Page 137 of When Hearts Remember

“Office equipment, uniforms, housekeeping supply companies—they all look legit.”

“Whoever did this is good. They know we won’t flag these common transactions,” I muse, scrolling through the rows and rows of orderly transfers from three of our operating accounts over the years.

Liam nods. “I get you aren’t fans of your auditors, but they did a good job. The only red flag was the account numbers having consecutive sequences, like they were opened or created at the same time. Took me ona wild goose chase because the money bounced around so many times, even I got dizzy.”

“So, are we stuck?” I push the laptop back toward him.

He grins and spits out the toothpick he’s chewing on. I sigh. If he wasn’t so good at his hacking job, I would’ve kicked him out of the room. “Well, you’re looking at the best of the best. Nothing’s too hard for me.”

“So you got something?” Trey raps the table.

I glance at him, finding his gaze pinned on Liam, a muscle twitching in his jaw.

“I don’t blame you, you know,” I murmur. He’s my mentor and friend. I know how he works, how much he cares about the company. “Bad people will do bad things. You can’t catch them all.”

Trey exhales, his fingers white-knuckled against my desk. “It shouldn’t have happened.”

“You guys can play the pity party later.” Liam’s fingers fly over his keyboard. “As I was saying, if you hired anyone else, the trail would’ve been dead months ago, but since you got me, I can bring the dead back to life.”

Rolling my eyes, I wait for his big reveal.

Sure enough, it comes seconds later. “Cayman Islands. BoC Equitable Investment Fund. This is where your money went. They have twenty thousand firewalls I’m still trying to breach. Once I do, I’ll find more info.”

BoC? Bank of Columbia? The Vaughns’ company?

Liam catches my eye and shakes his head. There’s something else he isn’t saying right now.

Clearing my throat, I murmur, “Good job. Keep digging.”

The ping on my phone reminds me of Alexis’s presentation wrapping up in fifteen minutes. I stand and the men follow suit.

“I’ll finish up some things in my office then.” Trey rakes his fingers through his hair, his shoulders slumped as he walks out the door. He’s taking this situation very hard.

Liam and I stride toward the conference room where Alexis and her team are presenting the marketing budget to Maxwell and Ryland.

“What else do you know?” I keep my voice low.

“It’s strange. Most fraudulent schemes are short term, a few years max. It’s too hard to keep up the pretenses. But this is over a decade. Something doesn’t sit right with me.”

“BoC. Is that Bank of Columbia?”

Liam frowns. “That’s how the bank labels their funds. But it wouldn’t be us. There’s no way Charles would stand for this. Something is fucking off about this whole thing. Until I find out more, the fewer people know about this, the better.”

I nod and heave out a deep breath.

Damn bastards, whoever they are.

My bad mood soon disappears, however, when I hear the familiar lilting voice of my Nova from the opened conference room door. I smile and stroll to the back corner of the room.

“Based on our research, we believe the most cost effective use of funds will be to invest in infrastructure upgrades, rebranding The Strata to a younger, more on trend name, and establishing a membership rewards system,” Alexis’s hands fly as she speaks, her face animated while she describes the final project plan she presented last week to me.

After that picnic at Ravenswood.

Even though she has forgotten us, deep inside her mind, she still remembers her perfect picnic at the private courtyard, the one experience she was saving for when she had a full-time job.

With the person she loved.

I know I’m supposed to put the past behind me. I’m supposed to win her over again. But how can I forget all those beautiful memories—every kiss, every touch, every dream?

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