Page 19 of The Heiress

David was one of the good ones. The team he built here was all him. He started Excel and recruited each of us personally. He set the mood and the example we all followed. I didn’t doubt for a second he’d give any of us the shirt off his back.

“I promise, but if I don’t do something more complicated than fact checking, I’m going to quit.” I wasn’t ever going to quit and David knew that.

“But then who would duel with TJ at dawn?”

I patted David on the shoulder just before I started back to my office. “Guess you’ll just have to fill in for me, boss.”

“I’m a terrible second,” David muttered between bites.

* * *

I finishedthe county assessment without issues and sent the file off. It was pretty easy work. Mostly crunching some numbers and fact checking. Occasionally it required digging through census records or geographical data sets. We essentially served as independent auditors for special projects with the government so it was a lot of double checking.

Our offices were in the research park on the edge of campus and even though we were officially a for-profit organization our affiliation with the College of Health and Human Performance gave us the credentials necessary to work with our academic partners.

I could have easily gone home for the day and gotten in some free time before dinner at Hazel and Yara’s, but instead I stayed at my desk with my untraceable internet connection and dug into our databases on Devil’s Wrath.

Excel Research had only been asked to research motorcycle clubs once, and that was five years ago. It was a broad study on the effects of outlaw MCs on local economies. So while it wasn’t much help, it did call out Devil’s Wrath’s presence up and down the west coast of Florida, citing that while the club was well known to be in charge of the gambling scene, there was no direct evidence linking them to illegal activities. Otherwise the club maintained a good relationship with local governments and law enforcement.

Huh.

I checked the report writer. Dev Salinghi. He was usually pretty good so I decided to take him at his word.

Finding nothing else useful in our archives, I jumped online. The Wikipedia page was not helpful because it was so basic. Their website (yes, they have a website!) was equally useless. Lots of logos andThe price is your soul.

That still gave me the chills.

And then…I hit the jackpot. An archived blog post titledTheir Wrath is Real.

You read about MCs in books and you see them on TV. You think you know what to expect, and that would be true with any other club. But DW is unlike any other club. I know because I spent a month in the new clubhouse.

DW is all about business. Their business endeavors are diverse and lucrative. They make a lot of money. And they’re doing it right under everyone’s nose.

Was that Jace’s handy work? His MBA had to be useful.

They don’t look like bikers. In fact, if I dared you to pick them out on the street, you’d guess wrong every time. Unless they’re on their Harleys. That’s the only time you know without a terrifying doubt you’re in the presence of killers. They blend in so they can catch you by surprise. If they come to you in full colors, be scared. Be very, very scared, for you are about to witness the devil’s wrath.

I don’t say that dramatically.

While they may look like the boys next door, and they may know how to run businesses, don’t forget these men are killers. They will not hesitate to take whatever it is they want from you. They, as they so clearly state, will start with your soul.

Was the writer disgruntled? Had he or she even spent that month in the clubhouse? It wasn’t exactly a vetted report from a reputable resource, but archived blog or not, there was something authentic about it.

Oh Jace. What have you done?

And how did I feel about it? If he was a killer and master financial orchestrator, did that change how I felt about him? At the end of the day he didn’t have a choice. He was surviving.

At least that’s what I hoped.

* * *

Before the accident,my life was pretty boring, all things considered. I went to work, hung out with my friends, and traveled once or twice a year. I kept memories of Jace in a box and ignored them. I took for granted my parents would be around for a long, long time.

Now my life was the opposite of boring. In fact, it was downright overwhelming. The anchor that held me down for the first twenty-seven years of my life had been cut away and I was being emotionally assaulted on all sides. So I did what I naturally did when I felt out of control.

I worked.

It was my third late night at the office, digging through the files on the Roarks, when I clicked on an article and the hair on my arm rose up. In the photograph Georgia Stroman Roark had her face turned away from the camera.

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