“Ash is keeping something from me,” I blurted. Their eyes didn’t widen. Their brows didn’t move. In fact, they remained still. “Jake called him this afternoon, and whatever Jake told him, it was serious. He said he needed to come to the offices and not much else. He was distant for the rest of the afternoon and barely talked to me at dinner.”
They shared a quick glance.
“What?” I pressed. “What is it?”
“We don’t know,” Margo answered.
“This is pretty typical behavior, actually.”
“It is?” I rubbed my chest, anxiety bubbling underneath my skin.
“Yes. These guys have tough jobs, babe,” Margo reassured. “They deal with a lot of bad shit and people. Usually, they are able to take care of the bad people.” She gives me a faint smile. “Sometimes it takes a little time for justice to be served, but in the end, it always is.”
“Is that why you brought us up here? To see what he was hiding?”
I nodded. “I figured one of you could get me into the office.”
“I don’t have the new passcode,” Carrie sighed. “They change it every week to stay on top of security.”
“I have it,” Margo said, pulling out her phone.
Carrie did a double take. “Y-you have it?”
“Yeah, Hayes texts it to me every Monday when it switches,” Margo replied, her eyes on her phone.
Her best friend gave her a look of bewilderment. “What the hell?”
Margo waved her off. “I wouldn’t worry about it. Hayes is a fucking control freak and has a reminder alarm set for it.”
“Those never work for me,” I muttered, thinking about my color-coded planner sitting on my kitchen counter.
“So your makeshift plan was to sneak into the super high-tech bounty hunter offices that my boyfriend and her fiancé own, snoop around in your man’s office, and then get donuts after?” Margo chirped, putting her phone into her back pocket.
“Well, I…wait, donuts?”
She winked at me. “I don’t work for free.” Carrie laughed, shaking her head. Margo shot her a look. “You need to put Grayson’s hoodie on if you’re tagging along, Cardinal.”
“What? Why? This shirt is cute.”
“Yes, but you’ll look like a damn highlighter running across the street in that yellow and blow this whole operation. Put it on.”
Carrie grumbled as she slipped into Grayson’s hoodie.
Margo put her hand on the door handle. “We doing this or not?”
I took a long breath. “Should we?”
She smirked, something devilish lingering in her green eyes. “Hell yeah.”
Seconds later, we were all out of the car, running across the street and into the underground parking garage with Margo in the lead. She yanked us down to hide behind a hunter green SUV. She peeked over the hood before ducking again. “Okay, that camera is going to catch us, but if we just calmly walk in like we know what we’re doing, Jake will probably glaze over the footage.”
Carrie rolled her eyes, huffing. “We should’ve gone through the front door.”
“So we could deal with hard-of-hearing Gary?” Margo shot back.
“Hard-of-hearing Gary?”
Carrie gave me an apologetic look. “He’s the doorman for the building. He’s sweet, but—”
