5. Audit Risk
Audit Risk
Dante
The office is quiet after the chaos we caused in here last night. I pause in reception and imagine I can almost smell her citrus scent still clinging to the air. How small she felt holding on to me in that chair.
How confident she’d been that I would keep her safe.
And now she’s gone.
Finn storms toward his office. He’s a man on a mission and nothing will slow him down. He’s digging into Beth’s employment file.
My objective is her desk. I turn and head for her cubicle. Everything is neat and organized. Her company laptop isn’t here, but I still go through her drawers, looking for anything else that might give us a clue to what she might be up to.
There’s nothing personal here, which is odd, but not particularly suspicious. Nothing that would lead me to suspect her of being anything but another employee. I shake my head. She knows something. Especially since the files on the clients Tom and she worked on are missing.
“Sebastian called with the background information we requested.” Finn comes over and glances around her space.
“Beth Brown’s cousin married Brett Petrov, who works in Sokolov’s business.
But get this, Brown isn’t Beth’s father.
She was adopted by him when he married Beth’s mother. Her original birth name was Petrov.”
“Her apartment was decked out. She wasn’t a poor, just-starting-out, new employee.” I stand and walk with Finn to the door.
“They come from money. She’s not really in society here, but she could be.” Finn shakes his head. “Whatever she’s doing, she most likely suggested the businesses to Tom. Maybe it was a favor to get in good with the boss.”
We ride the elevator down while Finn prowls like a caged lion. I lean back against the wood wall and watch the numbers. Every minute feels like we’re that much farther away from finding her.
His energy has been too high since he checked the trash cans in the park.
“Calm down. You’re giving me a migraine.” I give Finn a serious look.
The elevator doors open and Finn steps out.
“I don’t understand how you can be all calm right now. She’s ours and he took her. Until she’s back in our arms, I won’t sleep.”
I grab his shoulder to stop him. “You need to sleep and eat. Coffee will only get you so far. You’ll crash and burn if you don’t take care of yourself. That won’t help anyone, including Sara.”
He runs his hand through his hair and looks like he wants to tell me to fuck off. Or fight me, which honestly, I could use a few hits. To be punished for what I let happen on my watch. Instead, he draws in a breath and his head hangs.
“I let her down.” The words are low, as if he’s admitting defeat.
I pat him on the back. “You didn’t. She just did what she normally would have done. It’s been so quiet lately. No one has been standing watching our apartment. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary and she let her guard down for a moment.”
“If he hurts her…”
My heart clenches violently. “She’s not hurt. I’d know.”
Finn raises his green eyes. “How?”
“I’d feel it.” I can’t explain it, but I’d know. I know Sara inside and out. I’ve studied her to keep her from pushing the limits for so long that I can almost tell when she’s near. And when she’s gone, it’s like a hole has been ripped inside me.
Finn takes a breath and leads the way to the car. The driver takes off as soon as we’re inside. It’s a short drive to Beth’s and we remain quiet on the way there. Both of us lost in our thoughts.
Finn’s family has never been the greatest. They’re all cold and distant.
He never wanted for anything, but he’d come to life when Mrs. Morris would ask him to do something for her like take out the trash or move a piece of furniture.
When she gave us homemade cookies, he was in awe.
I swear he fell half in love with Tom’s mom, but it was understandable.
Sara shines with the same light as her mother. Bright and so fucking addictive.
The car pulls over to the curb and we both get out. I’m not waiting for her to answer. I press all the buttons on the panel and someone buzzes us in.
The stairs are nothing this time. Before I can get there, Finn pounds on the door. He’s already reaching into his pocket for the lockpick set he’s had since we were kids when the door opens.
“What?” Beth looks belligerent until she registers it’s Finn and me. She’s got on jeans and an expensive shirt.
Finn brushes past her into her apartment. He looks around, taking in the expensive furniture and decorations. “We must be paying you too well.”
“Not enough to justify you coming to my place on a Sunday.” She follows him inside.
I step in and close the door behind me. “We have a few questions, Beth, and don’t have time to coax it out of you.”
Finn spies what he’s looking for and grabs the laptop bag. He pulls out her work computer and some files from our office.
“What are you doing?” Beth steps toward him but I block her path. She glares up at me. “You don’t have the right.”
“Don’t we?” I glance back at Finn. “Everything he’s looking at is company property.”
“It’s in my apartment.” She’s a stubborn little shit.
“Who does your real dad work for, Beth?” I ask, towering over her.
She narrows her eyes and steps back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Cut the shit,” Finn flings across the room. “We need to know all the assets of these organizations you’ve continued to hide from us.”
Her jaw ticks and she crosses her arms.
I put my hands on my knees and lower so my face is in hers. “Honestly, both of us have been itching for a fight, but this would go a lot smoother if you just tell us what we need to know. Maybe we won’t turn your ass in for money laundering.”
She grows pale and her gaze shifts from me to Finn and back. The horrified look tells me she thinks we know something about what she’s doing. It’s a good bluff, so I lean into it.
Straightening, I pull out my phone. “How much time does money laundering get these days?”
“Three to five years.” Pretty sure Finn just pulled that out of his ass. Neither of us knows or cares. There’s only one thing that matters right now.
She grabs at her pendant and slides it back and forth on the chain. “I haven’t done anything that would get me put in jail.”
“They could tack on kidnapping or aiding and abetting. Couldn’t they, Finn?” I glance at him and he’s got her laptop opened and is sifting through files.
“Oh, yeah, at least ten to fifteen more for that.” Finn doesn’t look up from the screen.
She backs up and leans against the wall. It’s like I can see the mental gymnastics she’s doing in her head right now about how to get out of everything.
She refocuses on me. “It wasn’t my idea.”
“If you tell me Tom decided—”
“No, Tom didn’t realize what the companies were doing. I was supposed to keep him distracted so we could legitimize the financial statements.” Beth shakes her head. “He was supposed to be an easy mark. Everyone knows what a man whore he is. I mean, look at me.”
She gestures to her trim figure. “I should be able to catch any guy’s eye. And Tom would have been a catch, but he wasn’t interested in me.”
She scoffs like she can’t believe it. That makes me like Tom just a little bit. Not enough to forgive him for what he’s put us through, but at least I can respect that he didn’t take just anything that was offered.
“What does this have to do with the businesses?” I’m losing my patience.
“I kept them out of the system.” She laughs. “Blamed it on a coding error when he’d ask. I wore some very revealing outfits that worked for like a week. Hacking into his computer and cloud drive took going to my cousin Angel. She’s a fucking genius.”
This wasn’t some little job. “What the fuck have you gotten us into?”
She smiles sadly. “If I help the family, I’m part of the family. I get the perks of being in the family. All my college debt taken care of. My own place. Extra money in my pocket. And they get an accountant to help them.”
“We don’t really care about that, Beth,” Finn says as he continues to pull up files. “What we need to know is what properties they hold that aren’t exactly company properties.”
She smirks. “See? That’s the thing. By entertaining at their personal residences they can be counted as company property.”
I’m so done playing these games. “Again, don’t care. Just fucking tell us.”
“Got it.” Finn stands up and closes the laptop, sliding it into the laptop bag with the files.
“If you have anything else to tell us, I’d do so now.” I give her a moment while Finn walks to the door.
She crosses her arms over her chest and tips her chin up. “The businesses are legit.”
I blow out a breath and nod. “If you have any other company resources, I expect them to be returned to the office tomorrow morning.”
Her brow furrows.
“You’re fired.” Finn jerks his head toward the door. “But you’ll be fine. I’m sure you’ll bounce right back onto your feet.”
“You can’t—” She steps forward.
“We can and you are. If I see you in our office, we’ll make sure you don’t work in this town or industry ever again.”
* * *
Peter’s loft and townhouse are a bust. There’s no one at either place, but it was fun to distract the doormen while Finn, dressed as an HVAC repair guy, slipped by. There was no sign of Sara having even been there.
I text the dog sitter to check on Peabody. The poor pup has had quite the adventure. We get back into the car. The GPS puts the next property in the middle of nowhere, which means they’ll see us coming.
“We can’t just roll up on his house and demand Sara back.” I rub the back of my neck.
Finn looks out the window. “I can ask my family.”
I blow out a breath. Finn broke ties with his family a long time ago. He didn’t want anything to do with them and what interests they held. He took the trust his grandfather left him and never once looked back. If there was another way…
“There has to be another option we aren’t considering,” I say. If Finn asks for a favor, his family will latch onto him. He’ll owe them. That’s something he never wanted.
“What? We wait and see if the others find Tom?” Finn turns his angry eyes to me. “How long will Sara have to suffer there while we wait for her brother to man the fuck up?” He shakes his head. “I love Tom like a brother, but he really fucked up this time.”
“Let’s regroup and see what everyone has found out before you pull that trigger.” I tell the driver to head to our apartment.
Me:
New info?
Drew:
Heading to uncle
Me:
We may have found where she’s being held
Estate in the middle of nowhere
Drew:
Makes sense
He used to take some girls out there
What do you need?
Me:
A way to get there without being caught
Drew:
I may have a person
I care about keeping Finn from getting entangled with his family, but more importantly, Drew has connections most of us don’t. Though one thing keeps nagging at me. He stopped Sara from telling us about Peter until Peter had a chance to leave.
What we know about Drew Young could fill a page, maybe a page and a half. But right now, he can help us get to Sara. Unless he’s working for Peter.
Fuck. When the car stops in front of the apartment, we head inside. We’ve been going since the middle of the night. When we walk in, I grab a couple of salads from the refrigerator and put them on the table.
This is a fucking train wreck and I can’t see how I could have stopped it without locking Sara up completely. She never would have stood for that.
Finn comes out of his bedroom with a bag. I can only begin to imagine what’s in the bag.
“Drew thinks he might have a way to help us.” I push a salad toward Finn. “Eat.”
Finn drops into the chair and eats mechanically. His thoughts clearly occupied.
A knock at the door startles me, but I rise and check to see who it is. Who could get by the doormen?
When I look out the peephole, Sebastian Cross stands out there with X and Mac.
I open the door and let them in.
“I heard you need someone to sneak you in somewhere.” Sebastian grabs a kitchen chair and turns it backward before straddling it. Mac and X lean against the wall with their arms crossed.
“And who did you hear that from?” I take my seat and casually eat my salad.
“Drew Young. Seems your bird has flown the coop.”
“She was kidnapped,” Finn bites out and pushes the last bit of his salad away.
Sebastian smirks. “Sure. Doesn’t matter how, all that matters is you want her back. We’ve got some experience getting in and out of places undetected.”
I meet Finn’s eyes. What choice do we have? We need help and these guys are a much lesser evil than Finn’s family.
Leaning my elbows on the table, I meet Sebastian’s dark green eyes. “What do you need from us?”