Page 132 of Salvaged Hearts

“We don’t know if he even knows anything aboutObsidian, Grey. I got to you before anyone got to him or Miranda to question them. Thought you said he’d be here.”

“He knows,” I growled.

“What? How do?—”

“I just…call it a gut instinct,” I snapped, rapidly stabbing the elevator button as if that would make the cables work faster. Dialing Alice, I pulled my phone to my ear.

He’d been on the phone that night. That night at the auction.

Gotten us there in the first place—and…for what?

Then our serverjust so happenedto spill on Alice and led her to that bathroom only to turn up dead in the river?

No. That wasn’t happenstance.

Alice heard a one-sided conversation with someone talking about a situation too eerily similar to ours to be tossed aside, using our last name as a goddamn keyword, and assumed the second party was Reggie, but…Royce had been on the phone when I left and still pacing outside the ballroom when I came back to cover our asses.

When the elevator opened, my assistant Preston stepped out, looking perplexed. “Mr. Hart, this just arrived for you,” he announced, hoisting up a gift basket with two bottles inside. “The note said, ‘To a game well played’.”

My heart…plummeted, stomach flipping as I eyed the contents. “What the fuck?” I extended a hand to thegift. Bile rose in my throat as my fingers traced the label on the bottle of white wine.

Marion ClineRiesling.

It was carefully placed beside a bottle of Macallan.

White hot rage consumed my vision, my chest constricting.

Then, I’m cracking open a bottle of Macallan and your favorite Riesling—what was that little Vineyard you loved so much in Massachusetts?

“They’re in my house,” I snarled as Luke stuck an arm out to hold the elevator. My gaze snapped to his. “Luke.They’ve been in my fucking house. They’re in myfucking bedroom.” Luke fumbled to catch the basket as I hurled it into his arms.

Oliver chose that moment to slip out of the family box with a very heavily lidded Beau in his arms.

“Greyson,” he said simply, all the questions buried in his eyes.

“I’ve got to go,” was all I managed to get out, my heart sinking as I dialed Alice’s number on muscle memory, jamming the first-floor button. The doors pinged open, and before they could close behind me, my brother and nephew were on the damn thing with us.

“Royce is a Gilbert,” I barked by way of explanation as Alice’s voicemail clicked on. “Fuck!”

“I don’t understand,” Oliver said, blinking away his confusion. Seemed to be a theme for the Hart brothers today. His knowledge of our most recent sting was low-level, at best. Just a vague overview, so he didn’t go responding to the wrong invitations with the wrong kind of people. “Ashcroft. Ashcroft is Odessa Gilbert’s bastard son.”

“You’re kidding,” Ollie scoffed like he was waiting for a punch line. One that would never come because the elevator doors were opening, and I slipped between the stainless-steel door and wall and bolted for the exit. The throng of people was nothing but immobile obstacles between me and my damn car. Weaving between them, I forced a path outside.

“Greyson?!” A concerned, familiar female voice caught my attention, and I whirled, praying it was Alice, although my gut knew it wasn’t. It wouldn’t be that easy.

Elora and Hadlee were staring at me from their spot on the curb, brows furrowed with concern above eyes so eerily similar to Alice’s that it nearly brought me to my knees. God dammit, I would kill to have her there between them.

“Where’s Alice?” I barked. “Leighton and Mattie. They all came down together…” but my words drifted when Elora shook her head, fear entering those familiar eyes as Hadlee rose on her toes as if she could gain a better vantage point to scan the crowd.

“I’m coming with you!” My brother’s pissed-off demand had me turning, but I was shaking my head before he caught up to us with Luke by his side.

“Not with Beau, you’re fucking not.”

“You don’t get to bark orders at me. Mattie is with them!” Ollie snapped back.

“What’sgoing on?” Elora demanded, straightening. Broderick’s husband-radar was thoroughly tuned because hedescended on our huddle within a heartbeat. A quick survey placed five of their six brothers within twenty yards.Good enough for me. In the next breath, I scooped Beau out of Oliver’s arms and handed him to Broderick, who was quick to wrap him up. The tall brother—Jameson?—was scowling at me before scanning the crowd expectantly. It was his eyes I held before rotating to the professor.

“Take Ollie’s car. Preston will drive you home. Guard him with your fucking life. Do you hear me?”

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