Chapter 31 Asha
ASHA
Iwoke alone, surrounded by the lingering scent of Rook. My pillow fort was gone, which explained how I’d ended up sprawled across the middle of the bed.
I patted Rook’s side. Cold. No sounds from the bathroom or the rest of the apartment, either. He must’ve left for work already.
I breathed a sigh of relief that I didn’t have to face his smug, handsome face first thing in the morning. My poor brain wasn’t prepared to deal with that so early.
Rook’s pillow lay an inch from my nose. I dragged it closer and inhaled deeply. Shampoo, the faintest trace of cologne, and something that was uniquely Rook.
Yum.
Ugh. I must be ovulating or some bullshit.
I cursed myself for taking a second sniff and groaned. “Why can’t you smell like blue cheese in a hot locker room?”
I tossed the pillow aside, punched it for good measure, then hauled my sorry ass out of bed.
Showered, dressed, and caffeinated, I holed up in my office and opened the files Rook had emailed me about his brother.
Email log-ins, financials, asset register, phone records. It felt like prying into the life of a ghost. A seriously loaded ghost. If Niall’s wealth had transferred to Rook, no wonder he was rolling in it.
The sheer list of properties Niall had owned and his monthly transactions made going through it all overwhelming.
I was no forensic accountant, but I had enough computer skills to write macros to interrogate the raw data, searching for inconsistencies and patterns.
But each pass I made using different constraints found nothing that raised alarm bells.
Niall’s assets, although funneled through shell companies and offshore banks like most of the megarich’s were, were all aboveboard.
Just a savvy investor with a broad portfolio that had grown by over two billion dollars in the twelve months prior to Niall’s passing.
Finn dropped in around noon with lunch from Lawson’s Deli—a turkey, cranberry, and Brie toasted sandwich, fresh-pressed juice, and a salted-caramel chocolate-chunk cookie the size of my hand.
He again credited Rook with the selection, which wasn’t surprising at all, since it was a combo I’d ordered many times from Lawson’s.
Except for the giant cookie. I’d only ever eyeballed that bad boy through the display-case glass.
I knew I should be unnerved by my stalker’s eye for detail, but the longer I spent in Rook’s presence, the less it bothered me.
After a brief chat with Finn about how his fight prep was going, I got back to my analysis. More data mining. More frustration at the lack of results.
Needing a break from numbers in spreadsheets, I shifted to Sierra’s case and checked for news alerts and tips. Crickets.
With nothing new to build my next podcast episode around, I fell back on an idea I’d been putting off—recording a Q a tray with cuff links, watches, and sunglasses atop a chest of drawers; and an acoustic guitar on a stand in the corner.
It was as if Niall had stepped out and never come back.
Rook hovered by the doorway, arms crossed tightly over his chest. “He was a neat freak. Took pride in everything he did. He loved this room. This apartment.”
I wandered deeper, exploring the books and photos on the shelves. Niall and Rook laughing with pints of Guinness in their hands. Another of them in boxing gloves at a gym. Rook looked lighter in the photos. Happier.
My chest squeezed. “I didn’t know you could smile like that.”
He cleared his throat. “That was before.”
I kept moving—opening drawers, peering in the closet. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, only that if Niall had discovered something that had gotten him killed, maybe he’d left breadcrumbs here.
I rifled through a sock drawer, and my fingers brushed something hard. A small velvet box. Inside was a ring. An emerald flanked by two red hands.
“Rook.” I turned to face him. “This is almost the same as mine.”
He stepped forward, took one look, and stilled. “That’s a Beasts protection ring.”
“For wives?”
“Aye.” He nodded. “Sisters, daughters, and mothers, too. No one touches a woman wearing one of those.”
My heart beat faster. “Who do you think Niall was planning to give it to?”
Rook’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know. He didn’t have a girlfriend.”
I looked back at the ring. “Maybe there was someone. Someone he wanted to protect.”
Rook shook his head. “He would’ve told me.”
“He might not have if he thought you’d disapprove. Or it was new. Or complicated.”
He didn’t reply, but his jaw worked like he was grinding gravel between his teeth.
I slipped the ring back into the box and closed the lid. “Looks like I have a new mystery to solve.”