Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Rafael had disappeared early that morning like a man who had a city to steer. He’d texted through the day in clipped bursts. Malaysia was escalating, and she appreciated the effort because she knew every word cost him time.
When he came home, Bea knew at once he hadn’t eaten. He was hers to handle now. To start, she’d prepared enough pasta to clinically alarm a nutritionist.
Now he sat at the kitchen island, already on his third bowl like a man refueling between battles. She watched him from the couch and thought, not for the first time, that Georgie had waited for certainty. Hers had simply taken over.
The torn envelope and photographs still sat on the far end of the counter, pushed under a stack of mail like something neither of them wanted to relive. Rafael hadn’t looked at them again, but every time he came home, he put his hand on that spot, like a little ritual.
Bea lifted her phone, pointed it at him, and set it to video. She kept her face carefully neutral. Just a girl on her phone. Mindin’ her business. Definitely not documenting her husband’s absolute annihilation of his dinner.
He twisted his fork, muscles flexing from back to wrist as he pulled the noodles in. The sheer primal focus was absurdly hot. His phone buzzed on the counter. He ignored it.
She whispered, “Note the technique. The concentration.” She zoomed in but fumbled the angle and it made a thunk on the wood. Rafael’s eyes cut to her instantly. The reflex was pure predator, the kind that noticed disturbances before deciding whether they mattered.
“Delete it.”
Bea scooped the device off the floor. “Delete what?” she asked. Breezy. Busted.
“The video you’re filming of me like I’m a zoo exhibit.”
“I was texting.”
“You zoomed.”
She clutched the phone to her chest. “That’s a bold accusation.”
He wiped his mouth, stood, and made his way to where she was reclined. He extended a hand.
Bea pouted. “You were so cute.”
“Me eating is cute?” he deadpanned as he leaned over. Bea yelped when he snatched it from her and hit play. “You narrated?”
She tried to rescue it from him. “I had to.”
He gave her a look so flat she swallowed the giggle whole. Then he pressed delete.
She gasped. “I filmed that for posterity.”
He handed it back. “I’ll let you film something else later.”
“You’re lucky you’re hot,” she muttered.
He bent down and kissed her. “So are you.”
RAFAEL
Five days since Bea handed him the photographs.
Sleep came in fragments, wedged between Malaysia crisis calls and the daily procession of investigative updates crossing his desk.
He’d sent men to discreetly interrogate the system: hotel staff, security vendors, data brokers, financial channels.
So far, he hadn’t found evidence that the images had been distributed broadly.
After three false leads and a dead account, a payment finally surfaced. Issued through a company dissolved twice and resurrected under a new director. Buried inside its old filings from a decade ago: the signature of G. Trenor.
Rafael’s first response was a single, clean thought: break him. Trenor had motive, and the money all but raised its hand. But Bea’s description of Catherine Vale’s offended denial kept coming to mind. Besides spite, what did either of them have to gain?
In his experience, where there was one misdeed there were usually others. He needed the kind of people who made a living unearthing hidden patterns.
So he found himself pacing a small, glass-walled meeting room at Dao Strategic Forensics, unwilling to sit.
He’d all but crushed the valet stub in his pocket.
The door swung inward. Jaxon entered, still reading his screen, as if time were something rationed.
He paused at the sight of him—not surprised, but recalibrating.
“Griffin. Didn’t realize it’d just be us.”
“I’m not here officially.”
Dao set the tablet down and took a seat. “Bea alright?”
“She’s fine.”
Rafael moved to the table, braced both hands on it, muscles coiled. “What I’m about to say doesn’t leave this room.”
Dao raised an eyebrow. “Understood.”
“There’s been a leak,” Rafael said. “Images pulled from a private hotel system.”
“What was on them?”
The words resisted him. “My wife outside your hotel room. Altered.” He didn’t say more, but the implication was there in the way his fingertips curled into the laminate.
Dao stilled.
Rafael watched, waiting to confirm an enemy. It wouldn’t take much: a flash of guilt, a twitch of interest.
Dao’s entire body tensed. “Bea’s not like that.” The statement was cold, so were his black eyes.
The pressure eased. “I know it’s fake,” Rafael said. “I remember the night and what she was doing there. I’m not here for that.”
“Then why are you here?” Dao’s tone turned clinical.
“Because whoever paid for that footage wants me to believe it was Gavin Trenor.”
“And you don’t?”
“I went to him. He denied it,” Rafael said. “I have an invoice chain, but my gut tells me it’s too clean.”
For a moment, Jaxon was silent. “Trenor is capable. But if he did it, he’d be a bigger dumbass than I remember.”
“I want the source.”
“You asking a favor?” Dao asked. “Or Bea?”
She’d wanted to be the one to approach Dao; had tried to insist that it made sense that way. But there was no world in which he’d let his wife be indebted to another man.
“Me.”
Jaxon leaned back, tipping the chair onto two legs. “You hate that she trusts me.”
He wasn’t wrong. Yet for the first time, Rafael had begun to think Dao might actually be safe to stand near Bea. He gave a brief huff. “Prove her right.”
Jaxon dropped the chair forward with a quiet thud. “You have suspicions?”
“More than one.”
“Start at the beginning.”