Page 68 of Without Fail

“Don’t laugh,” Real grumbled, silencing his phone. “It blows up in the middle of a mission and I’m history.”

“Nah. You’d silence it, just like Marshal would.” Ryker didn’t buy the guy’s grumbling.

Ryker could tell that Real was affected by whoever was sending the text messages.

Marshal linked their fingers and brought them to his mouth and Ryker forgot about anyone else but the man who was never far from his side.

Together, along with Real, they entered the noisy dining room and sat with the bodyguards and FBI.

Ryker gazed around the massive table and smiled. Being an only kid had been lonely as hell at mealtimes.

Noisy laughter broke out when Tanner tried to take a third bun from the plate the cook held and was denied. Bishop called Tanner a glutton and Alex patted Tanner’s shoulder saying that Tanner was a growing boy.

Ryker joined in with a chuckle. If he could have, he would have had meals like this forever.

It sure beat growing up eating alone.

Robert Langston left on Friday for his regular meeting at the country club.

With his heart pounding, Ryker let himself into his father’s office with Marshal watching his back. He was glad the man was with him. After this was all over, he hoped that he would be able to look at his father in a different light. Those acquisitions and transactions had to be in there.

He wouldn’t take them, he just needed to see them. Sure, his father had done bad things in the past, but he was still his father.

If he didn’t find any documents, he wasn’t sure what he’d do, but he would cross that road when he came to it.

Marshal closed the door and Ryker hurried to the safe. He punched in his code but the door refused to open.

“Shit,” Marshal muttered. “He changed your code.”

“Probably, but this is my grandfather’s safe. He built a backdoor password to override everything.” Ryker punched in his grandmother’s birthdate and the tumblers rolled with a low sound and with a click, the door popped open.

“Start on that side, I’ll start here,” Ryker told Marshal and began searching through a stack of documents. He was careful to keep everything relatively the same as he went through ledger after ledger and even loose documents. He moved several flash drives from the top of a stack of papers and thumbed through.

Sudden voices in the hallway had him darting a frantic look to Marshal.

“Here, check the video feed on my phone.” Marshal handed him the phone and then moved him out of the way. “Let me know if you see anything.” The man murmured and began rifling where he’d left off.

It was one of the cleaners talking on the phone and he breathed a sigh of relief. Marshal had taken over his side of the safe, so Ryker went to the other side and began his search.

After ten minutes, he gave up. “There’s nothing here.”

“Maybe he keeps them at the office.”

“Maybe, but I doubt it. I—”

His words were cut off when more voices were heard and he pulled up the app again. This time, a few bodyguards were on the move, looking for them both.

“Times up. They’re looking for us again.”

It seemed to be a regular occurrence after the recent invasion.

Every bodyguard, FBI agent, and staff member was keeping an eye on him and Marshal. It had been super hard to get this time away to search the safe. It had been Marshal who had coaxed Bishop into giving them some time alone or they would have had several shadows following their movements.

“Let’s go.” Marshal closed the safe, flipped the keypad to engage the tumblers and they headed back out into the hallway.

Instead of taking the main passage, Ryker found himself pulled into one of the secret panels. When the panel closed, Marshal crowded him up against the wall.

Gazing up with a smile, his heart felt like it would burst from happiness even though he hadn’t found any records. Marshal had that effect on him.