He leaned closer, cutting off her words, and for a moment, the intensity in his eyes stole her breath. “You’ve done enough for now. Let Guardian take it from here. I’ll make sure they run the deep dive, and you’ll get the answers you’re looking for.”
She searched his face, looking for cracks, for any flicker of deception. But all she saw was steady resolve and that unshakable calm that irritated her almost as much as it steadied her.
Her throat tightened. He meant to keep her out of it. Sideline her. Elise forced herself to look away, focusing on the closed laptop instead of the man beside her. She told herself she was furious at the delay, at his quiet insistence that she step aside. But under the fury, another truth pressed against her ribs. She wasn’t as angry at his presence as she should have been.
Elise narrowed her eyes at him. The frustration that had been simmering now bubbled over. “Guardian can get it back?” she repeated, her voice low, clipped. “How exactly? You make it sound like they can just waltz into my hard drive and pluck outwhatever they want. Don’t they need warrants, or, oh, I don’t know, a shred of legality to make that happen?”
Blake didn’t flinch. “You’d be surprised what specialized forensic tools can recover,” he said evenly. “Nothing is ever truly lost on a computer. Deleted, corrupted, scrambled, yes, but that doesn’t matter. The data isstill there. Guardian has the equipment and the people who can dig it back out.”
Elise leaned forward, refusing to let him skate by with calm generalities. “Forensics? Fine. But if they recover it, what then? How do they use it? This isn’t some neat little academic exercise, Blake. Zajac has companies and even governments in his pocket. If you’re saying Guardian plans to act, they’ll need legal standing. Evidence chain. Warrants. Otherwise, it’s worthless.”
He held her stare, his jaw working once before he spoke. “Guardian isn’t doing this for law enforcement. We don’t need a warrant to look at corrupted files. We don’t need to stand in front of a judge and argue admissibility. For this, we’re going to gather intelligence. We will confirm it. Then, when the time is right, it finds its way into the right hands.”
The way he said it—so casual, so certain—sent a shiver down her spine. “The right hands?” she pressed. “That’s awfully vague. Who decides what’s right? You? Your bosses? What if it gets buried, twisted, used as leverage instead of justice?”
His mouth curved, not into a smile but into something darker, edged. “You think too small, Elise. You’re picturing red tape and bureaucrats. Guardian doesn’t play by those rules. If the information proves that Zajac’s laundering, it won’t vanish into a file cabinet. It’ll be used to dismantle him piece by piece. He’ll never see it coming.”
Her pulse spiked at the conviction in his voice. He believed it. Every word. And that unsettled her almost as much as the thought of handing over her hard-earned work to faceless computer people she’d never meet.
Elise folded her arms tight against her chest, trying to cage the storm inside her. “So, I’m just supposed to trust that Guardian’s intentions are pure? That your people will take my research, run their mysterious deep dive, and do the right thing? You don’t see how insane that sounds?”
Blake leaned in just enough that she caught the warmth of his breath, his voice dropping to a murmur that made her skin prickle. “I’m asking you to trust me. Not Guardian. Me.”
The weight of his words settled between them, heavier than the silence that followed. Elise wanted to demand more, to tear apart the easy confidence with pointed questions he couldn’t dodge. But for one dangerous heartbeat, all she could do was stare at him and feel the ground shift beneath her feet.
Elise’s frustration erupted. This wasn’t about the information. It was about vindication, justice … it was about Étienne. “You don’t understand. This isn’t just about money laundering. It’s about Étienne. Hewasn’tdrunk. He didn’t stumble into a canal by accident.He was silenced.And the private investigator who tried to help me? He’s dead, too. Their blood is on Zajac’s hands.” Her voice wavered, but she forced it back to steel. “If Guardian buries this in their files and passes it to some nameless official, it’s nothing. It disappears into the ether. People will forget. And Zajac walks away untouched again.”
Shaking her head hard, she leaned forward, needing him to understand. “My article will show the world who he is. That’s the only thing that matters. It has to come from me—not a faceless government, not an agency that can’t admit what it knows. Me. I need to prove Étienne didn’t die in vain.”
Blake didn’t speak right away. He just watched her, eyes dark, intense, weighing every ounce of her conviction. Then, slowly, he reached across the table, covering both her hands with his. His touch was warm, steady, immovable. He leaned closer,holding her gaze as if he could anchor her with nothing more than his presence.
“I promise you,” he said, his voice low, unwavering, “your article will be published. Byyou. Not a word stolen, not a fact twisted. Every piece of information will be recovered, and the answers you’re chasing … we’ll find them.”
Her throat tightened, and her heart pounded as the weight of his promise sank deeper. She wanted to doubt him, wanted to demand more, but something in his tone wrapped around her like armor.
Her fingers curled against his. “You mean, they can trace it all? Find out who’s really behind the layered companies?”
“Shell companies,” Blake said without hesitation.
“Shell companies,” she repeated, the sharpness in her voice cutting through the rawness in her chest.
“Yes,” he agreed again, softer this time.
Her pulse stuttered, hope and fear tangling. “And they can get the financial records? The data?
His grip tightened, his gaze steady as a blade. “Yes. Even that.”
For the first time in days, the roaring in her head quieted. She wasn’t sure if it was his words, his hands enclosing hers, or the certainty he exuded, but for a fragile moment, Elise let herself believe him.
The silence stretched with her hands cocooned in his. She could feel the strength in his grip, the quiet steadiness that had nothing to do with force and everything to do with intent. His eyes never wavered from hers, and for a woman who had built a life around chasing liars and masks, that unflinching focus left her raw.
She wanted to pull back, to put distance between them before she lost the edges of herself in him. But she couldn’t. Not whenhis thumb brushed ever so slightly across her knuckles, not when the heat of his palms seeped into her chilled skin.
Her throat went dry. “You sound so sure,” she whispered, not trusting her voice to be louder.
“I am sure.” His answer came without pause, without room for doubt.
Something loosened inside her chest, a knot she hadn’t even realized she’d been carrying since Ètienne’s death. For weeks, she’d lived on adrenaline and fury, chasing shadows, determined to hold Zajac accountable with nothing more than her pen and her stubbornness. She’d never let herself stop, never allowed grief to sink its claws into her. But now, with Blake’s hands holding hers steady, the fight ebbed just enough to let sorrow leak through.
