Page 86 of Forged in Peril

Whether or not she would ever want to take another chance on being with him was irrelevant. What mattered most was that she forgave him enough that she’d allow FBS to keep on protecting her.

He set the report he’d just finished typing aside and picked up another one, making it a paragraph and a half and two bites of sandwich in before he paused again.

It was all too tempting to imagine her sitting up in her office, indulging in a second slice of pie and thinking about how much she wanted to patch things up with him.

Reality, he knew, wouldn’t be so simple.

Bristol was stubborn to a fault, but if groveling was what it took, groveling he would do, baked goods and all.

Before he could think about it further, however, he heard the insistent beeping of his phone as it vibrated across his desk. When he picked it up, he was surprised to find a message from the garage duty guard.

Grapas order pushed up. They’re here now, requesting gate access for Bay 8.

Cameron paused, his fingers hovering over the screen as he read the message over once again.

Something about it set off alarm bells.

He knew, logically, that it was almost certainly nothing–after all, Grapas had sent dozens of deliveries to FBS, often using that exact loading bay–but Grace had been running around all morning in search of any last minute updates, since she’d messed the order up the first time.

In fact…

He swiped away from the messenger app, pulling up his email inbox.

He was right.

That very morning, Grace had copied him on a reminder email she’d sent to everyone in every department at FBS, stating that she’d be sending Grapas the final supply list that morning, before she left for a training course for the rest of the day.

At the time, he’d thought nothing of the message.

Despite her competence as office manager and uncanny ability to work logistical miracles, it wasn’t the first time she’d made use of the ‘send to directory’ function of their network when she got behind on her own deadlines. Most of her alerts didn’t apply to him at all, so he tended to mostly ignore them.

But now, reading it again as yet another text from the garage duty guard lit up his phone, he knew that something wasn’t right.

There was no way that truck contained their order, not if she hadn’t even submitted it until that morning. Nor would Grace schedule a delivery for a time when she wasn’t here to sort out the inevitable chaos herself.

Most importantly, Jaclyn had mentioned Grapas on the phone call Bristol had overheard. It was the one part of the conversation that she’d offered no real explanation for when Gabe had asked about it.

Bristol was right, even if he didn’t know exactly how or why.

He could feel it.

Something was up, and it wasn’t good.

His thumbs felt clumsy as he tapped at the phone’s screen.

Stand by until I contact you. Tell them that there’s a gate malfunction and they’ll have to hang tight.

At last, he hit send, cringing at the lie, though at the moment no better option was coming to mind. He pocketed the phone and got to his feet, confident that the guard would do as he was asked. Bobby Ramos had been with FBS for a long time, and he was a pro–but whoever was in the Grapas truck would only wait so long.

He had to figure out what was going on, and fast.

Cam made his way out into the hall, pulling his office door shut behind him. It was time to talk to Gabe.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-SIX

BRISTOL

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