Page 59 of The Villain

There was no small chance that whoever helped Brandon escape custody did so with the intention of making sure he didn’t talk.

“No. No sign of him yet. But you know I’ve been looking into who paid him…” He clicked around, and then an image appeared on the larger screen. Bank account registers. “The cash I obviously can’t trace. But the second deposit he said he received when the bomb went off…I found that.” He highlighted a line on the register. “It wasn’t a US account, so I called Carina to see if she could…do what she does.”

Carina Damiani was a forensic accountant for the CIA and the wife of one of the Covington Security team. Any time we were dealing with money transfers or offshore money handling or hidden accounts and transactions, she lent us a hand.

“Was it a GrowTech account?”

“She traced it through three separate banks and it led to an offshore account in the Caymans?—”

“Shit.” That was pretty much a dead end.

“We won’t be able to find out who owns the account,but she was able to tell me that the balance in that account is massive. Hundreds of millions.”

“Has to be GrowTech,” I muttered and shook my head. “I need to go to that house. There has to be something?—”

“Dammit, Dare, let me finish.” Hard, almost angry emotion cracked through his voice. “Carina found one other transfer the account made. Six weeks ago. Fifty-thousand dollars to another US account.”

Six weeks. That was before the mystery financer contacted Brandon. It could’ve been to anyone—for anything—but if it wasn’t something, Ty wouldn’t be telling me about it.If it wasn’t something bad, he wouldn’t look the way he did.

“Whose?” I asked low, feeling the thump of my pulse hard against my throat.

He hesitated, and in his hesitation, there was a flicker of concern. Of fear. Of pain, but not his own.Mine.

“Athena’s.”

My jaw went slack. I would’ve rather the ground open up beneath me or lightning strike straight to my chest. Hell, I would’ve rather a grenade launched into my ribs than feel this pain.Again.

Thump.

They’d paid Athena.Why would they pay her?

Thump. Thump.My heart protested every beat as though it were a hammer beating a stake into the center of my back.

I forced myself to speak the same way adrenaline forces you to act—to move—after you’ve been gravely wounded.

“So, the same account that paid Brandon to plant a bomb on Athena’s car and kill heralsopaid Athena fifty thousand dollars?” Each word was slow and methodical as my tongue stitched them together, piercing one hole after another into the way I’d looked at her—thought of her.

“Yes.”

“You’re sure?”Sure that I was a fool? Sure that I’d let my emotions blind me once more? Sure that I’d let my own guilt about Athena cloud her own?

“Yes.”His nostrils flared. “We don’t know who the offshore account belongs to?—”

“It has to be GrowTech,” I snapped, my frown so sharp, it was a miracle I wasn’t bleeding from the way it cut across my face. “Who else would be involved in this with that much money? But why pay Athena only to pay Brandon to kill her a few weeks later?”

“I don’t know?—”

“If they were going to kill her to frame Ivans, then paying her must’ve had to do with Ivans, too.” The anger inside me was sharp and savage as it cut a story into my mind like it carved it straight from stone.

“Dare—”

“She was close to him—or getting close to him. They must’ve been paying her for information—to find out what he knew or what he was doing or where he was…” It was the only scenario that made sense. Why else would the same account pay both of them? “They paid her for the information and then paid to eliminate her.”Thump.“Or they paid her and she started to fall for Ivans, and they realized she’d become a liability.”

“Those are all theories. We need more information?—”

“And I’m going to get it.” I spun and yanked the door open; it would’ve swung into the wall if Ty hadn’t been there to catch it.

“Dammit, Dare.” He grabbed my shoulder. “We don’t know. Just don’t talk to her like this right now.”

---