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Prologue
Nick Murphy sat at the conference table, tossing a yellow rubber ball into the air. It was a nervous habit, borne out of necessity. He’d never enjoyed sitting still. Working with numbers was the first mental activity he’d found that counteracted his distractible nature. He knew the way it made him sound, saw the way people’s eyes glazed over when he said — vaguely — that he was in “finance.”
Women were an exception. Sometimes. But even then, he could tell by the shine in their eyes that they were only interested because they saw dollar signs, and that wasn’t going to work for more reasons than one. The first being, obviously, that he didn’t want someone to be with him just because of his money. Beyond that, the Murphy brothers were in a business that would chew up and spit out anyone not cut out for the lifestyle, and anyone digging for gold wasn’t cut out for the lifestyle.
They had gold — and plenty of it — but that would never be enough to sustain a relationship under the circumstances dictated by Murphy Intelligence and Security.
He glanced across the table at his brother, Ronan, sitting across from Julia Berenger, soon to be Julia Murphy. Their meeting had been pure accident — Ronan had literally crashed into Julia in an alley while they’d both been trying to find Elise Berenger, Ronan because MIS had been hired by Elise’s grandfather to find her, and Julia because Elise was her sister.
“These numbers for operating expenses are current through the 15th?” Julia asked.
"The 12th,” Nick said.
He hadn’t been sure about Julia at first. She’d seemed fragile in spite of her physical strength, her willingness to put herself in danger to find and save her sister. But Julia had proven Nick wrong many times over during the months MIS had been on the Berenger case, first to find Elise and bring her home and then to shut down Manifest, the trans-national trafficking organization run by the world’s richest and most powerful men. She’d proven herself tough and resilient, willing to do whatever it took, even kill, to protect the people she loved.
It was hard to believe looking at her now. The conference table couldn’t hide her swelling belly, and Ronan’s ring — their dead mother’s ring — winked from Julia’s finger. Nick had grown to love her and Elise, who had been living at the house since they’d rescued her from Manifest’s yacht off the coast of Greece. Their presence in the house Nick shared with his brothers had begun to heal the wounds Nick had once convinced himself were healed, wounds that had been a result of his sister Erin’s death by overdose when she was twenty-one.
He was glad Julia would soon be an official part of the family. His friendship with Elise had become important to him. He knew that everyone thought they were sleeping together, but it wasn’t true. They’d only ever been friends.
At first it had been because she was recovering from her ordeal at the hands of Manifest. Later it had just seemed wrong to breach the walls of their friendship with romance. He loved Elise like a sister, knew she loved him like a brother, but that’s all it would ever be.
He glanced at Ronan, waiting for his older brother to pronounce Nick’s numbers solid. Nick knew they were accurate — they always were — but this time was more important than most. The head of Manifest, Yael Dohan, had gotten in one good swing before MIS had taken him down: he’d outed them to the press.
Nick and Ronan had spent the last month fending off inquiries about whether MIS was really an investigative firm as they appeared to be or if they were actually mercenaries, vigilantes who stepped in to do the dirty work when the legal system failed. The media furor was finally calming down, but Nick knew better than to think they were safe. The alarm had been sounded. It would be naive to think there wasn’t at least a possibility the Massachusetts Attorney General would open an inquiry.
Which was why Nick had spent the last month going over their books with a fine-tooth comb, ensuring that every “i” was dotted and every “t” crossed. He was always careful to funnel their money through shell companies, investments, and properties all around the world, careful to file taxes accurately and on time, to avoid financial transactions that would raise a red flag, but he was human, and he wasn’t willing to rest on his laurels with so much at stake.
He was about to ask Ronan and Julia if they had any questions when Reilly, MIS’s front-desk assistant and bodyguard, appeared in the conference room’s doorway.
“Someone’s here to see you.” He’d served with Ronan in Afghanistan and was overqualified as receptionists went, but a business like MIS needed muscle at the front desk. Nick had never seen Reilly dressed in anything but the slacks and button-down he wore to work, a jacket covering the holster strapped to his body, his hair shaved close to his head like he was still deployed.
“Who is it?” Ronan asked, looking up from the spreadsheets on his computer.
“Alexa Nash.” He set a business card down near Ronan. “She says she’s with the Attorney General’s office.”
Nick caught the yellow ball on its way back from the wall as Ronan glanced at the business card. He and Julia simultaneously closed their laptops.
Ronan glanced at Nick and Julia before returning his gaze to Reilly. “Show her in.”
Everything had been said in the look between them. Alexa Nash, whoever she was, didn’t have a warrant. If she did, she wouldn’t have presented her business card: she would have come barreling into the office accompanied by a bunch of federal agents carrying boxes for evidence collection.
But declining her visit would only raise alarm bells. Innocent people didn’t avoid conversations with the AG’s office, and while there hadn’t been any interviews or indictments so far, it had only been a few weeks since they’d been outed by Yael Dohan.
They weren’t in the clear yet.
They sat in silence and a couple minutes later Reilly stepped into the room and stood aside as a woman strode past him. She was tall and slim, with long dark hair that shone bronze under the light in the office.
Nick rose to his feet along with Ronan and Julia.
“Ms. Nash,” Ronan said. “This is unexpected.”
“Is it?” Her voice was low and a little rough — a late night sex kind of voice — and Nick felt his body respond against his will. He tamped down the odd surge of desire while Ronan introduced Julia as his assistant, probably because he didn’t want to expose Julia to any more prosecutorial focus than necessary.
“And this is my brother Nick,” Ronan said. “He’s our CFO.”
The woman turned to look at Nick and he was rendered momentarily speechless by the pale blue of her eyes, the directness of her gaze.
She held out a slender hand. “Alexa Nash, Assistant Attorney General.”
