Page 13 of Wreck My Mind

Chapter Five

Aziza

Forget sleep. The remaining few hours of the night I spent with my gut twisted, my heart punched, and my mind positively blown.

In my private wing, my office had four auxiliary computer screens feeding live video capture from the surveillance cameras in the Obsidian Winds bungalow. I trusted Gray’s team would be scrutinizing them, so I dedicated my main two monitors to drilling down into Coop’s recent endeavors. It was a toss-up which situation was more disastrous for Beryl Enterprises or more dangerous for me personally, but my mind fixated on the one I couldn’t understand.

I’d never thought Coop would hurt me. Ever.

I questioned everything between us over the past few years. What had I been to him? Certainly not a friend. Was I a mark? Some kind of long con he’d been running?

Whatever I’d been, I felt like the biggest sucker in the world. It wasn’t even the highly confidential intel we’d exchanged or that I’d entrusted him to strategize on critically sensitive dealings for Beryl. Those things may have branded me naïve, but it was the intimate, personal conversations we’d had which had given him the power to crush me.

I’d trusted him because he’d shared with me too. I knew about all his failed marriages, of which there were a few. All the nightmares he’d gone through, of which there were too many to count. All of his successes and all his regrets.

He’d trusted me with everything. Why had I not known this side of him?

Obviously he didn’t share everything.

Thankfully, I hadn’t trusted him with everything, either. But, oh, how close I’d come to laying it all out on that table he’d claimed to want to take me on. Too close. Stupid me thought he’d wanted my heart, at the very least my body, but turned out he didn’t want me at all.

Or if he did, it was to fuck me in a completely different way.

His going rogue, possibly even turning on me, had chilled my battered heart to the point of rib-crushing, physical pain. I might’ve been a lovestruck fool, but like hell was I going to let him string me along and leave me in the dust when he was done. Whatever he was up to, I was bound and determined to find out.

I&A hadn’t identified him as the hitman in the Amazon, and I certainly wasn’t about to enlighten them. Yet. I’d have to soon. Beryl Enterprises had to be prepared for Alvarez’s retribution. But for now, I was too raw.

Coop’s activities felt entirely too private to share. How could his actions not be personal? The man I’d loved and trusted as my muharib—my warrior—had basically declared war on everything I’d so desperately needed to protect.

Well, I would protect myself now, even from him.

I’d never accessed Coop’s accounts before. Not even when I’d stupidly feared he’d been hurt or worse. Despite my unique livelihood, I had a great respect for both freedom and privacy. It was only after he hadn’t shown up at his former teammate’s funeral that I’d even started running biometrics to locate him. It’d been so out of the ordinary for Coop. Something had to be really wrong.

Well, gone were the days of my compassion and consideration where Michael Cooper was concerned. Now that the emerald-colored glasses were off, so were the gloves. I had zero qualms about using every hacking, cracking, and tracking trick in my bag.

Since I&A was confident the hits had been a hired job, there had to be a money trail. I began by running financial forensics on all his accounts. Coop was a workaholic and not a spender. Everything he needed, Beryl Enterprises provided, including a very healthy salary. He should’ve been sitting on millions with no need for a side-gig. So I was prepared to find one of two things—a flush account, if I’d completely overreacted, or an empty account, if he’d turned on me.

Unfortunately, for both of us, his accounts came back with just a few thousand dollars.

Drilling down deeper, I fully expected to find his money had been siphoned out right before he’d gone off grid. Which it had, but my gut started cramping when I realized the transaction amounted to less than a year’s salary. This wasn’t some rash decision he’d made, running from his feelings for me. No. Coop had been planning this getaway for a while.

Numbly, I stared at the long string of consistent withdrawals that went all the way back to when he’d first started at Beryl. Without delay, I traced every single one. I expected to find it had all been pulled out as cash. My gut had been wrong this time.

Each year the bulk of Coop’s income could be traced to a laundry list of fallen SEALs’ family funds as well as a couple of veteran’s organizations and even a rehoming program for retired military K9s. Each donation was legit, and over the years had accumulated into a few million. Not only was his money all accounted for, but the contributions had been made ‘in memory of’ or anonymously.

I sat back in my chair more confused than ever. He took credit for none of them. Nor did a single donation show up on his taxes for the deserved deduction.

Here I’d been so quick to vilify him. How could someone who gave so much to so many, and for zero recognition, be capable of double-crossing me?

At six a.m. sharp, I gave up the ghost. Literally.

After responding to Zaki’s various correspondence, I reviewed and handled any new intel on all of the other hundred balls Beryl Enterprises had in the air. Then I headed downstairs and stood for an iris scan to gain entry into OZ’s private corridor. My eyes were so bleary I was shocked the scan greenlighted.

Outside the entrance to Zaki’s suite, a breakfast cart waited to be cleared away by Marguerite. OZ may’ve been worried about other people’s germs, but I wasn’t worried about his. I poured a cup of coffee from the carafe, giving myself a much-needed shot of wakey-wakey. Then I lifted the sterling warming lid and snagged a corner of buttered toast with one hand and gathered up the plate, still heaped with food, with my other.

As I took a bite, I swore somehow the butter OZ got was better than any other on the island. Perks of being the king.

Heading toward OZ’s private entrance to the zoological conservatory, I paused for another retinal scan, and entered. Like other eccentric billionaires from the Arabian Peninsula, Zaki had a thing for exotic animals, notably big cats. Golden tigers, white lions, leopards, and cheetahs, as well as many other species like elephant, zebra, and giraffes, and even critically endangered ones like rhino rounded out his collection.

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