Chapter Twenty-Nine
Hannah
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The next evening, I waited until everyone left, and then I made a beeline to Duncan's office. To my surprise, Knox and Finn were inside as well.
"Hey," I said.
"Hey." Finn smiled broadly. "Duncan filled us in on everything."
"And we've got mad tracking skills," Knox explained.
"I thought you two were geniuses in software," I replied as I sat down.
"Yeah, we might have dabbled a bit in hacking," Finn stated, then added, "Years ago. We don't do that anymore."
I pursed my lips together, trying to suppress a laugh. "Right. And that's why you're here, huh? To put your rusty skills to use?"
Knox looked at Duncan. "She's on to us."
"It's not hard, man," Duncan replied, shaking his head. "All right. We need to track down the client."
Finn and Knox both had laptops in front of them, and Duncan was sitting at the desk. I sat in the chair opposite him and put my laptop on the table.
"We could find out a lot from the transaction details," Knox said.
“I’m on it,” I assured them.
"I'm making a Dropbox folder where only we have access, okay? We can put everything there, and it's not traceable on the company's servers. Just until we figure out what's wrong."
"All right. Let’s get to work." My heart was in my throat. Clearly, if Duncan had asked his brothers here, it meant he was convinced there was something suspicious going on.
I reviewed all the transactions, but there was no person behind it. It was a company.
“Asset Buying Limited,” I murmured. “That doesn’t ring a bell.”
“I’m looking into it,” Knox said.
For the next hour, I kept analyzing the transactions, although I wasn’t sure we could get more info out of it.
“We’re onto something,” Knox suddenly announced.
“Found a contact information for Asset Buying Limited?” I asked.
“No. It’s clearly a shell company,” Finn added confidently.
“That’s unusual. Why would anyone set up a shell company to make investment transactions through an online portal? The whole point of it is that any regular Joe can use it.”
With shell companies, you usually didn’t have any info about the owners. They were typically a corporation without active business operations or significant assets. Sometimes they were used to disguise business ownership.
"If you’re about to do illegal stuff, you don’t want it traced back to you. But I think we have a lead," Finn said.
"Asset Buying Limited does have a web page. We looked at the code of the website, and they’ve left the name of a law company in the footer.” Knox turned the screen.
It was all code. I didn't understand much of it, but I recognized the name he highlighted. "Farley I felt like I couldn't breathe in here.
And I knew exactly where I needed to go.
***
Chase
"Duncan, what the hell is going on?" I asked, stepping into his office. His message had been beyond cryptic: We found some details about the transactions. You need to know. Come to my office.
I was shocked to find Knox and Finn inside.
"You’re fast," Finn exclaimed.
"Let's just wait for the others to come, too, before I start walking you through it," Duncan said.
The door opened just then, and Griffin stepped in. Wyatt was right behind him.
"Dude, next time you call us here, maybe give us more details or answer your damn phone," Wyatt complained. Clearly they'd received the same message as me.
"Okay, now that you're all here, we can start," Duncan began in his usual no-nonsense tone. "Want to sit down?"
"No," I replied.
"I prefer to stand," Griffin added.
"Listen, we have a lead on the transactions that the SEC flagged," Duncan shared.
"Wait, you've looked into this?"
"Yes." Duncan explained, "Knox and Finn traced it back to a shell company." His eyes flashed for some reason. "And it was set up by Farley & Gottlieb.”
“Cyrus’s tight with them,” I said instantly. Bile rose in my throat. "You think he was behind this?"
"It's as good a theory as any."
"Come on, I know the man dislikes me, but he wouldn't do this. How did you even find the shell company?" I asked.
"Hannah looked at the transactions. Finn and Knox checked the information, and—"
"Wait, Hannah knows about this?" I asked. "Fucking hell. I had sent her the info, but she didn't tell me anything about it."
"Yes, she was here tonight too," Duncan explained.
"Why did she leave?"
Finn rubbed his temple, keeping his head down.
Knox stood up. "Because she accidentally found out about the company we set up, and we told her everything."
"What the fuck?" I exclaimed. "Why didn't you lead with that?"
"Because it was important for you to know about Cyrus," Duncan explained.
"I don't care about fucking Cyrus right now. How did she take it?"
"Badly," Finn replied.
"She said she needed to get out of here and clear her mind," Knox said.
"No shit. Why didn't you message me that ?" I glared at Duncan.
"Because I'm dealing with another crisis too," he replied cooly.
"The rest of us can deal with it," Griffin spoke up. I realized he and Wyatt had been quiet all this time. Knowing them, they were simply processing it. We all had different ways of coping with bad news. Finn and Knox usually declared that they were up for anything. Wyatt and Griffin liked to mull things over, but also like my younger brothers, they usually did whatever it took to solve an issue.
"Listen, can you focus on our issue with Cyrus for a second? I think we should get the SEC on it," Duncan said.
I shook my head. "I can't focus on anything right now."
Before meeting Hannah, I would've stayed all night at the office with my brothers. But right then I wanted to make things up to her and explain my reasoning. To let her know I did everything because I couldn't bear seeing her face difficulties. Especially not ones I could so easily fix. She was everything to me, and I needed her to know that right then. This could wait. I trusted my brothers to deal with it.
"Hang on. The bright side is he's not planning on killing us," Knox said.
"Yeah, we're really sorry for dropping the ball, dude," Finn added. "But she saw the folder on Knox's desktop, and we couldn't just lie to her face."
"No, I did that long enough," I admitted. "I need to go deal with this."
"Fine. We'll make a plan and regroup with you in the morning," Duncan replied.
Everyone agreed, and I rushed out of the room, taking the elevator to the parking garage.
I'd climbed into my car and drove out of the garage before realizing I didn't know where she was. I was about to call her, then changed my mind.
"No, damn it." I didn't want to talk with her about this on the phone. I needed to see her.
I drove to her apartment as fast as I could, parking the car on the street adjacent to her building. A few drunkards stepped out of the steak restaurant as I went to the intercom.
Fucking hell. She wasn’t going to come back here after tonight. I wouldn’t allow it.
But first things first.
I had another battle to win.
I tried the intercom a few times, but I got no answer. I was about to call Blair and ask if she knew where Hannah could be before realizing there was only one place she’d go in a situation like this: the inn.
But I wanted to make sure she was there. Knowing I didn't have any time to waste, I scrolled through my contacts, remembering that I'd saved her neighbor's number after the storm. I found it and called right away.
"Hello?" an elderly voice answered.
"Hi, is this Ms. Adams?"
"Yes."
"Hi, this is Chase Sterling."
"Oh, you're the stud who was with Hannah after the storm."
I jerked my head back at her words. "The stud." Not exactly how I thought this conversation would start. The woman was a million years old.
"That's me," I confirmed. "Listen, I wanted to ask, are there any lights on at the inn? I think Hannah might be there."
"Yes, yes. She arrived here about half an hour ago, I think. Want me to go over and tell her you're looking for her? That girl is forever misplacing her phone."
"No, no need. I actually want to surprise her," I said.
"You're good-looking and thoughtful. She's got herself a winner."
I liked that description much better than "stud."
"Thank you, Ms. Adams. Have a good evening."
"You too."
Hanging up, I got into my car, driving way over the speed limit. I didn't want to leave Hannah with her thoughts for too long. I knew how it looked. I could only imagine what she was thinking. I needed to explain everything as soon as possible, but first I had to make a pit stop.