“No hacking necessary when we have a top-level clearance access code, Butterfly,” Beck explained, opening the door and holding it for me.
“Besides,” Dylan added as he followed me out of Richard’s office, “we figured it was better to just copy the files and look through them later. Would hate to get caught by security and need to pretend we’re in the middle of a threesome or something.” He shot me a sly wink then headed back down the corridor toward the elevators.
“He’s joking,” I murmured to Beck when he glared after his best friend.
Beck’s attention shifted to me. “That’s the problem. He’s not joking at all.” He slung his arm over my shoulders, pulling me in close to his body as we slowly followed Dylan. “Maybe my little chat with him didn’t sink in as well as it should have.”
I whacked his stomach with the back of my hand and tried to ignore all those rock hard abs. “Stop it,” I snapped. “He’s just messing with you, and I don’t blame him. You seem to be turning into more of a possessive asshole with every day that passes.”
I’d meant it as an off-hand commentary about Beck’s extreme jealousy issues—and I thoughtIneeded therapy—but apparently he took me more seriously than that. In the blink of an eye, Beck had me pinned to the wall beside a gold framed oil painting with his body pressed to mine.
“I’m a possessive asshole?” he growled, crushing his hips to mine and dropping his lips to the curve of my neck. My breath caught in my throat, and I swallowed a lusty whimper before replying. “Yes, Sebastian. You are.”
His teeth scraped over my skin like a threat, or a promise, and my pussy clenched with need. “You’re damn right I am, Butterfly. Youbelongto me, and the sooner Dylan and the whole fucking world learns that, the better.” He was using my body against me again, but that was a two-way street. The hard length of his cock trapped between us was clear testimony to that fact.
His lips worked up the side of my neck until he reached my earlobe, which he grabbed with his teeth.
Oh fucking hell.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” I informed him in a breathy, sex-drenched voice. My hand trailed down his muscled side and slipped between us to grab a firm handful of his crown jewels. “Youbelong tome, Sebastian Roman Beckett.” He groaned but didn’t move away. “Even when you are acting like a fucking Neanderthal. Now, go tell Dylan to catch an Uber home because I want you to fuck me at least twice before we start looking over those stolen documents. Got it?” I gave his junk another squeeze to reinforce my position of power, but judging by the ragged breath Beck sucked in, it was only turning him on harder.
When he shifted away from me, a dazed sort of smile danced across his lips. “Yes, ma’am,” he murmured, then dragged his tongue over his lower lipslowly.Before I could pounce and climb his body like a spider monkey, he swaggered off to deliver my orders to Dylan.
11
“All right,” the silver haired, sharp suited man across the desk said with a heavy sigh as he tossed down the papers he’d been looking at. “Do you want the good news or the bad news?”
My stomach sank. I knew it wouldn’t be so easy to nail Catherine to a wall and watch her squirm. “Whatever,” I replied with a wave of my hand. “It’s all the same.”
I sunk back in my seat, feeling thoroughly dejected and not at all surprised at what he said next.
“This isn’t enough.” He tapped Dante’s files in front of him. “Not even close to enough. For one thing, there are no clear ties to Catherine Deboise or reallyanyof the Delta board members. For another, the origins of this information is circumstantial at best. You got it from a known gang member, with a criminal record, who is currently being charged with murder?” He grimaced and shook his head. “I’m sorry, this ‘evidence’ isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.”
I sighed heavily myself and looked out the window of the high-rise office building. I needed a hot second to pull my shit together before I did something embarrassing ... like cry. When Sami’s father had checked out in the Delta records, I’d arranged the meeting. A meeting I’d come to alone, utilizing the time that the guys had been summoned for a dinner party. As far as Richard and Catherine were concerned, I was holed up in bed with a nasty cold.
“So what’s the good news?” I asked, turning my attention back to Jarred Wells, of Wells, Banksy and Thomas. The Delta files had showed him—and his partners—to be one of the very,veryfew top tier legal firms in New York to not be accepting payments from Delta in some way, shape, or form. So I’d had Sami set the meeting up. Of course, she thought I was pressing charges against my would-be rapists, not spearheading the internal takedown of the largest criminal organization in North America. Semantics really.
Jarred Wells gave me a shark-like grin. “The good news is that if knocking Militant Delta off their pedestal is your goal, you came to the right man.”
I arched a brow at him, curious at the bloodthirsty tone he used. “I sense a history.”
“Most certainly,” he replied, but didn’t elaborate further. “This evidence isn’t enough, but you’re in a much better position to get whatisenough. You said you had access to the secured files in their head office?”
I shook my head. “I did, briefly, but Richard would have changed his code since then. We may be blood-related, but we are far from family.”
Jarred nodded, like he’d expected this answer. “I can understand that. Well, I have no doubt you can find something they’re hiding. Criminals or not, they’re all still businessmen. And woman, if you count Catherine as anything more than a perpetual nuisance.”
My jaw clenched hard. “She killed my parents. That’s considerably more than a nuisance in my eyes, Mr. Wells.”
His expression softened for a moment. “Of course, I’m sorry. I simply meant in the sense that businessmen typically keep records ofeverything. It sounds stupid, given all the illegal activity Militant Delta is involved with, but the more powerful a person is the more indestructible they see themselves. Their arrogance alone would see that they’ve kept records on every dirty little secret they have. If you can find that...” He shrugged, and I didn’t need him to say the rest.
If you can find that... you can see the entire board behind bars.
I knew what he was saying. The guys had already demonstrated a thousand times over how many fucking records were stored on various servers, but I knew of one place that held the absolute motherload of dirty secrets.
The vault.
“You’ve thought of something,” Jarred commented, watching me with sharp, intelligent eyes. A slow smile crossed his lips, and he nodded. “Good. I look forward to our next meeting, Miss Deboise.” He stood up with me and offered his hand to shake.
