Page 34 of Forbidden Boss

Lev’s in his office with the door open. He doesn’t say anything when I step in. He points at the chair across from him, and I sit. My ears ring in the silence. He scrolls through something on his screen, frowning. The stupid part of me wishes I could do something to cheer him up.

His phone rings. He answers in Russian and slips into that calm, deadly tone I’ve come to recognize. He stopped bothering to hide this stuff when I moved in. I’m the one keeping secrets now.

He finally looks up at me.

“Do you have a progress report?”

“I found something,” I admit. “You have a leak. A big one.”

He nods once at my laptop, the closest he’ll ever get to asking for permission.

I spin it around and pull up the fractal model I built.

“Here,” I say, tracing the first path, then the second. “The shell names are clean. The approvals are forged. The check numbers are the tell. They’re fake. They don’t match any of the accounts in our ledger.”

“How much is missing?” he asks, his voice flat.

“Five million,” I answer, my mouth drying. “So far. It could be more if they’re hiding it somewhere I haven’t mapped yet.”

“Who?” he asks, his whole body tight with barely controlled tension.

“I don’t know,” I say, hating how the words sound. “Whoever it is has been with the company for at least three years. Probably longer.”

“Five million,” he repeats to no one in particular.

He’s furious in his quiet, dangerous way. If the perpetrator were in the room right now, they’d probably confess on the spot out of sheer terror. Then again, they’d have to be pretty ballsy tosteal this much money in the first place. Either they think Lev’s reputation is all bravado, or they’re even scarier than he is.

“I can keep digging,” I say. “I can pull IP traces on the approvals, scrub the user logs, see who was in the system at the exact minute of the pushes. It won’t be perfect, but it’ll narrow the list.”

He exhales once through his nose. “Do it.”

I nod.

He stands and walks to the window, phone in his hand, and I can tell by the way his jaw sets that he’s about to make a phone call that will ruin someone’s day. Maybe even their life. I close my laptop and hold it against my chest like a shield.

“Anything else?” he asks, eyes on the city.

The word baby claws up my throat. I want to shout it, let the pieces fall where they may. The anxiety is eating at me.

“I have a dentist appointment,” I say instead, and I hate myself for how easy it is to lie. “I need to leave a little early today.”

He glances over, checking my face for the lie. His expression doesn’t change, so I have no idea what he’s thinking.

“Fine,” he says, waving a hand like he’s clearing a small file off his desk. “Thom and Jareth will escort you.”

“I figured,” I say, and I stand before I lose my nerve.

He’s already dialing as I step out. I go back to my office and gather my things, sending a text to my guards about the change in schedule.

Jareth is waiting when I step into the hall. He looks like he’d rather be anywhere else than escorting me to the “dentist.” I don’t blame him. I force a smile, and he flinches like I might throw something at him. He’s only been on my detail for two days, but my reputation clearly precedes me.

We ride down the elevator in silence. He stands between me and the doors when they open, the same defensive pose they all take. I can never tell if they do that to protect me or to stop me from running. Either way, it feels oppressive.

The dental office is on the twelfth floor of a large medical building. The OB-GYN is on the fourteenth. Jareth stays in the car, and I convince Thom to wait in the building lobby.

“You’re tracking my phone,” I remind him. “It’s not like I’m leaving this building without you knowing.”

“Text me when you’re done,” he says gruffly.