Chapter 2 Elias
ELIAS
The lock engages with a heavy, final thud that vibrates through the reinforced steel floor. Four inches of tungsten and titanium seal us in. The rest of the world—the Feds, the club, the snowstorm raging outside—ceases to exist.
Ozone, gun oil, and old paper layer over the steady hum of the server banks. Beyond the servers, a heavy partition separates my workspace from the back quarters where a sink, two military cots, and a massive gun locker sit in absolute order. But my focus is entirely on her. Mia.
She stands in the center of my underground sanctuary, clutching a battered leather satchel against her chest. The skin strains tight over her finger joints. Her breath hitches visibly.
One. I count her next inhalation automatically, then track the second and the third. A lingering tic from the fire that took my parents demands the counting. Numbers provide absolute safety, whereas people act as chaotic variables that inevitably get you killed.
Mia brings a vibrant splash of color into my gunmetal-gray world. A shocking pink cardigan wraps around her shoulders, clashing violently with the filing cabinets and the stark LED strips overhead. The harsh contrast should irritate me. My teeth should ache with the desperate need to restore order.
Instead, my fingers twitch at my sides.
I want to tear that sweater off her. My heavy leather cut, thick with the Broken Halos patch, belongs on her shoulders until the only colors she wears are black and gold.
"Is this..." Her voice trembles, bouncing off the metal walls. She clears her throat, digging for the spine of steel she showed the agents on the highway. "Is this standard procedure? Locking the auditor in a bunker?"
"It's the Vault," I grunt, the syllables grinding like gravel in a mixer. I haven't used my vocal cords this much in days. "When the Feds circle like vultures, standard procedure applies."
She scans the perimeter. Her eyes catch the overhead light, flashing a sharp, bright green like new currency.
"It's..." She swallows hard. "Highly secure."
"Impenetrable." I step past her, my heavy enforcement boots echoing against the floor plates.
I move to the main terminal, putting crucial distance between us before I do something reckless like press my face into her honey-blonde hair.
"You requested seventy-two hours. You claimed you could find the anomaly. The mole."
She bristles, her spine turning to rebar. Pure adrenaline usually causes sloppiness in civilians, but she is actively sharpening before my eyes.
"I said I could find the discrepancy," she corrects, marching over to the steel table I use for dismantling weapons and reconciling ledgers. The heavy leather bag drops with a solid thump. "If a mole exists, the numbers will point to them. Math doesn't lie. People do."
She pulls a laptop from the unzipped compartment, followed by legal pads and a handful of neon colored highlighters. The bright plastic practically vibrates against the brushed steel table.
"You have a problem with my supplies?" she challenges, catching my stare. Her chin tilts up.
"They're bright."
"They're color-coded. Pink highlights immediate flags, yellow handles reconciliation, and blue verifies assets." She lines them up with military exactness, keeping the spacing perfectly parallel.
The tight coil in my chest loosens. She likes absolute order.
"The server access is here," I state, typing the override code on the main terminal. Six monitors flicker to life, bathing the room in a cool blue glow. "Don't make me regret handing over the keys to the kingdom."
She moves next to me. Too close.
Her scent hits me then, a violent collision that erases the stink of gun oil and stale beer from my senses.
Beneath the surface of grapefruit and rain, I catch the sharp, unmistakable musk of her arousal—the scent of a woman who is already drenched for me after I claimed her on that highway.
It makes my blood roar and my cock throb with a heavy, leaden ache against my thigh.
My jaw locks tight.
She taps the keyboard, fingers flying across the keys. "I need the last three years of transaction logs. Pull the raw data, bypassing the summaries your accountant prepared for the IRS."
"I am the accountant," I growl.
She pauses, tilting her head. "You?"
"I'm the Treasurer. I handle the books."
Her gaze drops to my hands. Thick scars cover the rough skin, the physical cost of years of brutal fighting and welding. Calculation visibly turns in her mind as she reconciles the highway violence with the incredibly delicate work of forensic accounting.
"Then you should know," she murmurs softly, "that summaries hide sins. I need the raw logs."
"You'll get them."
I pull up hundreds of thousands of lines of code. Money laundering operates as a complex art form. The club runs legitimate businesses like Peak Wilderness Outfitters and the auto shop, while simultaneously moving massive amounts of cash that completely evade the paper trail.
"This will take time," she mutters, already scrolling. Her eyes dart across the screen, tracking the waterfall of data.
"We have time." I lean back in my chair, crossing my arms over my chest. "Seventy-two hours. Nobody gets in. Nobody gets out."
Her hand freezes over the computer mouse. "Where do I sleep?"
"You don't."
She spins the chair to face me, raising her eyebrows high.
"We work until completion," I instruct. "There's a cot in the back if you pass out. The Feds aren't sleeping, and neither are we."
"Fine." She turns back to the glowing screen. "I run on caffeine and spite anyway."
"I can provide the caffeine."
My boots carry me to the small kitchenette in the corner, fully stocked with a coffee maker, a mini-fridge, and a massive stack of MREs designed for a siege.
"Black," she requests before I open my mouth.
"Is there any other way?"
"You'd be surprised. Most people try to drown the bitter."
"I like the bitter."
I pour two mugs. Steam rises, carrying the heavy scent of dark roast. The aroma matches the Cozy Cup back in town, minus the cinnamon and the local gossip. If Christie knew I kept a woman locked down here, the news would hit the Timber Trail Tavern before sunset.
The ceramic mug clunks down next to her colored highlighters.
"Thanks." She keeps her eyes glued to the monitors, completely absorbed in the cascading data.
I retreat to my corner, letting the shadows wrap securely around my shoulders.
This Vault acts as my absolute domain. I operate as the phantom of the ledgers, the one who makes massive problems disappear into the void.
The absolute silence and the rhythmic hum of the cooling fans usually bring a deep sense of peace.
Now, a completely new rhythm infiltrates the space. Keystrokes tap rapidly, followed closely by the aggressive scratch of her pen. She types constantly, only stopping to scribble notes on her legal pad while muttering under her breath.
"Inventory write-off... Depreciation schedule doesn't match the asset tag... Who buys fifteen thousand dollars of copper wire in February?"
Her narrated thought process creates a constant stream of verbal noise. The distraction should drive me insane, considering I require utter silence to think clearly. Instead, I find myself leaning in, latching onto the cadence of her voice like a lifeline.
I track her fourth breath, then her fifth.
My gaze traces her back, following the delicate curve of her spine through the pink cardigan.
She repeatedly tucks a loose strand of honey-blonde hair behind her ear, establishing a new pattern for me to track.
She possesses pure chaotic energy, all contained within a small, soft package.
Now she sits there tearing apart my life's work with a neon plastic pen.
Two hours bleed away into the humming quiet.
The air inside the Vault grows exceptionally heavy. The ventilation system hums, cycling the oxygen, yet the atmosphere feels impossibly thick and charged.
"You have a problem in the logistics account," she announces, shattering the quiet.
I push off the wall. "Logistics is solid. Shane checks every shipment."
"Shane checks the physical crates," she counters, spinning the chair to face me. "Someone is skimming the shipping fees. Look."
A pink-tipped finger points directly at the screen.
I close the distance, leaning over her shoulder to inspect the indicated line of code. My chest brushes her arm.
Heat snaps between us, a live wire arcing through the air. Static electricity cracks over our skin, invisible but impossible to ignore.
She inhales sharply, the sudden hitch in her breath loudly telegraphing her physical reaction. Six.
"Here," she whispers, her throat tight. "See the variance? Point-zero-five percent on every international transaction. It registers as dust, completely tiny. Over three years, though..."
"It adds up," I finish, my voice dropping dangerously low.
My eyes scan the numbers, confirming her theory. The skim lies buried deep in the exchange rate calculations, appearing as a simple rounding error that funnels pennies into a ghost account.
"Smart," I mutter.
"Greedy," she corrects. "They got confident. Six months ago, the percentage bumped to point-zero-eight. That triggered the IRS flags."
I stare at the screen, completely losing focus on the data.
My attention shifts entirely to her neck, tracing the delicate line of her throat and the rapid pulse beating frantically under her pale skin.
She possesses pure brilliance. The club has bled cash for months without my knowledge.
I handle numbers efficiently, but she fluently speaks their language, uncovering distinct patterns hidden deep within the chaos.
"You're good," I rasp. That assessment stands as the highest compliment I can possibly give.
She turns her head, bringing her face inches from mine. Flecks of gold shine clearly in her green irises, drawing my focus down to the slight, wet part of her lips.