.

“He did. Didn’t he?” I said incredulously. “I know whathackers can find when they start digging.” And River had managed thisfast. This stuff was not amateur hour.

“You’ve worked with hackers before?” Owen asked.

“Don’t change the subject. The only thing he missed is my current employment. I don’t work for theDailyanymore. Sent my boss a text this morning. I’m done. But who knows, maybe River has figured that out by now and he’ll send you an update.” I pushed away from the counter. “Did he get access to my work files too? My sources?”

“Like I said, I didn’t read it. Aiden asked him for a deep dive, and River is…efficient. Doesn’t really sleep.”

“Who the heck is he? Who are any of these people? Jessi and Scarlett made their guys sound like elite badasses, and I could’ve accepted that they were exaggerating. Talking up their men. But with all the security at Last Refuge, the way they dealt with the intruders, the other hints that Jessi and Scarlett dropped…”

“Hints?”

“Like saying Aiden and Trace could handle anything. That they’d bent the rules in the past to save innocent people. And now this background check that has hacker fingerprints all over it.” I turned to him, the truth dawning on me. “They’re more than just ex-soldiers. They were some kind of special forces or covert ops.” That would explain the broad skill sets. And their cool-as-Antarctica responses under pressure.

“Aiden and Trace were Army,” Owen said quietly. “Riv was a Navy SEAL. As for what River and Trace did overseas after they left the military, I can’t say.”

Which was as good as a confirmation. But his use of the wordoverseassuggested CIA. Or black ops type stuff. Maybe I could’ve figured that out for myself if I’d set my own hacker friend on them. What else would I uncover?

My mind had a tendency to run rampant when I smelled a story. It was like finding a knot in a chain and not being ableto rest until I’d unraveled it. “Jessi and Scarlett said their guys saved them after they’d been betrayed by people they trusted,” I recalled. “I recognized Jessi’s name.”

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