Page 36 of Stolen Hearts

His gut twisted.

Carson stood behind him, arms crossed. “What is that?”

Denver scrolled, highlighting the transaction record. “Looks like Robert hired a hitman to kill Rhae’s parents.”

The silence snapped tight like an electrical storm between them.

“You’re fuckingserious?”

“Yeah.” Denver’s voice was low, cold. “I had a hunch. Took some digging, but I started piecing things together once I saw how the money moved. Escrow on his new business venture was funded the same week her parents died. That part alone wouldn’t be enough—but the payout went to a wallet I foundmentioned in another forum post, bragging about a successful ‘job’ that paid out in full.”

Carson rubbed a hand down his face. “Okay, I don’t understand half of what you just said, but I think you might’ve just poked the bear.”

Denver turned, expression hard. “Look around, Carson. We’re the bigger bears.”

He clicked again, tracing the transaction path. “See this?” He pointed. “That’s the original wallet where the payment went. The coin gets washed through mixers, but a sloppy move left a chunk routed to a secondary wallet.”

“And that matters because…?”

Denver’s mouth quirked grimly. “Because that secondary wallet made a deposit to an exchange account…tied to an email address I’ve already seen linked to Ravencroft’s shell company.” The spa chain Rhae had mentioned.

Denver clicked again, revealing the email. There was no doubt now. A digital fingerprint, one Robert Ravencroft hadn’t wiped clean.

He didn’t want to be right, for Rhae’s sake. More fury pounded through his system.

Carson exhaled slowly, shifting his stance. “You know this isn’t something we can fail at, right?”

“Who said anything about failing?”

“We either execute this perfectly, and everything works in our favor, or the guy’s going to take us apart with lawsuits.”

“Don’t worry. I don’t fail.”

“I was coming in here to make you an official offer for a position on the team,” Carson muttered, shaking his head. “And damn, we could use someone with your skills. But I need to know—seriously—that you can take direction. I can’t have you going rogue on us, no matter how righteous your reason.”

Denver straightened and swiveled his chair toward him. “I’d accept, but I need to know that you’ll let me help organize this team. Based on the looks of that office and how you run things, the agency is all over the place. I can’t work like that.”

Carson gave him a flat look. “You saying my leadership’s sloppy?”

“I’m saying the team’s good—but there’s no structure, no command flow. If I’m going to be part of this, I want to make it better. Sharper. More lethal when it counts.”

Carson eyed him for a beat. “What do you have in mind?”

Denver turned back to the monitor, eyes scanning the intel he’d compiled—wallets, timestamps, IP addresses, a digital exhaust plume no one but a predator could follow.

Exactly what Ravencroft was going for…and the thing Denver was skilled at ripping apart.

The bastard went after the wrong woman.

“First, someone needs to take charge of logistics—off the field and on. Comms, coordination, fallback plans. Second, we need layers—intel, operations, extraction. Third, we build profiles on threats like Ravencroftbeforethey hurt people, not after.”

“You sound like a guy already halfway to running the show.”

“I sound like a guy who’s tired of cleaning up messes that never should’ve happened.”

Carson cracked a faint grin. “Fine. You want to be my second?”

Denver’s gaze darkened. “I want to be the last name a man like Ravencroft ever hears.”

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