Page 32 of Alphahole

What we couldn’t protect against was either of them struggling to live with having pulled the proverbial trigger. I would never forgive myself if they were haunted by the moment this guy’s eyes turned dull as the life seeped out of him. I ached at the thought of regret eating them alive.

That fear flared in me again, but it wasn’t the act of killing someone that terrified me. It was what it would do to the people I loved. It was my job to stand beside them no matter what so I could support Zee and Ry until my dying breath.

We needed to do whatever it took to get them through this as unscathed as possible.

A calmness settled over me. I had my mission—care for them, be there for them. Now I needed to give them the closure Zee and Ry both needed.

How did we do that? How did we find this person? We suspected he was in Mauritius, living in a luxury compound. “We have to narrow down the properties. We can’t just doorknock fifty estates all over the country, randomly looking for one person. We’ll be arrested long before we ever find him.”

“We’ve got the addresses of the houses we think could be our targets, but we need to narrow them down. Some of them might not have even been built at that time. I have to get into the Mauritius land registry. If I can narrow those fifty back down to the few in that article, it’ll be manageable. We might be able to get the number down more if I can find out anything about the owners. Hopefully he’s stupid enough to have used an entity that I can tie back to him.”

I nodded, skimming my fingers down her back again. Her muscles were bunched up, tense and knotted. That swim was looking further away than ever, but I knew Zee wanted this finished. She needed closure.

“Should I look at whether we need visas and how best to get there and back?”

“Get Ry in here. We’re taking my plane. Tris and Ez too. We have a bit more research and a shit ton of planning to do.”

Ten

Ezra

The interior of the plane was all lacquered oak and cream leather. It was plush and uber luxurious without being pretentious. It suited Zali to a tee. But riding in it was also unlike anything I imagined an international flight on a private jet would be. Instead of the champagne flowing and joining the mile high club, we were quiet, each doing our own thing. Ry was in the cockpit, flying the plane, and Flynn hadn’t left his side. He’d nominated himself Ry’s unofficial co-pilot, and Ry was teaching him what all the gadgets and gauges were for. I’d taken them drinks and snacks a few hours earlier, then walked away overwhelmed by the array of screens in front of them.

Tris had his head buried in his laptop. The plan was for him to run formal scheduled classes for the first half of the research project, then meet individually with groups to continue to guide their research and gather it into a useable format. So far, he’d met the groups via video chat, and now he was compiling the information he’d been presented, starting to put together the outline for each episode in the podcast.

He’d wanted to pull the pin, but after speaking with the funding board and Ethics about pulling it, they’d been insistent that Tarnished Crown be published. Even then, he was resistant. It wasn’t until Zali had sat him down and begged him to keep going, to get to the bottom of what fate had befallen her mother and brother that he agreed and started to compile the episodes.

Zali was determined to get justice for her mum and brother. I didn’t blame her, but Jesus, it was taking its toll on all of them. I was proud of Zali too. She’d been stressed, barely sleeping and constantly working, but a couple of nights ago, it was as if she’d reached her limit. Instead of burying herself in research like she’d done every night since making her discovery or demanding sex, she rang Cara. An hour later she was out the door. They went out to dinner, caught a movie, gorged themselves on popcorn and slushies, and came home smiling a few hours later. I’d never known her to have a girlfriend—I hadn’t even known her to have friends other than Ry and Flynn—but she gravitated toward Cara, and Zali couldn’t have picked a better friend for herself. Cara was sweet and seemed pretty sheltered, but she was genuine and fiercely protective of Zali.

When Zali had returned to the yacht, she was in a much better place mentally. She wasn’t as weighed down. She got a good night’s sleep and hit the research again the next day.

The transfer to the Australian card had been like finding the switch for the spotlight. And that spotlight shone straight onto one person.

Auberon Benedict.

His background was much of a mystery except for what we’d been able to find in the company records. Somehow, Tristan had managed to get a hold of them. I still wasn’t sure how, but I knew him. I knew it was legit.

I’d been working behind the scenes too. I’d meant what I said to Tristan. I needed to protect Zali and Ryder. I’d gathered what evidence we’d obtained legally and sought to have a warrant for Benedict’s arrest issued. But it hadn’t come through. My inspector had refused to sign off on the application to the court. She’d been unimpressed, not even convinced that a crime had occurred.

Looking at the case from her perspective, I agreed. What Tristan and his students had legally obtained barely scratched the surface. It was all circumstantial at best with giant gaping holes in their theories. Zali’s evidence filled the gaps and actually established the link to Benedict. But it was all inadmissible. I couldn’t use anything she’d obtained from the Reserve Bank’s records or it would risk the charges against her reappearing. If she hadn’t retrieved those records, she wouldn’t have been able to verify that the transfers were made to different accounts than the ones in ReimagINC’s accounting records. Without them, I had no evidence of a crime.

But if I could get past that, I couldn’t tell Puglisi anything about who received the transfers or what they did with the money. That data all came from the Grande Banque Unie.

As far as Puglisi knew, I’d been sick for the week. I couldn’t very well tell her that we’d breached more international laws than I could count to hack into the bank and download the critical records. That ruled out the possible purchase of the house and credit card transaction that would establish the connection to Benedict. Without those essential pieces, standalone property transactions in Mauritius were irrelevant.

It didn’t matter that the owner of one of the properties we’d identified was a corporation named Blessed Royal. I hadn’t picked up on the connection immediately, but Flynn had. He’d searched for what Auberon meant, wanting to know more about the heritage of the name. Of German origin, it meant noble or royal bear, while Benedict’s meaning was blessed. It was yet another coincidence that we couldn’t ignore but was irrelevant without all the data.

The arrest warrant didn’t matter anyway though. Turns out that Mauritius was a non-extradition country. Even if I got one, I wouldn’t be able to get assistance from the local police to take him into custody and begin the extradition process.

I needed a confession from him.

Harder yet would be persuading Zali and Ry not to execute this fucker.

If I did that, I could bring him back.

It didn’t much matter how I got him onto Australian soil—hogtied and gagged was a perfectly good option—but once I did, I had jurisdiction.

Once I had him in custody, I’d get the evidence I needed to get him locked up.

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