Chapter 41
Chapter forty-one
Rhys
Ido what a man like me does best when threatened. I go on the offensive.
Locked in my consulting room with the blinds half drawn, I sit by my computer and switch it on. The usual happy vet program flicks to life across my screen, but I'm not in my veterinary persona. I take a small USB from my locked drawer and plug it in.
It's not anything exciting like a secret dark-web, but the files give me access to information that legal channels wouldn't. This is the place I use when I go hunting.
Frank and Derek Murray don't have the best security going, and with the police involved, I can only use the information I've already gained from my investigation.
One click of the mouse opens their saved bank records. Month after month of money in, money out.
The income is clearly puppy sales, the same ￡1200 sale per puppy I traced before I ever laid eyes on Noah.
I've already done the math. For twelve years, the brothers never failed to make a profit. Last year, they cleared ￡316,800 income from puppy sales. I estimated thirty grand in expenses, food, basic medical care, and the rest was split. F. Murray, D. Murray and Whittle Fund.
I didn't know about Noah then, because there was nothing for staff wages. I only cared about the brothers. It was never really about saving the dogs, just curing the itch beneath my skin that grew daily until I sated it.
But there are gaps in it.
Small at first. Easy to miss if you’re not looking for them.
Transactions that should exist… don’t.
I lean closer to the screen, narrowing my eyes.
Someone has already cleaned parts of this.
Not well enough.
But well enough to tell me I’m not the only one digging.
Whittle Fund.
I never looked into what that was. I only searched to find the proof these men were worthy of my table. In, out, done.
I didn't expect the staff to follow me home with a pack of dogs.
But this time I'm doing it properly. This time it isn't about the itch growing under my skin. It's about protecting the man I…
The man I have become inconveniently fond of.
This isn’t about the puppy farm.
It never was.
I told myself it was. Built an entire justification for it.
But the truth is simpler.
Someone threatened what’s mine.
And now I’m going to remove the threat.
There is no paper trail to follow from the brothers to the Whittle Fund. But I have the means to track people, even if I only know their surname.
There aren't many Whittles. It only takes a few clicks to find out who interests me.
Peter Whittle. Most men leave trails. Ego demands it.
Whittle doesn’t.
What little I find is curated, like he knows exactly what the world is allowed to see.
That makes him dangerous.
Not untouchable.
Just… worth doing properly.
His criminal record is clean, but he's been under police observation before.
Charges for illegal dog fighting. Case dropped.
Charges for running an illegal gambling operation. Case dropped.
The police know what this man is doing; they just can't prove it.
Luckily, I don't need proof.
My moral code is more than happy with ‘close enough’.
Close enough is that Whittle is running illegal dog fights and taking bets on the winners.
Close enough is that the brothers were involved in shady dog breeding nearly ten years ago when they opened the puppy farm.
Close enough is my mind concluding that the brothers gambled and lost. And now they are paying Whittle around eight grand each month to cover their debts.
Eight grand a month for ten years is one heck of an interest rate, but what started as a desperate predatory loan has been very profitable for the brothers over the years. They were probably more than happy to keep paying with the personal profit they were bringing in.
And poor Noah was working for meals and a mattress.
But now the payments have stopped. Whittle must have connected his cash-cow to the news; the payment isn't even overdue yet.
If Whittle sent someone to collect…
Why call Noah directly?
Why not take what he wants?
This isn’t clean.
The room feels smaller now.
Not physically but tighter.
Like something unseen has stepped inside with me and is standing just out of sight.
I don’t miss things.
That’s what makes me effective.
Every movement. Every pattern. Every inconsistency.
I see it.
I catalogue it.
I act on it.
My gaze drifts to the door.
Closed.
Locked.
Noah is somewhere in the building.
Probably with his hands full of puppies again, breaking every rule I’ve ever set and somehow making it work anyway.
He trusts this place.
Trusts me.
That trust settles low in my chest.
Heavy and dangerous.
Because if I’ve missed something. If I’ve let something get close enough to reach him…
That’s not a mistake.
That’s a failure.
And I don’t fail.
I’ll get my answers. I'll protect what's mine.
Peter Whittle is traceable; it doesn't take much to connect him to the dogs he uses for fighting. Not the cute dogs Noah breeds, but thick-necked, heavy-jawed fighters bred to win or die. All teeth and dead eyes.
I'm not scared of dogs.
I've got the scars on my left knee from a chow-chow who took a chunk out of me to prove it.
But I'm not going anywhere near Whittle without a solid plan in place first. I won't rush this.
Men like Whittle don’t get second chances.
You either do it right…
Or you don’t walk away.
My fingers hover over the keyboard as I open a new file.
Not accounts.
Not transactions.
A plan.
Because if this leads back to Noah again…
I won’t be the one being watched.