Page 6 of Forced Pregnant Bride

“He’s lying. That’s all I need to know.”

Arlo frowned, leaning forward to sneak a peek at my phone. “He told you that?”

“No. He said there was a mix-up somewhere. His figures match. Everything’s good from his end. He thinks I was born yesterday. Probably thought he could play smart, cover his tracks, and pretend like he didn’t fucking steal from me.”

I chuckled, and a grimace formed on Arlo’s face.

“I hate it when you fucking laugh,” he sighed. “I’m going to have to get another carpet again, aren’t I?”

“Yeah. And I’ll need a new set of gloves.” Pointing at the wall with a finger, I grabbed another folder, opened it up, and pushed it toward him. “And fix up that paint, too, while you’re at it. Get Amir here now, however the fuck you want to do it. I don’t fucking care if you have to tie him up. Also, I need names, Arlo, and I need them now.”

“Names of…?”

“Debtors. Who’s fucking owing because today’s their day to pay up every single dime.”

Randomly, he flipped through the pages of the documents inside and closed it. “No one.”

No one.

Curiously, I stuck a thumb under my jaw and stroked my chin, casually shrugging my shoulders like I hadn’t reached my boiling point. “Does No One have a surname?”

His brows dipped between his forehead, and despite looking like an assassin on duty, the tug of his lips showed that he found it funny.

“No one. As in, there are no debtors.”

Though, technically, Arlo was correct, I found that little bit of information hard to believe. Maybe my thirst to crush something was currently overpowering logic at the moment, but I wanted scapegoats. I’d gone through the records and found…nothing. It was clean.Too fucking clean.

Agitated, I twisted on the chair, and, still uncomfortable, I rose to my feet, pacing the floor from the tall ceiling-to-floor glass windows, ignoring the dark grey skies outside, and back. I fingered the tobacco stick between my lips, exhaling, before facing Arlo.

“Stop fucking grinning and think. There has to be someone without a clean slate. I feel it right here in my gut.”

And he laughed. Just full-on barked a hoarse chuckle that rumbled at the back of his throat, fastening and unfastening the top button on his shirt. “You seem to forget who you are sometimes. Nobody wants to have a bullet fly close-range past their ear or get their tongue fucking sliced off.” Then, the bushy brows on his forehead creased, and the laughter died off. “Although….”

Grey smoke curling around my face, I plucked the stick out of my mouth, narrowing my eyes. “Although?

“There is someone. He stopped paying over a year ago.”

Fucking knew it.

“Who?”

“Oliver Skye.”

My brows crinkled even more. “Why? Why did he stop paying over a year ago? And how did we miss that?”

“We didn’t. Well,Ididn’t.” He shrugged. “He’s dead.”

Sticking the cigar between my lips, I went back to the chair, shutting my eyes and counting backward from ten to stop myself from pulling out the Makarov and shooting Arlo in the head.

“And I’m only finding out now?”

He didn’t even bat an eyelash, just twisted on his chair and stuck a fist under his chin with his elbow up on the chair. “I swear, it wasn’t intentional to keep you out of the loop, but I didn’t think it would make any sense to bother you with useless information. Oliver’s dead.”

“Any sons?”

His tongue clicked. “The only son he has isn’t an asset. He’s a teenager.”

“Full details.” I glared at him because I wanted to punch his gut so hard it’d knock the breath right out of his lungs.

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