When we’re both fully dressed, I look at him and reach to gently stroke his cheek.
He hasn’t shaved since before Vegas, and the stubble coating his jaw scratches my skin in the best way.
My eyes meet his. “I’m going to need some time to process everything.”
“I know. Just, please, stay here, this is your home, too. I’ll stay out of your way if you want.”
“It’s not about you. This stuff with my da… It feels like my life has imploded.”
“Take all the time you need.” He bends to kiss the top of my head. “I’ll be down the hall if you need me.”
I watch him leave, his touch still lingering on my skin.
I need to distract myself with something,anything, other than sex with Ronan. So, after making a coffee, I head upstairs to my bedroom, where my laptop is waiting for me on the bed.
Determined to forget about what a complete dumpster fire my life is, I open the laptop and load the encrypted files that Ronan showed me days ago, the ones I’ve been unable to crack since.
“What am I missing?”
I’ve tried all my usual tricks, but it seems whoever Seamus Sullivan hired to hide these payments is a sneaky bastard.
I need to come at these from a different angle.
My fingers move on instinct as I try a trick that Mila’s tech genius of a brother, Max, showed me when I was a freshman in college. He said it’s mostly used to break through an older kind of custom encryption, but it can’t hurt to try.
Maybe that's where I’ve been going wrong. Maybe whoever encrypted these payments used an older system in the hopes of flying under the radar…
My fingers fly and to my surprise, Max’s little trick gets me through the first layer of encryption.
“Oh, my god.”
I try it again and get through another layer.
And then I’m in.
A spreadsheet opens, and I quickly scan the account codes and dates, not fully comprehending what I’m seeing.
Until I do.
“What the hell?”
The payments Seamus Sullivan had been making were to my family, apparently.
I blink a few times before scrolling back to the earliest dates, which precede my father’s death by almost a year.
This has to be wrong.
There’s no way Seamus was paying off my father when he had a hand in taking him down.
But there’s no mistaking the name in the note attached to the payments. It’s here in black and white, in the spreadsheet no one could open.
It’s enough to make me wish I hadn’t succeeded in opening it, and I lean back against the plump pillows, completely stunned by what I’ve found.
Why would Seamus have been paying off my father? It doesn’t make sense.
Seamus hated him. Ronan hated him. They were responsible for his downfall, his exile from the circles he fought so hard to stay in, which ultimately led to him putting a bullet in his skull.
Or so I thought.
