Owen
“What am I going to do with you?” I nuzzled her neck and gently nipped at her soft skin.
She arched up into me, pushing her breasts into my chest. She’d come in to show me a pattern of deposits from Deimos Industries, but her words were lost on me. Because she was wearing a tank top.
“Focus,” she snapped. “I think I’ve worked something out.”
I nipped her earlobe and tried to force my brain to function.
She handed me a spreadsheet. “I isolated all the transactions. For Deimos and some of the other unknown vendors. And they follow a weird pattern.”
She pointed to the lines highlighted in yellow. “Those deposits occurred every twenty-nine or thirty days. And these withdrawals followed a similar pattern, occurring fourteen or fifteen days after the deposit.”
“Okay…” I wasn’t totally following, but in my defense: tank top.
“And there were twelve of these cycles each year, except for every two and a half years, when there were thirteen.”
I looked at her, still not clear.
“The lunar cycle,” she said, a self-satisfied grin on her face. “Each of these massive payments occurred on a full moon, dating back for at least seven years. I don’t have access to the records before then, but I’d bet on it.”
“And when did they stop?”
“There was a full moon six days after your dad was arrested. No payment.”
Shit. Something was related, but what?
“And I did some more digging. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before.
Deimos is one of the moons of Mars. These couldn’t have been legitimate business expenses, because they followed no discernible business need or pattern.
Instead, they paid out on the full moon.
Even those on weekends, when no other payments were made. ”
“Someone thinks they’re clever.”
“Yup. And while we don’t yet know what these transactions were for, it’s starting to look a lot like money laundering.”
I pushed my hands into my hair. “Fuck.”
“We have no hard evidence. It’s not like I can go to the feds and talk about the damn full moons. They’d laugh me out of their offices. But at least we know these weren’t legit, that the books weren’t accurate. Now we can at least account for it and make accurate projections.”
She was right. Any information that helped to discern legal versus illegal conduct could only help us in a sale, but fuck if I wanted to get mixed up in this.
“I’ll talk to Gus,” I said, pulling her close. “You’re fucking brilliant.”
She arched back against me, and I thanked the wonky HVAC system as I grasped her waist, deposited her on my desk, and kissed the hell out of her.
God, I would never tire of this. Her lips were intoxicating.
Even though we’d snuggled for so long after the alarm had gone off this morning, she was almost late for her shift at the diner, I needed more.
She threw her arms around my neck and slid her knees farther apart.
Taking the move as an invitation, I stepped between her legs, all the blood immediately flowing south. This woman made me hungry and reckless.
“Owen.”
The sound of my name in a low tone barely registered.
“What the fuck?”
Lila tensed in my arms, and her eyes went wide. Her back was to the door, but she recognized the voice, I was sure.
I shot Gus a glare. “You don’t believe in knocking?”
He stood in the doorway with his hands fisted at his sides and a murderous expression on his face. “I did. About twenty times. What the hell is going on?”
Lila pushed me aside and hopped off the desk. She subtly wiped at her mouth, then scurried to the door. “Hi, Gus,” she squeaked, keeping her head down.
Without a word, he moved aside, and she rushed out. That hurt. We were supposed to be in this together, and she ran away the moment my brother walked in?
I sank into my desk chair and stared up at the ceiling, studying the beams and clenching my jaw, waiting for the lecture.
The door slammed so hard against its frame the whole room shook.
“What the fuck, Owen?” my brother hissed, stomping toward my desk. “I told you to stay away from her.”
I laced my hands over my abdomen and glowered in response. “Didn’t you realize you were her older brother too.”
“I’m everyone’s older fucking brother these days. God.” He ran his hands through his shaggy hair. “This is the last thing we need. She’s a good kid.”
“She’s a grown woman, and this is none of your business.”
Gus’s overprotective instincts ran deep. Since we were kids, he’d felt as though he was responsible for not only all of us boys, but for his friends too.
“This is why I can’t talk to you. You jump to baseless conclusions, you blow up over nothing, and you don’t trust me.”
With a shake of his head, he sighed. “I trust you with a lot of things, but everything is shit right now, and Lila does not deserve to be dragged into it.”
Roughing a hand over my face, I leaned back in my chair. He wasn’t exactly wrong.
“Wait a second.” He braced his hands on the desk and leaned forward, his eyes narrowing. “Is this why the deal is taking so long? Because you’re fucking her?”
I shot up out of my chair, and my vision went red. “Do not talk about her like that. You have no clue what you just saw and instead of clarifying, you go right into fight mode.”
Gus stared at me for a moment, his hands still splayed on the top of my desk.
Then he stood and nodded. He pulled up a chair and sat, his forearms braced on his thighs.
“I’m exhausted. I don’t want to fight. I’m so done.
So if you want to explain, here’s your chance.
That girl’s had a rough time here.” He laced his fingers and dropped his head.
“People say awful things about her and her mother, and she’s spent her whole life fighting for the respect she deserves.
The last thing she needs is to be dragged down by another Hebert. ”
He was right. Of course he was. And the thought that I could drag her down just about killed me. “We’ve been together for a few weeks now,” I said slowly. “She’s incredible. I—” I cleared my throat. “I’m falling for her.”
He groaned and slumped back. “Jesus.”
“I know. Trust me, this was not the plan. But we click. We have fun no matter what we’re doing. She’s smart and hilarious and we like the same weird stuff. And strangely enough, she’s into me. So I realize that this is inconvenient for you, but fuck off.”
“So you’re not using her?” The question was ridiculous, but his concern was clearly genuine.
My blood pressure spiked, but I breathed through it and kept my cool. “I should punch you for suggesting that. Don’t lump me in with Cole.”
“If you’ve been together for weeks, why did I just find out?”
I shrugged. “If I had my way, I’d walk into the diner every morning and kiss her in front of Father Renee and the knitting club. But this is what she wants, and I’d give her anything.”
“What happens when she goes to school?”
“I will let her go.” Just saying the words out loud made my stomach churn. “It may kill me, but I’ll do it. She deserves it.”
He nodded, his lips pressed together in a way that signaled his approval. Then the expression dropped, and he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Don’t hurt her.”
“I would never. Just please keep what you saw to yourself.”
He frowned at me. Gus was pretty much a vault and probably spent more time chatting with his chainsaws than actual human beings.
I shifted in my chair, ready for a change of topic. “So why did you barge into my office?”
“Two things. First, the Barrett kid. I handed over everything I had about my interactions with both him and his predecessor at the Department of Fish and Wildlife.”
“Okay.” I leaned forward and rested my forearms on the desk. “Do we need a lawyer? Are we in trouble?”
“Nah. They seemed satisfied. He’s only been on the job for about six months. Gary retired, and this guy came out here a few weeks ago to talk about the bats.”
Ah. The bats. The fucking bats. Specifically the northern long-eared bat.
The little fucker was an endangered species and nested in our forests.
That little fact meant lots of regulatory work to ensure their safety and constant visits from our friends at Fish and Wildlife.
Just another fun fact about the timber industry I wish I didn’t know.
“Who would want to hurt the bat guy?”
Gus shrugged. “Beats the shit out of me.”
“Is he gonna be okay?”
“Still in a coma. Officer Fielder told me they moved him to Portland. He’s got family there. Poor kid. I feel so badly that it happened here.”
“We’re doing what we can to catch the people responsible. Just keep me posted if the police come poking around again, okay? I don’t trust Souza. It feels like he’s looking for an excuse to fuck us over.”
Gus grunted. “No shit. He’s so worried about his reputation since he was friends with Dad. Jude’s convinced he wants us shut down and run out of town.”
I agreed with Jude, but I wasn’t interested in diving into the motives of small-town law enforcement with Gus. I had a shit ton of work waiting for me already.
“Lila found something too,” I said, giving him a brief rundown of the questionable transactions.
He took his hat off and leaned back in his chair. “Fucking great. Gotta love Dad’s web of lies and crime.”
I laughed. At this point, there was nothing else I could do.
“I did the basics after Dad and Uncle Paul were arrested,” Gus explained. “And I never saw any of this. If there was an invoice. I paid it. Miranda helped me, but we got the bills out, so everyone got paid.”
“None of this was in the official databases,” I explained. “You wouldn’t have known unless you dug deep into the paper like we did. But this money exchange has been turned off for more than a year, and have you noticed anything shady with any accounts?”
Gus shook his head. “Not at all. But I was just trying to keep my head above water. If I missed something—”
“No,” I interrupted. “You didn’t. It’s just more evidence that this shit went further than Dad. There were more people involved, so the sooner we get ourselves away from this mess, the better.”