Page 116 of Billionaire Lumberjack's Bride

When this is all over.

When I can go back to the mountain, to my cabin, my land, my freedom.

This isn’t the world for me. I left it behind for a reason, and even if we succeed in our mission to save Bolton Steel and crush Uncle Marty, I can’t stay.

The people. The traffic. The noises. The smells. All of it is too much.

But I have to push away my reticence, release Lyla’s hand, and move forward into the office.

I go straight for the massive wooden desk dominating the room and pull the chair back. The red leather monstrosity he always loved looks garish now, like something out of a cartoon rather than real life, but back then, it seemed like a throne he ruled from.

And apparently died in.…

I stare at it for a moment, picturing the old man slumped over the desk, likely with a drink sitting near his hand—the way I almost always saw him. That old feeling that I shouldn’t be in here engulfs me, but I slowly lower myself into the chair, pulling open the middle drawer.

Pens, a letter opener, miscellaneous office supplies.

Absolutely nothing of any interest.

Lyla wanders around the room, taking in the books on the floor-to-ceiling shelves along one wall and photographs of Father over the years with presidents and other political figures and celebrities. “Your father sure knew a lot of important people.”

I open the next drawer and rifle through it, searching for anything unusual before making my way to the next. “I told you; he and Marty have connections. The kind that ensured they got away with literally anything.”

For men like them, without consciences or souls, their power became a toxic drug they couldn’t get enough of. And they used it to get what they wanted—by any means necessary.

It did great things to help grow Bolton Steel, but it was as destructive as a hurricane for anyone who dared to get in their path.

Lyla wanders over to the desk. “Did you find something?”

I shake my head, surveying the entire office again, trying to think of where Father might have left anything he might have been working on. “No, but if they were arguing about something, if he was locking himself in here, there has to be a record of what he was doing. Phone calls, a ledger, notes,anythingthat might tell us something useful.”

Father was a meticulous record keeper, and I don’t believe for a second that he wouldn’t have been documenting whatever caused their rift in order to use it against Marty if he needed to.

Against my most base instincts to leave the past in the past, I try to draw up the old memories of the few times I was in here with him.

Angry, harsh words fill my head.

I tighten my fists.

A cloudy memory starts to solidify. “There’s a hidden drawer….”

Lyla’s eyebrows fly up. “What?”

“There’s a hidden compartment.”

She immediately starts scanning the front face of the old, hand-carved desk. “Where?”

I shove back the chair and reach under the huge piece of furniture to find the movable pieces of wood that act almost like a puzzle box on the underside. “I snuck in here once when I was a kid and saw him putting something under here. He screamed at me to get out, but a few weeks later, I came back in. I hid under the desk when Ursula came looking for me, and I saw it above me—these pieces that didn’t look like they matched the rest of the wood. I think they’re the way to open it.”

“Let me look.” Lyla nudges me aside and slides under the desk—her smaller frame much more agile than mine and able to fit easily. She lies on her back and looks up. “I see three pieces that are stained differently from the rest of them. What do I do?”

“Move them around until it clicks open, I guess.”

She releases a humorless laugh. “I was never very good at puzzles, Silas.”

“You managed to figure me out, right?”

In the beginning, I absolutely hated the way she seemed to be able to read me so well, how she challenged me and called me out, yet she didn’t stop pushing.

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