Page 81 of Hold Him Like Gravity

My heartbeat was thumping hard and bile was creeping up my throat.

No, this wasn’t the first time I’d been betrayed. But, fuck, this cut deeper. This was personal.

I was fuckingfalling forthis woman.

And she was, what, scheming behind my back? Laughing at my gullibility?

I couldn’t tell which was stronger right then. The burning in my gut of betrayal. Or the crushing feeling in my chest that seemed to make it hard to breathe.

“When?” I growled.

“What?”

“When did it start? How long has she been stealing from me?”

“This is the first one,” Bastian said, clicking to a timestamped video.

“You’re sure?”

“Went back to the beginning of her employment, man. She’s never so much as skimmed a quarter before. Actually, once saw her drop a quarter under the counter. When she couldn’t get it out, she went and got another quarter out of her purse to replace it. This shit just started when you saw the anomalies in the books.”

Why, though?

Why just the two and a half weeks?

What had changed?

The robbery?

When we started getting less than professional?

No.

That shit didn’t make any sense.

There had to be something else going on. Something she was hiding. Something that was making her jumpy and haunted-looking.

I didn’t know what it was.

But I was sure as fuck about to find out.

“Don’t tell anyone about this,” I demanded, slamming the laptop. “Not yet,” I added, knowing I never kept shit from Renzo for any length of time. That wasn’t how being in the family worked. We didn’t get the luxury of secrets from the boss.

“Where are you going?” Bastian asked.

“To get answers.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Kick

Oh, God.

I couldn’t do this.

Not when my entire freaking world had just exploded around me.

I needed time to think about what I was going to say to him, to plan, to…

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