Page 106 of Stolen Temptation

By the time we get home, it’s the middle of the night, and none of us are the same.

When Darren, Cian, and I file into the war room, Donal and Thomas are already inside. Whatever argument they’ve been having up until now falls away to nothing once they catch sight of us.

After picking through the smoking, ashen mess for clues before the cops arrived and cordoned the club off for the fire marshal, we could probably double for Cinderella’s older brothers. Soot covers our clothes, and we smell like a fire pit.

Finn and Shane, deep in a hushed conversation, enter the room last. I immediately head for the wall to our right and press a discreet button set into the surface.

The wall’s wood paneling pulls apart, and a mobile workstation rolls out. We had this installed so that whenever Ineed to do technological demonstrations, I could have the same dexterous setup that I have in the cramped security office.

I lower myself into the chair behind the mobile desk, four curved monitors shielding my upper half from the other people in the room.

As Finn and Shane travel to the head of the table, Thomas gloms onto them, inserting himself in their conversation and dragging the rest of us into it.

“This only happened because of that bitch downstairs.” Thomas’s first comment sends my crowded mind to the image of Kiara. Rage reverbs through my system. “If we’d returned her immediately, as we agreed?—”

Thethunkof Finn’s hand slamming the table echoes. “We don’t know that Leo De Luca is behind this.”

“Of course he’s behind it!” Thomas snarls back, a vein popping in his forehead. “Any child could see that?—”

“While Leo claimed responsibility for the cop bust, before we went downtown to investigate the fire, we actually learned that the mole was to blame.” Cian’s voice, calmer than the rest, carries over the monitors.

“The mole?” Donal scoffs. In my head, I picture his blue eyes narrowing at Cian. “You’re saying that Leodidn’tsend the cops?”

“He may well have.” I see the top of Cian’s head shake. “But now we know there’s more to it. If Leo really did send the cops, he did it with the help of the mole. One of the foot soldiers caught something.”

Which reminds me.

I stand from my chair, drawing everyone’s eyes. “We need to find Dax Moreland.Now.He knows the mole’s identity.”

“How do you know?” Shane pins me with his stormy gray eyes.

“Because Dax is working for him.”

With this new information, an uneasy silence ripples through the room.

It’s Finn who speaks first. “We need to divide and conquer. Getting to the bottom of all this is going to require triage.”

That makes sense. Cian, Darren, and I all nod.

“Cian, go interview the club staff not in critical condition. Find out what happened tonight and if they saw anything suspicious leading up to the fire.”

“Done.” Cian exits the room in four long strides.

“Darren.” Finn nods toward the door. “Find Dax Moreland.”

Darren’s out the door before Finn even finishes speaking.

My feet ache to go with him. I want to be the first to get my hands around the mole’s neck. But my own fury will have to wait.

There’s a reason Finn didn’t task me with finding Dax.

“Rory.” Finn’s eyes find mine, right on cue. “Check the surveillance video from before the fire.”

I nod and sit back down, booting up the screens in front of me while the conversation between Thomas, Shane, and Finn picks up once again, hot and furious. Though Thomas’s voice is ridiculously distracting, I try to focus on the task at hand.

I almost wish he was the mole. He’s greedy enough, but he was injured alongside Shane in Vegas, which rules him out. Plus, he’s been with the Kings forever.

The guy might be Harper and Riley’s dad, but he’s a real asshole. I doubt many people would shed tears at his funeral…unlike some of the poor men we lost.