“Talk to me,” he murmured when the worst of it eased.
I hiccupped. “Not yet. Please take me home. I can’t do this here.”
“Okay, baby. Whatever you need.”
He drove faster than usual, making it to his house in only eight minutes. After he guided me inside and got us settled on the couch in the living room, he finally urged, “Tell me now.”
“Two men from CFPB were waiting for me in the building lobby this morning.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “That stands for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. They oversee?—”
“I know who they are, baby.”
“Oh, right.” Sometimes I forgot he was a financial wiz. “They asked about some low-risk transactions I’ve cleared over the past few weeks. Said some of them are tied to accounts they’re monitoring. Implied I should’ve escalated. That it could look like negligence. Or worse.”
His body tensed beneath me. “Fucking hell.”
“That’s not the worst of it.” I pulled back to meet his eyes. “A lot of the accounts are tied to the Hounds. What if I messed up and put you guys at risk?”
He cupped my cheeks and wiped away my tears with his thumbs. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“But they said?—”
“Fuck what they said. I doubt they were even who they said they were.” He gave me a quick kiss. “They’re fishing, Poppy. But you don’t need to worry. You cleared the transactions because the documentation was clean, and they never should’ve been flagged in the first place.”
He didn’t seem the least bit surprised. “You already knew?”
“I suspected someone might come sniffing eventually. Didn’t think they’d go straight to you.” A muscle jumped in his jaw. “But they did. And they’ll fucking pay for it.”
“What if they come back?” I whispered.
“You call me, and I’ll take care of it.” His hold on me tightened. “Okay.”
He kissed me again. “You go about your days like nothing has changed. I’ll take care of everything.”
“If you’re sure that’s what I should do, then I will.”
He studied me for a long moment, then brushed a strand of hair behind my ear. “You’re not alone anymore. Whatever comes, I’ve got you. And the club’s got your back, too. You’re mine, Poppy. That means no one touches you.”
Fresh tears spilled, but they weren’t from fear this time. It was impossible to be scared when I had this incredible man at my side, ready to protect me from anything that came my way.
14
ACE
By Friday afternoon, I had names, addresses, and enough proof to confirm the two suits who’d cornered Poppy in the lobby weren’t random compliance auditors doing their jobs. They were connected to this shit—just not obviously, at least not in any way a normal financial background check would catch.
Once we knew their names, Wizard and I spent the past four days meticulously peeling apart their lives, diving deep enough that the patterns were finally bleeding through the cracks. Someone was testing the Hounds’ defenses.
The tension in my shoulders had been building since Poppy told me about those men approaching her at work. For her sake, I’d kept my reaction calm at the time. But internally, I’d been consumed with fury. My thoughts had been filled with the image of bullets tearing through bone, exacting violent justice for daring to come near my woman.
I shoved open the door to King’s office, barely holding on to my composure. My jaw was locked, and my pulse thundered in my ears as I stepped inside. King sat behind his broad oak desk, his dark eyes immediately flicking up from his laptop to meet mine. Blaze stood near the window, his arms crossed andexpression neutral but observant. Kevlar was reclining on the sofa in the small sitting area.
He raised an eyebrow when he caught the barely restrained anger radiating off me. “You look like you’re about three seconds from ruining someone’s day. Any particular reason?”
King leaned back in his chair, studying me with that sharp, assessing gaze that saw straight through to a man’s bones. He noted every bit of tension in my shoulders and line of frustration etched into my expression. “You’ve got something.”
It wasn’t a question, just a statement of fact. He knew me well enough to get I wouldn’t come to him without solid information.
“Wizard and I tracked down the identities of the two assholes who showed up at Poppy’s work.” I was barely managing to keep a lid on my rage, but my prez needed information, not fury. I went on to explain everything we’d discovered about the men and the place that tied them together.
