Page 14 of Salvaged Hearts

“Not anymore. Be in soon.”

“Looking forward to it.”

Before I had a chance to question my suspicion, Reggie was asking, “Why are you checking security?”

“Anxious,” I grunted in response, my forehead aching with the depth of the furrow between my brows.

“Get in a good workout. That always helps.”

I pursed my lips and nodded my head. Never mind that I’d been so pissed off after that call that I couldn’t sleep or that I’d woken up today to a message from my source from the local news station telling me they were about to run a storyinvestigating me, but she didn’t know what for. Only that she’d be in touch.

All this on the same day Alessandra was poking through my files? It couldn’t be coincidental.

That was the question that dominated my thoughts as we finished the ride into the office, my fingers tapping over my phone screen as I checked through emails, our chat channel—anything that could indicate what she’d searched for at seven am Monday morning. Nothing. I couldn’t see anything that would give her a reason to inspect our books. But in the last two years, if I learned anything about Alessandra Rhodes, it was that she was as unequivocally intentional as I was.

That’s why I was nodding with a painful kind of resignation when Mike called me right back.Trouble. This spelled trouble.

Swiping to answer, I managed one word. “Yeah?”

“Sir, we’ve got a situation at the entrance. It's on the sidewalk, so we can’t boot them. I can have security escort you past them or?—”

Reading his next thought, I asked, “Is the Capitol entrance clear?” We were positioned in the historic section of downtown, on the network of underground evacuation tunnels leading to and from the Capitol building. Rather inconvenient should the bureaucrats need to evacuate, but fantastic for avoiding the press.

“Yes, I sent Carlos and Wade over to meet you.”

Smiling at how well he knew us, I said, “Thank you, Mike. I’ll see you soon.”

“Heading in now, sir.”

When I reached my office,I expected Alessandra to be sitting at my desk. What Ididn’t expectwas for Ollie’s glum face to look up at me with a little two-finger salute. My brother never—and I do mean never—was in the office before me.

What I expected even less was that as I leaned against the doorframe to watch her work, she growled, “Your firewall is bullshit.”

“Pardon?” I nearly choked on my saliva. Had I ever heard hercursebefore? To keep from laughing, I looked at my sleeve and plucked a long black hair from between the fibers of the fabric. Ollie stifling his own certainly didn’t help.

“It took Max under sixty seconds to walk me through it.That’s bullshit, Hart. You, of all people, should have a system that’s ironclad.”

“I’m sorry. Who walked you through what?” My irritation was poorly concealed, but what the fuck was she doing poking holes in our system?

“Max. He’s a friend. Ollie has his information. He’ll get our tech up to date. Trust him with my life. The same can’t be said for whoever set up your security system.”

“Iset up my security system,” I responded dryly.

The corner of her pink lips pulled up as her eyes flashed to me again, keys slowing. “Like I said.”

What the fuck? Pursing my lips, I stepped inside and closed the door softly behind me. Was she having a stroke?

So help me, if my brother let that laugh escape the hand he had clasped over his mouth, I’d smack him upside the head.

“I suggest you explain yourself, Ms. Rhodes. This is peculiar behavior, even for you.”

“Even for me,” she grumbled. “I’ll show you peculiar.”

“Are you drunk?” I asked, flabbergasted by the one-eighty in her usually reserved personality.

So softly I barely deciphered her words, she grumbled, “On freedom.”

“Freedom?” I repeated, entirely out of the fucking loop. Something I was neither accustomed to nor remotely fond of.

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