Furrowing my brow, I said, “I don’t follow…”

Riley narrowed his eyes at the flash drive, then capped it again, gripping it in his fist before looking up at me, his arm propped on the back of the couch. “If you were Max and had gotten away with stealing a million dollars without being caught, would you stop after someone had—successfully, in his eyes—taken the fall? Especially when the only person who knew what you’d been doing was dead?” He fixed me with a hard stare. “Or would you keep stealing?”

I raised my eyebrows at him. “You think he’s still doing it.”

“I’d bet money on it.”

It made sense. Max was a businessman above all else—a corrupt businessman, yes, but one who would find the most effective way to make fists of money. And stealing from someone without that person being wise to it was the quickest and easiest way for him to do so.

“He’s a paranoid fucker, and given the kind of shit he’s pulled in the past … well, it’d make sense that he thinks you have something more on him. Something other than what you’d found five years ago.” He tossed the flash drive to me. “How long had he been skimming off the top when he accumulated that million?” Riley asked.

I tucked the drive back into the bag and zipped it up while I thought back to what I’d found so long ago, the information that had been burned into my brain. “Um, not quite a year. Nine months, give or take a week or two.”

“So imagine how much he could’ve racked up in five years.”

Riley stood from the couch and paced in the room, his fingers tugging at his hair. He was like a caged animal, all coiled energy, his lithe legs eating up the length of the room in five quick strides. “Maybe we’ve been looking at this all wrong. We’ve been on the defense the whole time, but maybe it’s time we went on the offense.”

“How do you mean?”

“Is there a way for you to dig into what Max has been doing the past five years, look for what you found last time?”

“I … I don’t know. All the records should be computerized, so maybe. I’d need Aaron’s help, though. I know where to start looking, but I’d need his hacking expertise to get me in.”

Riley nodded and reached for his phone. “I’ll make a call.”

RILEY

I should’ve known Evie had some sort of evidence in her possession to pin on Max. She was smart enough to know that any bit of information she could get could potentially be used to cover her ass. And that she’d carried it with her this entire time in a fucking tube of lipstick was so ingenious, so Evie, I had to smile.

I walked into the kitchen, thumbing through my phone until I got to Gage’s name.

“Riley,” he answered after only a single ring. “Everything okay?”

“We’re all right, but something’s happened.”

“I’m listening.”

I told him about the break-in, about the evidence Evie had against Max. After letting him know our plan to see what else Max had been involved in these past years, Gage was going to get in touch with Aaron and get a laptop to us tomorrow morning. The thought of sitting idle while waiting for him, knowing Max was actively hunting Evie, had me edgy as fuck, but there wasn’t anything else we could do.

After hanging up with him, I slid my phone into my front pocket. Evie hadn’t moved from the couch, her jaw working back and forth as she bit at her fingernails, her gaze focused out the window.

I walked over and settled on the couch next to her. “Gage will be by in the morning with a laptop for you to use. And he’s gonna get in touch with Aaron. See what he can do from his end.”

She nodded, dropping her hand from her mouth and looking at me. “Good. That’s good.”

I reached out and wrapped my hand around her leg, running my thumb along the smooth skin of her ankle. “We’ll find something.”

The look she fixed on me was so full of fear, it gutted me. Then she said, “That’s what I’m afraid of. What I found the first time was enough to put a bull’s-eye on my back. It was enough to send a guy to kill me. And now? If I find this when you and Gage and Aaron are all involved, too?” She blew out a breath and closed her eyes, shaking her head. “What’s Max going to do when he realizes I have even more evidence on him? It’s going to put everyone else in even more danger, just by being aligned with me.”

The thing she was forgetting was that I’d stand by her, protect her till my last breath if that was what it took. “That’s why we’re doing it this way—on our terms. If we go after him first, he won’t have a chance to come after you, because we’ll already be at his fucking front door.”

Chapter Nineteen

Sunlight poured into the loft, the brightness outside a contradiction to the mood within these four walls. Evie was restless, pacing back and forth in the space, while we waited for Gage.

I was in the kitchen, fixing a cup of coffee, when my phone buzzed in my pocket. I slipped it from my jeans, and after a quick glance at the screen confirming it was him, I answered. “Yeah.”

“We’ve got movement.”

I stiffened, my arm freezing as I brought the cup toward my lips, my entire body going rigid at his words. Evie noticed, her pacing having stopped once I answered the call. She moved over to stand by me, her eyes focused intently on me. I met her gaze as I asked, “By who?”

“One of the guys—not anyone high up—just asking questions. I think Max is covering all the bases, trying to get a lead on anything, and tracking down all the people who’d known Evie is where he’d start.”

Setting the coffee cup on the counter, I asked, “How’d they find out where you are?”

“Anyone could find me if they looked hard enough. We never went under the radar.”

Not like Evie had.

With my eyes connected with hers, I asked into the phone, “What’d you see?”

“Chuck was over by the campus when I dropped Madison off today. With all the shit that’s happening, I didn’t want her walking by herself. He was twitchy as fuck, not at all covert. Fumbled his way through some bullshit excuse about why he was asking about Evie.”

I blew out a breath, scrubbing a hand over my face before shoving my fingers through my hair. “Fuck,” I bit out, consumed with worry. Knowing I hadn’t been able to protect her last time only fueled the fire currently burning up inside me. “Okay, so what do we do?” I asked.

“We wait,” he said, which was the last fucking thing I wanted to do. Sitting and waiting wasn’t in my nature. I was a doer, and I wanted to fix this, right the fuck now before Evie could get hurt. “We’ll continue with what we talked about last night. Evie can dig for info, and let’s hope she finds something. Something big that we can use against Max, because this shit isn’t gonna blow over. It’s only been a few days, and they’ve already tossed her house and sent guys out beating the streets, tracking down info.”

“You still think it’s a good idea for you to come this way?”

“Better than you two being out. If I’m seen, it’s no big deal. I live here. Someone sees you strolling around town, and flags are gonna be raised. I’ll circle around, weave in and out, make sure I’m not being followed. I’m waiting to hear back from Aaron, but I’ve already got the laptop. I’ll be by in a couple hours.”

I nodded, knowing he was right. Despite every instinct I had telling me to go out and do something, it was safer for everyone—safer for her—if we stayed put. “Sounds good. See you then.”

“Later. And Ry? Keep your eyes and ears open.”

The line disconnected, and it took everything in me to calmly slip my phone into my pocket. Because what I wanted to do was throw it across the room, smash it into the brick wall. I wanted to stalk out of this too-small apartment and hunt down everyone who was after her. I wanted to grab her and hold her, protect her from it all, because they were coming for her. No matter what I did, no matter how well I hid her, I wouldn’t be able to keep her safe forever.