Page 13 of Wrecker

“Well, I’m pretty sure that payouts are happening.” She smiled crookedly. “But I don’t have the hacking skills to get that information.”

Her eyes sparkled as she watched for my reaction to her joke. If she only knew.

I winked at her, and some of the color returned to her cheeks.

Pacing again, I thought about our next steps. “You have proof of what you’ve discovered so far?”

“I’ve been compiling it all.” Her eyes filled with pride and nerves. “Blueprints. Building specs. Interview notes with locals. Even photos from demo sites. I have everything saved remotely.”

I nodded once. “Let me see it.”

Her brow furrowed. “I don’t even know you.”

“You know I carried you out of a collapsed structure that should’ve killed you.” I moved closer to stand directly beside her. “That I brought you to my home, a place very few outsiders are ever invited into. This compound is well hidden to those who don’t know the area, baby. We don’t take well to outsiders.” I leaned down, planting a fist beside each of her hips, caging her in as I bent to put my face inches from hers. “And you know I make your body come alive.”

Her blush hit fast and hot.

I pulled back and grinned at her telling reaction. “It’s one hundred percent reciprocated, baby,” I assured her.

Her blush deepened, and my eyes followed the color down until it disappeared into her shirt. Soon, I was gonna see just how far that sweet pink spread.

Shaking away that thought before I was so hard I couldn’t walk, I retreated a little and looked into her deep violet eyes. “And you know in your gut that you can trust me. Just like I knew I could trust you.”

She double blinked. “You’ve only known me for twenty-four hours.”

I shrugged. “Long enough.”

Peyton stared at me, and I could feel it—her brain fighting her instincts. She wanted logic, evidence. But her intuition was leaning toward me.

After a long moment, she reached for the phone on the rolling tray beside the bed. Her fingers trembled, but her voice was steady. “You can get access through my remote desktop. Password’s Renfield3. Open the folder marked Thesis.”

I took her cell from her gently and laid it down on the bed. Then I leaned in and clasped her shaky hand between both of mine. “You’re safe now, Peyton.” My soft tone was backed with steel. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

I was tempted to tell her right then that she was mine, but I didn’t want to chance her thinking I was crazy and trying to run away.

She exhaled, and all the tension left her body as she melted back against the pillows. Her lashes lowered, and before I could say another word, she was asleep again.

I stood there another moment, just watching her breathe. Then I slipped out and headed for my room.

My laptop sat on the dresser where I’d left it. I grabbed it and doubled back to the clinic, settling into the battered sofa acrossfrom her bed. I retrieved her files, then opened them and began reading.

Blueprints. Permit requests. Notations in the margins. Cross-referenced inspection logs. Safety codes and materials research. There was a mountain of information.

Damn. The girl was good.

As I read through the information, I noticed that several collapses had occurred due to a lack of structural integrity. But something was off about the way the more recent ones came down.

I studied the photos and insurance reports with even more scrutiny until it hit me.

I’d seen this shit before. Staggered fault lines. Reinforced fail points. Structural anchors that were clipped to pull the rest of the load-bearing walls down with them. This wasn’t just cutting corners—it was professional demolition. Well disguised, but I was the fucking best in my field. I knew the signs when I saw them.

I fished my phone from my pocket and hit Deviant’s contact.

He answered on the first ring. “Wrecker,” he greeted gruffly.

“Got a project for you. Tracing shell permits and false inspection logs. A series of collapsed buildings. The companies and insurance underwriters for each of them are different but all linked to the same real estate company. The last several construction patterns match sabotage I’ve seen before.”

“Send it all,” he murmured. “I’m already bored today.”

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