I paused and turned to face him as he sank down into the chair behind his desk. “Financials are done. Air fucking tight.”
Kollins was one of our clients. One who no longer existed because we’d done our job.
“The documents are all notarized and filed in the right places,” Ash added. “Wizard closed the loop on the digital shit.”
King nodded. “Blaze is on a run with Havoc and Tomcat, but they’ll be back late tonight. We’ll move Kollins from the safehouse tomorrow, get him to the new location, and close the books on that one.”
He asked for updates on a few other items of club business, and it took all of my discipline not to demand we get to Poppy’s situation. Everything King did was deliberate. His mind was always at least ten steps ahead at any given moment, and although I understood his process, I hated it right now.
When all the other shit was out of the way, we could turn our focus onto the assholes fucking with us and putting my woman in danger.
King’s expression turned even more serious as he leaned forward, his elbows resting on the polished surface of his desk. “Step it out for me.”
Wizard straightened from his slouch, flipped his glasses onto his head, then tapped a few rapid keystrokes on his laptop before angling it toward King. The room fell silent except for the soft hum of the fan overhead, the tension crackling as Wizard met King’s hard stare.
“BAM Financial Intelligence.” Wizard’s irritation was clear in his voice. “They’ve been running stress tests on underground financial networks. Basically, they’re probing to find weaknesses—mapping out vulnerabilities so they can sell that information to their clients.”
King’s gaze sharpened, his eyes darkening dangerously. “Who else?”
Wizard ran a frustrated hand through his hair, knocking his glasses askew. His brows were drawn together as he pulled up another screen of data. “Several smaller outfits, but we’re the primary target. The Hounds are high-value—our network is complex, layered, and hard to penetrate. Cracking our system would make their data extremely valuable.”
Rebel let out a dark chuckle, shaking his head slowly, a lethal glint in his eyes. “The motherfuckers really thought they could slip this shit past Ace?”
Wizard nodded curtly. “They’re damn good. Methodical as hell. Those micro-probes Ace flagged? That’s them mapping response patterns—timing, thresholds, and escalation triggers. They push a little, see how long it takes compliance to react, then adjust. I think they truly didn’t know who they were going up against. They assumed no one would look so closely at thesetiny little blips. Even Ace admitted that most people would have missed them.”
His gaze flicked briefly toward me before returning to King.
“I’m positive they selected Poppy deliberately,” he continued, his voice edged with quiet anger. “Junior analyst, low clearance tier and high validation volume. Perfect cover. Every time she cleared one of those flags, she unknowingly validated their probes. To anyone watching from the outside, it looked like routine compliance activity. Clean. Boring. Nothing worth escalating.”
“Unless someone shed a light on it.”
Ash cocked his head to the side, his expression thoughtful. “Once that happened, some people might take a closer look.”
Wizard leaned back slightly. “They built the whole thing around her access point. This wasn’t random. They studied the system, selected their entry, and chose Poppy as the key. Which also meant that if something went sideways, she could be...”
He trailed off, and I finished his thought for him. “The scapegoat.”
King absorbed the information with a calculating look before his sharp gaze shifted back to Wizard. “How much intel do we have on BAM?”
Wizard leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees as he rubbed his jaw. His usually calm demeanor was tense, a reflection of how seriously he was taking this. “Their structure is tricky—layers on layers.”
“We just got past the worst of the firewalls this morning,” I added. “Everything we brought to this meeting was from the information behind them. But there are still some barriers. Not many, and they’re weak, but it will still take some time to get to the root of the company.”
King rubbed a hand absently over Cerberus’s broad head. The massive Cane Corso lay sprawled at his feet, the dog’s yellowgaze tracking the movement in the room. He was astute enough to know that now wasn’t the time to be begging for attention.
“We got enough to start connecting the dots to everyone who works for them?” King finally asked.
Wizard pursed his lips, then nodded. “Probably. Got some solid threads. I’ve isolated a few names. Ace is tracing them back through financial channels while I go through communication logs and such. A couple of the players are already looking familiar.”
King nodded and turned his attention to Rebel. “Work with Wizard. See what else you can pull up on their movements and connections around town. I want a clearer picture of exactly who we’re dealing with, and what they’re capable of.”
Wizard huffed, his way of complaining about being forced to endure a group project. Rebel was a security expert and had great tech skills, but Wizard was in a league of his own. Having them both working on a problem usually made things move faster, but Wizard wasn’t a fan of accepting help when it came to his domain.
Rebel gave a firm chin lift, his expression dark and determined.
“I’ll talk with the auto shop crew,” Cross offered. “See if anyone has noticed any unusual faces or cars coming and going around town.” Then he cocked his head to another brother. “Echo already put eyes and ears in the office building. I’m thinking maybe he should get some on the one where Poppy works.”
Echo grunted an agreement.
