The phone buzzed again.
Careful not to wake her, he slipped out of bed. Hannah immediately curled around his abandoned pillow, pressing herface into it like she was chasing his warmth. The sight hit him like a punch to the gut.
He grabbed the phone and his jeans, padding barefoot into her small living room. Evidence of his earlier desperation was everywhere—her tank top by the door, his shirt draped over the back of her couch, that bottle of wine they'd never gotten around to opening.
The phone vibrated a third time.
"Cooper." He kept his voice low, though Hannah could sleep through a tornado when she was this tired.
"Where the hell have you been?" Isobel Martinez's voice crackled through the phone. His handler wasn't known for her patience. "I've been trying to reach you for an hour."
Jake scrubbed a hand over his face. "I was occupied."
"With the baker?" The disapproval in Martinez's voice could've curdled milk. "Jesus, Cooper. I told you to get close to her, not?—"
"The raid," he cut in, unable to stomach wherever that sentence was going. "What's the timeline?"
A pause. Papers shuffling. "A week, maybe less. We'll move on Richard Everett's office first, then the house. Full tactical team."
"The evidence?" His voice sounded strange to his own ears. Far away.
"Rock solid. Seven years of laundered money, spreading through half the businesses in Crystal Lake. Including your girlfriend's precious bakery."
Jake's eyes squeezed shut. He'd read the files. Traced the money. Hannah's father had built a criminal empire right under everyone's nose, using small-town trust to hide in plain sight.
But Hannah...
"Cooper?" Martinez's voice sharpened. "Are we going to have a problem?"
He looked toward the bedroom, where the woman he'd been sent to betray slept peacefully in sheets that still smelled like them. Like trust. Like love.
"No." The lie tasted like ash. "No problem."
Jake stoodin Hannah's darkened living room, staring at his keys on the counter. Every instinct screamed at him to go back to her bed, to curl around her warmth and pretend for a few more hours that this was real. That he deserved her trust.
A week. Maybe less.
Martinez's words echoed in his head as he forced himself to pick up the keys. The sound of Hannah's steady breathing drifted from the bedroom, and his chest ached.
Go. Review the evidence. Do your job.
The drive to his apartment felt longer than usual, empty streets stretching endlessly under yellow streetlights. His fingers clenched the steering wheel until his knuckles went white.
Inside his apartment, the stark reality of his role here hit him like a physical blow. Nothing personal. He'd allowed himself onephoto of Hannah, stuck to the fridge. The case files were hidden behind the loose baseboard. The only real things in this carefully constructed lie.
He pulled out the files, spreading them across his kitchen counter. Seven years of financial records stared back at him, damning in their precision. Richard Everett had built himself a perfect little empire, using Crystal Lake's small-town trust as camouflage.
"She has to know something," he muttered, though the words sounded hollow even to his own ears. "Has to have noticed..."
What? That her father paid for renovations on half the buildings in town? That he'd helped other business owners with startup capital? From the outside, Richard Everett looked like every small town's fairy godfather—investing in local businesses, preserving historic buildings, keeping Crystal Lake's charm alive.
Jake's gut twisted. He'd watched Hannah light up every time she talked about her father's latest restoration project. The pride in her voice when she told customers how he'd saved the old movie theater, the historic inn on Miller Street.
She didn't see laundered money. She saw her father preserving the town she loved.
The evidence was all here—shell companies, wire transfers, inflated invoices. And Hannah's name was all over the transfers. He'd checked. Double-checked. Triple-checked.
At least Sugar & Spice's books were clean. He'd gone through every receipt, every deposit, every scrap of paper in that ancient filing cabinet she could barely close. The money flowing throughother businesses in town was obvious once you knew where to look—phantom employees, impossible profit margins.
