Page 50 of Tangled in Vows

The suffocating pressure in my chest doesn’t ease, and I absentmindedly rub at it with my fist. Olivia’s songwriting and performance are some of the rare times she allows her emotions to surface. To actually feel. Afterward, she shuts down again. She was the same when we first met. An impenetrable vault. Like someone had crushed her spirit and forbidden her from being herself.

With every passing week, she opened up to me a bit more. She became a little louder, a little more opinionated. Unrestrained. Happy. Every meal we shared, every conversation we had, and every movie marathon we did broke down the walls between us some more. Now, I’m afraid I don’t even have access to the building where the vault is.

Archer blows out a breath beside me. “Are you sure you don’t want to tell her?”

My rib cage expands on a deep inhale. Shit. I’ve thought about it so many times. What if she won’t react badly to what happened? I doubt she’d be happy with what I did, but maybeshe wouldn’t respond as horribly as I’ve always imagined she would?

Are you willing to take the risk of her shunning you altogether?

It takes every ounce of my willpower to tear my gaze away from her and focus on Archer. “Let’s check out what you found.”

He pinches his lips together and leads me into the office Phoenix and I share. Archer’s computer is waiting for us on the conference table.

He logs in and pulls up several pictures on his screen. “So I double-checked the messages O’Neal sent, and I don’t blame the guy for thinking he was talking to Olivia. Whoever catfished him said she opened a second account since her team had access to her main one. He questioned her at first, but then she sent him selfies and other candids from her life that weren’t anywhere online, and he believed it was truly her. I verified his account, but the Olivia account was a dead end. Untraceable.”

“You couldn’t trace it at all?”

He types away on his computer and points at some code. “There, dead end. My guess is a burner phone and public Wi-Fi, which can sometimes be traced back, but then the location is so widely used, it makes it hard to pinpoint where or who was using it. It’s the same method used for the flower delivery and the envelope from the courier.”

“Shit.” I tilt my head back and clasp my hands behind my head. “Why does all of this feel like some fucked-up déjà vu?”

“I know what you mean, but we’ll find the asshole. There are only so many ways to stay hidden and untraceable, so hopefully, he’ll make a mistake soon, and we can catch him.”

A headache slowly blooms behind my temples, and I curse the bad luck that seems to follow us around. Maybe it’s karma for what I’ve done in the past, collecting its price.

The chair squeaks when Archer leans back, flipping a pen back and forth between his fingers. “You’re sure we have no leads whatsoever?”

I shake my head. “Nothing.”

“Have you talked to Olivia about this? Maybe she has an idea who could be behind it?”

The look I give him is answer enough.

He only shrugs. “I can talk to her if you don’t want to.”

“It’s not that.”

“Well, what is it then?”

“If I ask her questions, she’ll want to ask some in return. A truth for a truth. A dare for a dare.”

The corner of his mouth lifts. “I forgot we used to play that all the time back then. I’m guessing you guys did too?”

“Yup. It kind of became our thing.”

He expels a harsh breath. “Well, sorry, bro, but it’s either you or me. We need some answers before this asshole makes his next move and something terrible happens.”

“Luke.”

He raises his eyebrows. “We can’t know for sure the guy is behind that, so let’s catch this fucker. We don’t want things to escalate to the next stage, especially with Olivia being the main target.” After a pause, he adds, “We know things always escalate.”

He’s right. Of course he is. We’ve seen it over and over with our security business, and although Archer was working his computer skills on the down-low when everything happened with Phoenix and Evie, we both had first-row seats to that shitshow fucking us over big time.

“What if . . .” The thought of something similar repeating itself, but this time with Olivia as the main focus, has panic swelling up inside me. My lungs cinch tightly, not letting enough air in.

Archer appears in front of me, taking my face in his hands. “Listen to me, H.Nothingwill happen to her. We’ll make sure of it. You’ll stay glued to her side while I do my best behind the scenes. The entire team is there to help, and we’ll keep her appearances to a minimum. If she has to go somewhere, we’ll up the security. She’s one of us, and we’ll take care of each other. Tell me you hear me.”

My lungs expand with a deep intake of air, and I nod.

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