Jesse was always the guy scouting for new opportunities, trying to grow their coffers, and with every big monetary milestone they’d reached, he’d broached the subject of taking the company public one day. But Wes had always managed to talk him down, to convince Jesse that it was the work that mattered most, not the money, but the innovation. At least he thought he had.
Apparently, he’d been wrong.
Wes ran a hand down his face and shoved his phone back in his pocket.
He’d worry about the professional blow later. Right now, he needed to find Vivienne.
As he stalked back through her condo, something bright and orange on the kitchen table caught his eye, drawing him over.
A tiger lily in a vase.
Along with the flower, there was a black shoebox, a nondescript envelope, some official-looking papers, her wedding ring, and a handwritten note from Vivienne. His hand shook as he reached for the sheet of blue stationery.
Wes,
If I’m going to jail, there’s somewhere I have to say goodbye to before that happens. In the meantime, I hope that, whatever you came here for, you’ll find it on this table.
Viv
Wes glanced at the legal documents—a set of presigned annulment papers and a set of presigned divorce papers. Viv always was an overachiever.
The envelope contained the blackmail letter, which ended up a little crumpled when anger made his hand clench, and a thumb drive with the Whitfield Industries logo on it.
Despite the note’s strict instructions to dispose of the thumb drive once the program was installed on Whitfield’s system, Vivienne had found a way to preserve this key piece of evidence.
That’s my girl, he thought, turning it over in his fingers before dropping it back in the envelope with the now-mangled note. So fucking smart.
He lifted the lid off the shoebox, and the contents were like a gut punch of sentimentality. A bunch of photos of the two of them, looking young and fresh faced and in love. The frame with the pressed tiger lily that used to sit by their bed—she’d made it with one of the flowers in the bouquet he’d given her the night of their first date.
There was a notebook, too, and Wes had to leaf through only a couple of pages to realize it was a diary of sorts. The dates on the tops of the pages told him these entries spanned her nonviable pregnancy, from terrified start to tragic end.
He snapped the book shut at the realization. Because as desperate as he was to know, to understand what she’d gone through, he wanted to hear it from her. Face-to-face. But when Wes slipped her diary back in the shoebox, something else caught his eye.
Not the hospital bracelet itself, but the number sequence printed beneath her name. The date she’d been admitted for emergency, lifesaving surgery.
May 10. Six years ago.
The exact eight numbers in the string of garbage code that had popped up repeatedly throughout AJ’s investigation. She’d been right on both counts. It was a date and a signature.
What had Viv said? Something about “...after Jesse showed up...right after...”
The realization of what she’d left unspoken hit him like a lightning bolt. Jesus Christ.
Precise. Vindictive. Intensely personal.
Wes glanced over his shoulder, through the kitchen to the foyer where Vivienne’s security camera was logging the comings and goings of all her visitors and transmitting them to her phone...and anyone who might have bugged her phone.
His partner’s out-of-the-blue phone call suddenly made a lot more sense. The bastard had watched him walk into Viv’s apartment.
A cold rage flooded Wes’s veins at the betrayal.
Poaching Soteria Security was one thing, and if Jesse wanted to punch below the belt in some desperate attempt to hurt him for whatever slights and transgressions he’d already found Wes guilty of, well, Wes could take care of himself. But exploiting Vivienne’s trauma in some sociopathic attempt to twist the knife in Wes’s back a little deeper? Monitoring her phone and her security feed? Hurting the woman he loved?
Jesse would pay dearly for that.
Wes pulled his own phone out and waited for his call to connect.
“AJ? Never mind how I got this number. I need you to get me into that meeting with Whitfield and Kearney that’s happening later. I know who fucked me over, and I’m going to bury the bastard.”
Grabbing Vivienne’s ring from the table, Wes shoved it in his pocket.
Then he gathered up the rest of the evidence she’d left him.
He needed to pay a little visit to the FBI before his meeting.
CHAPTER TWENTY
WES STRODE INTO the lobby of Whitfield Industries at precisely 2:00 p.m. and headed straight for the elevator. A familiar black-clad figure hit the button as he approached.
“They’re expecting me?”
AJ slid him a look drenched in annoyance. “You know, you really need to stop second-guessing my methods. It makes me not like you.”
“You never liked me,” he pointed out reasonably, straightening his tie. There was a certain poetic symmetry to ending things as they’d begun. Which was why he’d changed back into the gray suit he’d been wearing when he was arrested before arriving at Whitfield Industries to deliver the coup de grâce.
The silver doors dinged open, and once the herd of office drones disembarked, AJ and Wes stepped inside. A harried, balding guy tried to join them, but AJ stopped him.
“Sorry, this one’s full.”
The doors slid shut on the man as he gaped at the two of them, alone in the twenty-eight-person-capacity elevator.
Wes lifted a brow as he hit the button that would take them to the top floor.
“What? These elevators are the worst when people are hopping on and off at every floor. Especially when you’re trying to get to the penthouse.” AJ reached into her leather jacket and retrieved her phone. Her thumbs flew over the screen, and then she looked up at the elevator control panel.
Wes followed her line of sight in time to see a small light in the upper right-hand corner switch from green to red. Override complete.
“There. Isn’t this better with
