Chapter 5
“Most people are too frightened to speak to me like that.”
“Most people probably aren’t holding evidence that your fiancée is planning to steal from you.”
Fair point.
He looked down at the phone again.
“I need to know how far this goes.”
Wren nodded.
Then she began walking toward the servants’ corridor.
“Where are you going?”
“To finish the floors.”
Nikolai stared at her.
“You just uncovered a conspiracy against me.”
“And the marble still has shoe marks.”
“Wren.”
She stopped.
It was perhaps the first time he had ever said her name like it belonged to a person.
“Stay.”
---
At 1:15 a.m., Nikolai’s penthouse changed.
Not visibly.
That was important.
No guards rushed through corridors.
No doors slammed.
No cars screamed away from the building.
Instead, Nikolai made three phone calls.
The first was to Anton, his head of security.
The second was to his attorney.
The third was to a forensic accountant who owed Nikolai several favors and valued continued breathing.
Then Nikolai and Wren sat across from one another at the kitchen island while every message from Elise’s second phone was copied.
At 2:03 a.m., they discovered Victor had been selling information about Cross Maritime for nearly a year.
At 2:41, they found the shell company.
At 3:12, Wren noticed something everyone else had missed.
“This number.”
Nikolai looked up.
“What about it?”
“It appears in three transfers.”
“So?”
“So the account receiving the money belongs to the Ashcroft Family Trust.”
Silence.
Nikolai leaned closer.
Wren rotated the laptop.
“Elise wasn’t just working with Victor.”
She pointed to the dates.
“She was taking money from him.”
Nikolai studied the screen.
“Meaning?”
“She planned to betray him too.”
For several seconds, Nikolai said nothing.
Then he smiled.
It was not a pleasant smile.
“Now that,” he murmured, “sounds like Elise.”
Wren watched him.
“Are you going to kill them?”
The question came out before she could stop it.
Nikolai looked at her.
“No.”
She blinked.
“No?”
“Death is quick.”
“Nikolai.”
His eyebrow lifted.
It was the first time she had used his first name.
Wren folded her arms.
“If you’re about to say something terrifying, please remember I’m technically still on the clock.”
To her astonishment, he laughed.
A real laugh.
Quiet.
Brief.
But real.
And something shifted between them.
Not romance.
Not yet.
Recognition.
For perhaps the first time in years, Nikolai Cross was sitting beside someone who neither wanted his money nor feared his name enough to pretend he was always right.