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“No, but he’ll be at the gala,” I said. “What’d you uncover?”
“Neil’s so deep in debt that I’m surprised he’s even buying a damn thing,” Cody said, showing us his phone.
I took it and held it so Harrison could see it, too. Cody’s friend had uncovered a goldmine. For someone who had been tasked with managing Taylor’s finances, he had fucked up his own. Not that anyone knew besides him. This hacker had gone deep beyond anything Neil would ever reveal.
“Shit.” I handed him the phone back.
“There’s more, too,” Cody said, opening another document. “Look at these payments. The bank account that it was routed to? It’s William Moore’s. The same address and everything.”
My blood started to boil. “So Neil and her stalker were connected?”
“That would make sense,” Harrison said. “If William was hired to harass her, he wouldn’t be on her social media, and he might have had a girlfriend.”
“He got paid more than enough to justify going to jail for a while.” Cody pushed some stray strands of hair out of his face, his eyes just as filled with rage as I felt. “Neil was using other people’s money to pay for all this bullshit. Robbing Peter to pay Paul.”
“But how can we prove all of this without admitting that we had him hacked?” I asked. I hated hackers for that reason—a lot of the information was helpful, but it couldn’t be taken to the cops.
“I don’t know. I didn’t expect all of this to go down the way it did.” Cody drummed his fingers on his thigh. “All we can do is warn Taylor and ask her to look into him, I guess.”
“She won’t. She still trusts him,” Harrison said.
“We can still ask. We can tell her that we have information, but not where it’s from.” I mentally walked through how that conversation would go, then winced. I wasn’t the best at telling her things. “You guys can get through to her better than I can.”
“Sounds like a good plan, then.”
We talked over our findings for another hour, until Taylor called us to pick her up. We drove around the block and helped her into the car again. Her cheeks were flushed, and she looked happier than she’d been in a long time. And we were about to ruin it all over again.
Cody pulled off toward the gala venue, keeping his eyes on the road. We’d decided that Harrison would tell her about Neil, since he was the gentlest of us three. But he wasn’t talking yet.
“Can we tell you about something?” Harrison said when the event venue was within eyesight.
“Sure?” Taylor looked up from her phone.
“We got some information,” Harrison said. “On Neil.”
Taylor nodded for him to go on.
“We know we warned you about him before, but now we have some hard evidence that he isn’t who he says he is. That his grip on finances isn’t the best,” he said. He gauged Taylor’s expression, which was surprisingly blank. He must have noticed something I didn’t, because he held back on the part about her stalker.
“Okay. Well.” She shrugged. “I can’t do much about that right now. But thank you for telling me.”
I deflated. Did she not believe us?
We pulled up to the gala venue, which was teeming with people. She was clearly ready to get out of the car, because she tried to get the door herself. I rushed out to help her, taking her hand. She didn’t pull away, but she didn’t hold on to me, either.
Frustration filled my veins. I wished I could read her better. Something else was going on, and she wasn’t telling us, something that was keeping her silent.
As soon as we were in front of people, Taylor’s attitude flipped back to her warm, social self that I had become accustomed to. I stuck close to her, keeping an eye out for Neil. The party was so packed that tonight was going to require being constantly focused. I wasn’t dating her, but I was even more dedicated to my job than ever.
CHAPTER33
Taylor
Iwandered around the gala, trying my hardest to hide the panic inside of me. The guys’ warnings about Neil before had been just that—gut feelings. But now they had hard evidence somewhere, which I was inclined to believe even more after the creepy Neil incident.
But like I’d said in the car, I couldn’t do anything about that now. I had to be the face of the Bailey family, and I couldn’t be a complete wreck.
I flitted from group to group, mingling and thanking everyone for coming. I felt Ethan’s presence nearby, and later, Harrison’s and Cody’s. None of them crowded me, thank god, even though I felt like they were going to go out and fight Neil if I mentioned anything was wrong. I was already on edge. But knowing they were nearby was enough to calm me down.
