Page 65 of Forged in Deception

A half-hour passed as they worked. Asher dug through the papers, gathering everything with the same FDA email address and a few others that were potentially suspicious. They’d be sending all of it back to FBS, and he was confident his brothers and the rest of their team would be able to cut through the noise.

Karlin copied each document, stuffed the copy into a folio, and carefully returned the originals to Bajwa’s office, where Asher tried to put them back more or less where he’d found them.

“Okay, I think those are the last ones,” Asher called through the door to Karlin. She said nothing, but he could hear the whine of the copier as she worked.

Her nerves had apparently melted away completely as she focused on what she had to do. He could imagine her over in her laboratory, getting equally lost in some experiment, hours passing as she tipped chemicals into beakers and measured data in tiny lines of neat handwriting.

He loved her passion for what she did, and he hated that Senera’s actions threatened to take it all away from her. And he would do anything he could to make sure they failed.

“Be there in a sec,” Karlin called out at last.

He tapped his fingers against the smooth metal of the nearest filing cabinet. They had only checked the top three drawers. May as well check the bottom one while he waited.

He pulled it open and scanned the tabs. Fortunately, these were more traditionally organized, and the labels were typed rather than handwritten. They were names, male and female. Probably nothing, maybe just–

Halfway through the drawer, there was a name he knew.

“Woah. Woah. No way.”

He yanked the file free just as Karlin strode back into the room and headed over to him, standing mere inches away as she tried to see what he was holding. Not even the scent of her shampoo could distract him at the moment, though, not after what he’d found.

“Look at this,” he said excitedly, waving the file in the air. “I never got all of the details, but I know this name. I know this case.”

“If you’d stop waving it around like a lunatic, I could see–”

Karlin’s words fell away as she read the name on the tab.

She clasped a hand to her mouth.

“Hey. Hey, Karlin, are you okay?” Asher asked, but it was like she didn’t even hear him.

She yanked the file from his hand and dropped it onto the desk, as though the papers might scald them if they touched it any longer.

Her face had gone white, and her eyes were filling quickly with tears.

KARLIN

Karlin stared at the file in horror.

The name on the label made it impossible to look away.

“Amira Gorsky,” she said at last, swallowing the lump in her throat as she willed herself not to cry again. She’d spilled far too many tears in front of Axel already. And this time, she had no right to cry.

She wasn’t the victim.

She was one of the perpetrators, and villains didn’t get to cry.

Axel’s brow wrinkled in confusion, but he didn’t reach for the file. He was clearly waiting for her to explain what about it had shaken her so much.

She’d been so stupid.

How could she have thought that he wouldn’t find out she was on that trial? That she was partly responsible for an innocent woman’s death? She’d signed off on it. Sure, she’d been scared, and there were a whole bunch of reasons for that, right down to the bad childhood sob story. But she’d still put her name to paper, and someone who would otherwise be alive was now dead.

“Are you going to report me? To the police?” she asked, unsure of why she’d asked, or how she expected Axel to understand. Her logical mind didn’t seem to be working in order.

Panic was pressing into her from all directions, drowning her, choking her.

This had all been a huge mistake. She’d asked Forge Brothers Security for help, but if Axel did what he was legally supposed to do, she’d succeeded in nothing more than signing her own arrest warrant.

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