“Good,” King murmured, shifting his gaze to Ash. “Reach out to our contacts in the legal circles—courthouse, county records, whoever you can quietly tap. Any unusual filings, leases, or permits might give us more pieces to put together. If they’re laying groundwork for something bigger, we need to know.”
Ash nodded in acknowledgment, his posture relaxed but his eyes deadly serious. “I’ll handle it.”
No one doubted for a second that he would.
Finally, King’s gaze landed back on me. “Keep Poppy close. She’s already been approached once. BAM may try again, and this time, they’ll be ready to do more than threaten.”
My jaw clenched, but I managed a curt nod. He was right. Protecting Poppy wasn’t something King had to ask of me—it was a fucking given. But I understood his reasoning for saying it out loud. “Already ahead of you, Prez.”
A glint of approval appeared in his eyes, though his scowl stayed firmly in place. “I never doubted that.” Then his face was back to being unreadable. “Gonna be smart about this. If they make another move, we need to be ready to hit back hard, but until we have everything we need to go after them, we keep it low-key. We’re close to unraveling this, but let’s make sure we have all the pieces first.”
The underlying tension in the room made his words hang heavily in the air.
We were still deep in the middle of the discussion when a sharp vibration on my wrist drew my attention. I frowned automatically, assuming it was just another probe hitting one of our outer accounts. But when I glanced down at the notification, the message flashing across the screen was different this time.
“What the fuck?” The shift in my tone was enough to kill the conversation instantly. Chairs creaked as every head in the room turned toward me.
I’d left my tablet and laptop back in my office when the meeting started, so instead of explaining anything yet, I stalked across the room toward the couch where Wizard was sprawled with his computer balanced on his legs. I reached down and swiftly yanked the laptop off his lap, pulling it cleanly out of his startled grasp.
Wizard’s head snapped up, his face twisting with immediate outrage as his hands grabbed at empty air where the laptop had been. “You son of a?—”
“Oh shit,” Echo muttered, leaning back casually in his chair, fighting a grin. “Here we go again.”
I ignored him—and Wizard’s angry hiss of protest—as the fingers of one hand flew across the keyboard. I’d figured out how to work and hold a hand of cards decades ago.
“You motherfucker—” Wizard tried again, lunging forward to reclaim his precious computer, but I sidestepped smoothly out of his reach, focused entirely on the screen as I accessed the necessary pages to track the source of the alert.
Taking Wizard’s computer or tablet was damn near treason in his eyes. He was probably mentally picking out the knife he’d stab me with before he dropped my ass in a shallow grave.
The corner of Cross’s mouth curved with amusement as he drawled lazily, “My money’s on Ace this time. Lucky bastard talked his way out of a beating the last two times he touched Wizard’s sacred tech.”
“My thoughts exactly.” Ash smirked.
King leaned back in his chair and chuckled, pulling my attention from the screen just long enough to see a glint of humor flash across his normally severe face. Cerberus nudged his leg, and he immediately stroked his palm down his back.
“I say third time’s the charm.” King’s tone was edged with dry humor. “My money’s on Ace ending up in the hospital with at least two broken bones.”
Wizard’s answering growl was so animalistic it sent a ripple of anticipation through the room. Rebel’s eyes darted between us, clearly debating how far this was going to escalate. The others seemed to be silently placing bets of their own.
For a split second, I actually wondered if King might win that bet.
I didn’t bother to glance up. “Brother, you must have some kind of magic love potion you’re feeding Thea. I can’t think of another reason she’d stay with someone who has such an unhealthy relationship with inanimate objects.”
“It’s a magic dick, not a magic potion, asshole,” he snapped.
Normally, that would have earned a laugh out of me. But at that moment, the account data finished loading on the screen, and every other thought disappeared under the weight of what I was looking at. My pulse spiked, anger flaring hot in my chest.
Wizard growled again and lunged forward, his fingers grasping for the laptop, but I smoothly sidestepped again, easily staying out of reach as my eyes raced across the numbers. He bared his teeth at me, irritation flashing in his eyes. However, it dissipated just a little when he clocked the expression on my face.
My blood boiled in my veins as I took in the data displayed in harsh clarity.
“Motherfucker,” I breathed, my voice rough with tightly controlled fury.
The mood instantly changed, and the room quieted again, each of my brothers sensing the shift. Even Wizard had gone still, his sharp eyes locked on my face as he tried to read what I’d just seen. King’s dark stare was fixed on me, alert and wary.
“What is it?” Cross asked, breaking the tense silence.
“They fucking tried to freeze one of our accounts.”
