Page 116 of Salvaged Hearts

His breath was a huff of disbelief as he stroked a hot palm down my face. “That I don’t deserve you, baby.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Because it’s true. Forgive me, my love, for taking you anyway.”

24

Holy Fucking Shit Balls, I Found It

GREYSON

Two Armed Attackers Dead After Attempt On Alessandra Hart

“Holy fucking shit balls, I found it.”

Amused, I pried myself away from my work Tuesday morning to raise a brow at Max, where he’d set up camp beside Alice at her desk.

“The transfer wasn’t monetary,” he deduced, shaking his head, “it was purely informational.”

“Those two sentences should not come out of the same human two seconds apart,” I decided, earning a smirk from Alice as her fingers continued to fly across her keyboard.

To our chagrin—but no one’s surprise—news of what happened Friday night had been picked up in the media by the following morning. While Alice had spent the bulk of Saturday notifying her family, she hadn’t seemed even remotely shocked when Leighton, Paxton,and Maxmaterialized in our living room by that afternoon.

Leighton hovered around like a frantic bumblebee, making coffee, filling teapots, compulsively wiping down counters, and making sure Alice ate. She ranted at the top of her lungs about the audacity of psychopathic sycophants before bursting into tears the instant we were alone together and hugging me while sobbing her thanks for saving her.

Paxton was less enthusiastic, as hecorrectlyassumed she wouldn’t have needed saving in the first place had she not married a Hart. He proceeded to interrogate every staff member who crossed his path and every security guard about their credentials—including Jax—and scowled at anyone in her proximity.

Leighton insisted it could be worse and informed me I should be thanking all the powers that be their big brother, Jameson, was out at sea and not able to ship his ‘grumpy ass’ down here.

This was, evidently, Rhodes' crisis protocol. The only reason the rest hadn’t arrived was Alice literally begged them not to and insisted she needed the week of quiet to recover before they all rallied to support Paxton at his first game.

To his credit, Max arrived ready to do actual battle. He began Saturday evening in our living room, did a full weekend sweep of the house to hunt for bugs my ‘suit buddies’ would miss, worked beside us from home yesterday, and was already in Arthur’s back seat by the time Alice and I slid into the car this morning.

My wife was a fucking warrior, more determined than ever to do whatever she had to do to serve not only me and our company butThunderstrikein their mission to eradicate the fuckers.

I was positiveObsidianhad no idea who they’d just unleashed when they made it personal. If scaring the daylights out of her hadn’t been enough, Captain being held for post-op recovery certainly was. The vet had reclassified his condition as “stable but critical,” but assured me they were administering pain meds and antibiotics and watching for any signs ofcomplication or infection. Due to keeping him sedated, we hadn’t been able to see him, but the vet assured us we could visit soon, as our company might aid the healing process.

“Oh, bite me, suit daddy,” Max quipped back, clicking a rapid-fire sequence of keys.

“Maybe later,” I said evenly, leaning back in my chair to see whatever he was about to show us. “What’d you find?”

“Don’t tease me; it’s not kind,” he grumbled before whipping his laptop toward Alice and me like a weapon. “They’re on your server. I mean, the files are encrypted, but?—”

Eyes zipping back and forth over the screen, Alice finished, “These are financial transactions andextensivecommunications. They…they weren’t just framing Greyson for embezzlement. IfThunderstrikewent afterObsidianbefore these were discovered, he’d be implicated in…” She blew out a heavy breath, and Max picked up where she left off.

“All manner of illegal activities. Beyond the trafficking, there’s money laundering, extortion, and…well, it might be faster to discuss the crimes not on the list.”

“Grey, their counter move was to set you up to take the fall,” Alice said as she scrolled down through the file Max had compiled.

He frowned at me before deducing, “Their attempt on Alice was likely to?—”

“Blackmail me,” I finished. “Into either defundingThunderstrikeor conspiring withObsidian.” My deduction earned a solemn nod.

“So, what was at the auction that the Gilberts needed?” Alice rubbed at her eyes. Tough as she was, I wasn’t positive she’d actually gotten any sleep over the weekend. Couldn’t blame her—I hadn’t either.

“Reggie,” Max and I answered in unison.

“But you said you found nothing linking him to this,” she pointed out.

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