Chapter 46
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
NATE
My tired eyes drift over to her. She's asleep, on her front, red hair fanned behind her. A smile presses onto my lips.
“I love you.”
“I love you.”
“I love you.”
Her words repeat over in my head and I know I will never tire of hearing those three words.
The one who has always had my heart, the one who has wedged herself so tightly into the broken crevices of my heart that I wouldn't even be able to get to her, even if I wanted to, loves me.
She. Loves. Me.
My laptop beeps on my lap and my eyes drop to the screen.
There it was.
The name of where the money was going to, and my blood runs cold.
Wolfe Knight.
“No fucking way,” I mutter to myself as I reach for my phone, clicking Keaton's name.
It rings twice before he answers.
“What?” his voice is low, grumpy. I glance at the time and wince, it's three a.m.
“Sorry, but... you know I said James wanted me to look into Secure Corp?”
He pauses a moment, and I hear a deep sigh.
“No.”
I blink a couple of times.
“Err, did I not tell you?” I ask and my skin pricks and then it dawns on me, I haven't fucking told anyone except Kaleb on the plane here.
Shit.
“No.”
Fuck.
“Okay, er, so I am looking into Secure Corp.”
“Why?”
“All kind of links back to James.”
“Of course it does,” he yawns, and I hear the sound of the hut door sliding and I push to my feet, sliding our own door and walk onto the decked area.
I see him three huts down and I hold my hand up. I can just about make out that he is in fact flipping me off.
“Are you sure that Arizona killed Wolfe?”
“Yes Nate, I saw the piece of shit’s lifeless body on the floor.”
I look down at my laptop screen then back over to him.
“Secure Corp have been sending money to him for the last eighteen years...”
“The fuck?” and that seems to have woken him up.
Keaton doesn't know the significance of Secure Corp, but he knows that they are our competition.
“Do you think those fuckers were the ones behind Bartholomew’s death? Do you think those cunts were the ones who hired him to do what he did to my wife? ” his voice is getting louder; I can hear the faint sound of it from where he stands.
“No, I don't.”
I mean, I am lying.
It most likely was.
“Why are they wiring money?”
“James came to me with an embezzlement worry, but I don't think it is that... they've been paying him for something... maybe to keep him quiet? Maybe to pay for a service?”
“So that's why she wanted your details.”
I pause.
“Wait a minute, if you were her husband, why did she ask us for someone who could help her look into something?”
I pause again.
“I told her to keep us a secret.”
“You're bullshitting me, if I could actually see you from where you are standing, I bet your little apples are rosy and red.”
“Fuck off,” I say a little louder, then look over my shoulder to make sure she isn't coming.
“This conversation is far from over, buddy,” and I hear the whistle through his teeth.
“Oh, it is,” I chuckle.
“What is the date of the first transaction, can you see that far? And how much is it?”
“One second,” I turn and lower myself to the seat where I told James I love her, warmth spreads through my chest. Holding the phone in place between my ear and shoulder, I use both hands to try and find the bottom.
“Is it the same amount?”
“Yeah,” I lick my lips.
“How much?”
“Fifty thousand dollars a month.”
“What?!” Keaton rumbles. “I'll be outside in five, it doesn't make sense,” and before I can protest, the phone cuts off and when I glance over to where he was standing, he is no longer there.
Fuck.
Pushing up from the seat, I walk quickly through our room and quietly open the door, to find him already standing there.
I step aside and let him walk in and I rush past him to divert him straight outside but of course, in typical Keaton fashion, he stops and gives my wife the once over.
“Fuck off,” my blood thuds in my ears and I feel myself getting worked up.
“Only playing,” he winks and moves out to the deck where my laptop is sitting.
I nod for him to come over, and he sits beside me, dragging the chair so he can see a little better.
“May I?” he asks, and I nod as he lifts the laptop from me and starts scrolling. “Fifty thousand a month...” he shakes his head as in disbelief.
“I mean, they're bigger than us, they do more B listers and all that jazz,” I sigh, sitting back in my chair and crossing my leg over the other as I focus on the moon that sits in the sky, a little lower than earlier, but it is still as big as it was. I would lasso that moon if that's what she wanted, I would steal all the stars out of the night sky too. Anything she asked, I would give.
“It's not right... or if it is, they are trying to cover something massive up,” he rubs his hand over his stubble.
“I want to know what their connection is.”
“Did you manage to go back?”
I shake my head, “Some fuck knuckle turned up and gate crashed,” he turns to look at me and gives me the once over.
He smirks, a low chuckle rumbling through him as he scrolls down and I watch him pause as he leans in, looking at the screen closely.
“Ninth of June, two thousand and seven.”
“What?” I look at him, eyes a little wide.
He repeats the date.
“Show me,” I rush my words out as I take the laptop from him and stare at the numbers in front of me.
“Fuck,” I whisper before I turn back to him.
“Does that date ring a bell?”
I nod, swallowing down the nausea, my stomach twisting.
“What is it?” he waits for me to answer.
“That's the day James' parents died.”
Half an hour later, I have shown Keaton out and I am still dumbfounded.
Surely, it's a coincidence? Why would Wolfe have received a payment from Secure Corp the same day James’ parents died?
And then the sickening realization hits me in the gut like a bullet piercing the skin.
It was because of me.
Because how her parents helped me when no one else would.
You see, the truth in all of this fuckery is that I knew James' parents.
Pretty well actually, and it seems my past has finally caught up with me.
And now I had to tell the woman I loved the truth.
That I was the last person to see her parents alive.
That I may have been the reason they died.
That my identity wasn't going to be hidden for much longer, because as soon as I start unravelling Secure Corp, my family will hunt me down.
I sat quietly on the plane and told James I had a migraine. I felt shitty, but I knew it's because the guilt was eating me alive.
Sleep didn't come easy for me last night, so I spent far too long deep diving through files and hacking into Wolfe's account and once I was in, I found so much more than what Secure Corp had been sending him too.
He was in all different kind of rings, but you know the ones I am talking about, and I am assuming that's why Barnaby knew him, they ran in the same circles.
Parasites.
Both of them.
Wolfe was rotting somewhere in hell; Barnaby would be joining him very soon because the first thing I was looking into when I was home was getting that cunt assassinated.
I could hide this all, tell James it was a dead end, and that Rayden was a ghost, never to be found.
But I couldn't.
I needed to tell her everything.
Bare my hidden truths to her and swallow the consequences that came thereafter.
She would pack her bags and file for a divorce, but I wouldn't do that to her, I would push for an annulment.
She deserved to be happy and after I wreck her fairytale, there is no way in hell she will stay.
She will run for the hills, and I may as well be the one driving her over them.
“You okay?” she nudges me and I stiffen, but throw her a quick smile and a nod but I know she doesn't buy it.
Keaton's eyes are on me a hell of a lot and he is causing suspicion.
Glaring at him to cut it out, he drops his gaze and focuses on Seb who is sitting on his lap.
I had already pulled an emergency meeting with the guys once the tires are on the tarmac.
No one else knows what the issue is, just Keaton.
I hate that I am lying to James, but at the same time I am trying to protect her and myself at the same time because it's not just my heart that is delicate, hers is too and I know that I am going to obliterate both of them in the process.
She remembers the man at the door, she remembers the envelope.
How the hell am I meant to tell her the truth.
I feel so shit, but I pushed the investment meeting with Brooke again, because let’s be honest, once this blows up she isn't going to want anything to do with me either.
Keaton has planned for James to ride with Arizona so we can rush off to where we needed to go.
I needed my friends more than ever now.