Page 21 of Phoenix

“Yeah,” she said slowly, eyes narrowing. “But these two columns still don’t make sense.”

“Figure it out,” I urged her, brushing her hair over her shoulder. “I’m gonna have Deviant send me the information for every betting ring, bookie, and underground game within ten miles of Old Bridge. I’ll cross-reference everything, and then we’ll widen the net if need be.”

She nodded, her whole focus on the numbers, her fingers moving fast over the keys of my computer.

My woman was fucking brilliant.

And gorgeous.

And sexy as hell.

But mostly, she was all fucking mine.

And when we nailed the bastard behind this, I was gonna take her back to my room, strip her bare, and start trying to knock her up all over again.

9

LINDSAY

I’d fallen in love with spreadsheets the first time a teacher showed us how to use them in the computer lab in high school. I knew they could be addictive, but I didn’t realize how much fun I could have until I started plugging the numbers from Paul’s notebook into one.

At first, it all just looked like a chaotic mess of numbers, scribbles, and shorthand, but the longer I stared at the data and fiddled with the spreadsheet, the more it started to take shape. Some of the numbers matched his bank withdrawals. Some didn’t. That part made me second-guess myself each time a theory popped into my head.

Beck was behind his desk, digging into the bookies and gambling rings the Iron Rogues knew about within a hundred-mile radius of Old Bridge. His presence was steady and grounding, even if I could still feel where he’d been inside me in the middle of the night. It was distracting in the very best way.

“You’re humming,” he muttered.

“Sorry, I do that sometimes when I’m super focused.” I flashed him a quick smile as I tapped my pen against the side of the table where I was working. “You should see me during finals week.”

“You always this dangerous with a pen?”

I winked at him and deadpanned, “You should see me with a highlighter.”

My quip earned me a low chuckle that made my stomach flutter. Now wasn’t the time to straddle his lap and see what kind of reaction I’d get. Or the place since his club brothers had come and gone from the office many times since we’d set up in here. After the way he’d handled me in the middle of the night, I had a pretty good idea of what he’d do, and I didn’t want to run the risk of someone walking in on us because there was zero chance I’d notice with how wild he got me.

I forced my attention back to Paul’s notebook, frowning as I traced a column of numbers. “There’s a second pattern in here. I just haven’t figured out what it means yet.”

“You will.” His voice was steady and certain as though there was no question in his mind that I’d crack Paul’s code.

Before I could reply, the door swung open, and Deviant stepped into the office with his laptop tucked under his arm.

“Got somethin’,” he announced, not bothering with pleasantries as he stalked over to the table where I sat.

Beck rounded the desk and dropped into the chair beside me, his arm slinging casually around my shoulders.

Deviant flipped the laptop open and turned the screen toward us. “Security footage. We’ve been watching the banks for camera hits tied to the account withdrawals. Check this out.”

Deviant tapped a few keys, and the footage on the screen jumped to life—grainy black-and-white video from an ATM security cam. Paul stepped into the frame, hunched into his windbreaker with the hood pulled low, as though he didn’t want to be recognized. He withdrew cash and glanced over his shoulder three times in the span of ten seconds.

“Now watch this,” Deviant instructed before pulling up a video with a different angle from only a few minutes later. “This one’s from a nearby gas station.”

Paul’s car pulled into view, and he got out without pumping gas, parking and walking two buildings over to a run-down mechanic’s shop that looked like it hadn’t been open in years.

“He didn’t go inside,” Beck murmured, leaning closer. “Just walked around back.”

“Yeah, he pulled this same shit after every withdrawal.” Deviant clicked through several more video clips—different days, different banks, always followed by a stop at somewhere odd. A boarded-up bar, an abandoned storefront, a nail salon with blacked-out windows and no signage.

“He’s not running errands,” I muttered, frowning at the screen.

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