Bea scooped the device off the floor.“Delete what?” she asked. Breezy. Busted.
“The video you’re filming of me like I’m a zoo exhibit.”
“I was texting.”
“You zoomed.”
She clutched the phone to her chest. “That’s a bold accusation.”
He wiped his mouth, stood, and made his way to where she was reclined. He extended a hand.
Bea pouted. “You were so cute.”
“Me eating is cute?” he deadpanned as he leaned over. Bea yelped when he snatched it from her and hit play. “Younarrated?”
She tried to rescue it from him. “I had to.”
He gave her a look so flat she swallowed the giggle whole. Then he pressed delete.
She gasped. “I filmed that for posterity.”
He handed it back. “I’ll let you film something else later.”
“You’re lucky you’re hot,” she muttered.
He bent down and kissed her. “So are you.”
RAFAEL
Five days since Bea handed him the photographs.
Sleep came in fragments, wedged between Malaysia crisis calls and the daily procession of investigative updates crossing his desk. He’d sent men to discreetly interrogate the system: hotel staff, security vendors, data brokers, financial channels. So far, he hadn’t found evidence that the images had been distributed broadly.
After three false leads and a dead account, a payment finally surfaced. Issued through a company dissolved twice and resurrected under a new director. Buried inside its old filings from a decade ago: the signature ofG. Trenor.
Rafael’s first response was a single, clean thought: break him. Trenor had motive, and the money all but raised its hand. But Bea’s description of Catherine Vale’s offended denial kept coming to mind. Besides spite, what did either of them have to gain?
In his experience, where there was one misdeed there were usually others. He needed the kind of people who made a living unearthing hidden patterns.
So he found himself pacing a small, glass-walled meeting room at Dao Strategic Forensics, unwilling to sit. He’d all but crushed the valet stub in his pocket. The door swung inward. Jaxon entered, still reading his screen, as if time were somethingrationed. He paused at the sight of him—not surprised, but recalibrating.
“Griffin. Didn’t realize it’d just be us.”
“I’m not here officially.”
Dao set the tablet down and took a seat. “Bea alright?”
“She’s fine.”
Rafael moved to the table, braced both hands on it, muscles coiled. “What I’m about to say doesn’t leave this room.”
Dao raised an eyebrow. “Understood.”
“There’s been a leak,” Rafael said. “Images pulled from a private hotel system.”
“What was on them?”
The words resisted him. “My wife outside your hotel room. Altered.” He didn’t say more, but the implication was there in the way his fingertips curled into the laminate.
