Page 22

twenty-two

When they emerged from the bedroom, they found Sabin lounging against the kitchen counter, a shit-eating grin on his face.

Liam stood beside him, far more composed, though the tick in his jaw suggested he wasn’t entirely thrilled about Sabin’s antics. Across the room, Daphne was already seated at the dining table, her laptop open in front of her, fingers flying over the keyboard. The glow of the screen cast eerie shadows across her face, making her hazel eyes gleam with sharp intensity.

Sabin pushed off the counter, arms spread wide. “Well, look at y’all. Hair a mess, lips all swollen—hell, Davey, you ain’t even got your damn shirt on. Must’ve been real nice, sleepin’ in, tangled up all cozy while some of us were bustin’ our asses all night.”

“Hey, I told you to go home and get some sleep.” Davey grabbed a shirt from the duffle bag on the floor, yanking it on as he crossed to the coffee maker that Liam already had going.

“Couldn’t,” Liam said and handed him an empty mug. He hooked a thumb over his shoulder at Daphne. “Sabin suggested we check the lab before going home and, surprise, surprise, that one was there, and she was already working on our problem.” He yawned and grabbed another mug, filling it with coffee. “We were there all night.”

“I didn’t need you to stay.” Daphne didn’t look up from her screen as she responded. Unlike the two men, she didn’t look the least bit tired. Her dark hair was pulled back in a messy bun, and her gaze was laser-focused on her computer. She’d work in this hyper-focused state until her body would eventually demand rest, and she crashed. Until then, her blood was at least ninety percent caffeine.

Liam yawned again and leaned against the counter. “And I told you we weren’t leaving you alone in that lab when we have no idea who tried to take out Davey and almost took out Elliot.”

Davey poured a cup of coffee and offered it to Rowan.

She waved it away.

He frowned, lingering a second too long as she turned back to whatever thoughts had taken her hostage. Rowan didn’t turn down coffee—not unless something was eating at her. He wanted to press, wanted to tell her to sit down and take a damn breath, but she wouldn’t listen. So, instead, he kept the coffee for himself and leaned against the counter, glancing from Liam to Sabin. “Either of you hear from Brody or Sullivan?”

Liam shook his head. “Not yet. But you know how they are. If they found something, we’ll know when they’re ready.”

Sabin smirked. “Or when one of ‘em gets arrested for excessive enthusiasm. My money’s on Sullivan.”

Davey grunted, but the tension in his gut didn’t ease. He’d told them to catch a few hours of sleep first, but he doubted either had listened—especially not Brody. The man had been pissed when he left, and angry men didn’t sleep. They hunted.

That was either good news or very, very bad news.

He exhaled sharply and took a sip of his coffee. Instant regret. It was like someone boiled asphalt, then dared to call it coffee. His throat burned as he swallowed, the bitterness clawing its way down like it had a personal vendetta. He coughed and scowled at Liam as tears leaked from his eyes. “The hell is this?”

“Coffee,” Liam said, genuinely confused, and took a long drink from his mug.

Sabin made a face. “ Mon frère , I think we need to talk about what coffee actually is, ‘cause whatever you brewed up in there? That ain’t it.”

Davey had to agree. He moved to the fridge for some creamer and dumped a large amount in. It helped. Marginally. He stirred the so-called coffee as he walked over to Daphne. “Have you found anything?”

Her fingers stilled on the keyboard. She looked up, her expression grim. “You’re not going to like it. Our systems were compromised, alright. We’ve got multiple security breaches. Someone’s been poking around in WSW’s network, and I mean deep. Not just scraping the surface. This was coordinated, precise, and meant to go unnoticed.”

“For how long?”

“Best I can tell? Over a month, just before you took control of the company,” she said, finally glancing up at him. “I started digging after the attack on Elliot, looking for anything that didn’t sit right. And I found something.” She turned the laptop toward them.

Rows of code and access logs filled the screen. Daphne tapped the trackpad, and a highlighted string of credentials appeared.

Cade’s credentials.

The tension in the room turned electric.

Sabin cursed in Cajun French.

Liam’s expression remained unreadable, but his shoulders stiffened.

Rowan exhaled hard and lifted her gaze to his. She didn’t need to say anything. He could see the worry and sadness all over her face.

A cold weight settled in his gut. He turned back to Daphne. “That can’t be right.”

“I triple-checked.” She tapped the screen again. “Every one of these breaches ties back to Cade’s login. Every. Single. One.”

Silence stretched, thick and suffocating.

Sabin broke it first, pushing off the counter with a grim smile. “Well, mon frère , hate to say I told you so, but?—”

Davey leveled him with a glare. “Don’t.”

Sabin held up his hands. “Just sayin’. You went to bat for the guy. Put your rep on the line.” He shrugged. “And now it looks like he might’ve used that trust to stab you in the back.”

Daphne sat back in her seat and worried her lip through her teeth. “It’s not just a breach, Davey. Whoever did this had access to everything—mission reports, security protocols, financials. Everything. And if Cade really did hire that hit on you…” She trailed off, letting the implication hang in the air.

Davey clenched his jaw. He didn’t want to believe it. He refused to believe it. But the evidence was staring him in the face.

And then his phone vibrated in his pocket.

Everyone went still.

Slowly, Davey pulled it out, glancing at the screen.

Cade.

His stomach twisted. “It’s him.”

“Shit,” Liam said softly. “Don’t answer it.”

“I have to. If he’s behind this… I have to.” He exhaled sharply before answering. “What do you want, Cade?”

Silence stretched between them for a beat before Cade spoke. “We need to talk.”

“So talk.”

“Not over the phone,” Cade said. “Meet me.”

Davey’s grip on the phone tightened. “My office. Thirty minutes.”

“No.” The response was immediate. “Neutral ground. My choice.”

“Why?”

“If you don’t trust me, don’t come.”

A sharp, bitter laugh escaped before he could stop it. “Not exactly reassuring.”

Cade sighed. “Look, you want answers or not?”

More silence.

Then, he finally relented. “Okay. Where?”

Cade gave an address that he committed to memory before muttering, “I’ll be there.”

The line went dead.

When he lowered the phone, everyone was watching him.

“Absolutely not,” Rowan said immediately.

Davey pocketed the phone. “It’s happening.”

“He refuses to meet at WSW, demands his own location—and you’re just going to walk into that? Alone? It’s suicide.”

Sabin whistled softly. “Yeah, I gotta say, sounds like a pretty shit plan, mon ami . If Cade’s innocent, why all the cloak-and-dagger bullshit?”

Liam, quiet until now, finally spoke. He nodded toward Daphne’s laptop. “I don’t doubt Cade is capable of all this, but…”

“But what?” Davey demanded when he trailed off. “Yesterday, you all but accused Cade of mutiny.”

“Yeah, and after thinking it over, I changed my mind.” Liam met his gaze steadily. “Whatever else Cade is, he’s a father first, and he would never do anything to put Nova at risk. You said you don’t want to throw a grenade into our family over a grudge? Well, neither would he. If he put a hit out on you and succeeded, Uncle Cam and Aunt Eva would disown him. Tessa and Weston would never forgive him. He’d lose his entire immediate family, including Nova, because no way would his parents let him keep custody after he goes to prison for solicitation of murder. You really think he’d risk all that for a chance at getting the company when there’s no guarantee he’s next in line?”

Silence descended on the room.

“All valid points,” Daphne said finally and motioned to her computer. “But those credentials don’t lie. Someone accessed our systems using Cade’s login. Whether it was him or not, he’s compromised somehow.”

Davey ran a hand through his hair, frustration and uncertainty warring inside him.

Liam had a point. Cade adored his daughter. Would he really jeopardize her future just to get back at him?

But Daphne was right, too. Cade’s company login wasn’t something he would just share with anyone, so if it wasn’t him accessing secure files he had no business being in, then who? And how did they get his information?

“All the more reason I have to go talk to him.” Davey kept his voice firm, cutting off any further debate. “If there’s even a chance this is all some misunderstanding, I need to hear him out.”

Rowan took a step closer, her eyes dark with worry, and for a second, he nearly reached for her. But she crossed her arms, tucking her hands under her elbows like she was physically holding herself back—from him, from this fight, from the fear neither of them wanted to name.

Her voice was quieter now but no less sharp. “And what if it’s a trap?”

His pulse ticked up. Yeah, there was no denying it could be a trap. But he forced himself to hold her gaze, tried to convey with his eyes that he wasn’t worried. “Then I’ll handle it.”

Frustration tightened her features. “Fine.” Her fingers curled against her arms, knuckles going white, and she exhaled in a rush. “If you’re doing this, we go in with a plan.”

Davey shook his head. “ We are not going anywhere. I go in alone.”

“Like hell you do!”

He knew that mulish expression, and he heard the warning bells clanging in the back of his mind: Danger! Danger! But he still stepped closer and lowered his voice for her ears alone. “You’re a target, Ro.”

“So are you.”

She finally touched him, her fingers curling around his forearms, holding on tight as if she could physically anchor him in place. The anger in her eyes still burned, but it was the fear barely veiled behind it that nearly undid him.

She was terrified of losing him.

He exhaled slowly to ease the sudden tightness in his chest. “I know.” He covered her hand with his. “But if I show up with an entourage, Cade will take one look and vanish. He won’t talk if he thinks it’s an ambush.”

Liam nodded slowly. “Cade’s a ghost when he wants to be. If he vanishes, we won’t find him.”

Rowan’s breath hitched—subtle, but he caught it. She knew he was right. But that didn’t mean she had to like it. “I hate this plan.”

“Me too,” Sabin said. “But if Davey’s dead set on bein’ a stubborn bastard, best we work around it.”

Rowan’s nails bit into his skin briefly before she let go. “If anything feels off, you run. No heroics.”

Before he could respond, she grabbed the front of his shirt and yanked him down into a kiss—fierce, desperate, laced with everything she couldn’t say out loud.

Davey wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her in tight, stealing every ounce of warmth she pressed against him. His fingers slid into her hair, holding her there, needing this, needing her, needing to remind himself what he was fighting for.

When she pulled back, she didn’t step away. She fisted her hands in his shirt like she wasn’t ready to let go, and her gaze searched his, raw and unguarded. “When this is over, I’ll say yes.”

The word was so quiet, so full of something fragile and fierce all at once, that for a second, he thought he’d imagined it.

His breath caught.

A thousand things rushed to the tip of his tongue—a promise, a vow, a fierce declaration that he’d get them through this, no matter what. But he couldn’t speak past the knot in his throat, so instead, he framed her face in his hands, brushing his thumbs over her cheekbones.

“Damn right you will.” His voice was rough, filled with everything he couldn’t put into words.

She let out a shaky breath, her lips quirking just slightly. “Then come back to me, Wilde.”

His heart twisted painfully. He wanted to promise her. Wanted to say nothing in the world could keep him from her.

Instead, he kissed her one last time, slow and deep, lingering like he could sear this moment into his memory.

And then Sabin cleared his throat. “If y’all are gonna start makin’ babies right here, I’d rather know so I can make a graceful exit. I like to watch, but you’re like a brother, and that’s just nasty.”

Rowan sighed and dropped her head to his shoulder, closing her eyes briefly before muttering, “I really hate him.”

Sabin grinned. “Now, cher . Given how much you hated Davey just a few weeks ago, I’ll take that as the highest of compliments.”

Davey shook his head, pressing one last quick kiss to Rowan’s temple before stepping back.

A quiet snort drew his attention, and his eyes flicked over to Daphne, still half-hidden behind her laptop. She didn’t look up, but there was no missing the way her lips curved—not into a smirk, not into a sneer, but into something dangerously close to a smile.

Huh. Weird.

Daphne wasn’t exactly the smiling type. His cousin was about as goth as a person could get without literally haunting a graveyard. She was black clothes, sharp eyes, and had that dry, deadpan voice that made people second-guess whether she was joking or planning something vaguely illegal.

And yet, here she was, clearly amused.

She noticed him watching and casually dragged her sleeve across her mouth like she could wipe away the expression before anyone called her on it. “I’ll keep digging. If Cade’s being framed, I’ll find proof.”

Davey nodded. “Do that.”

Sabin stretched, then cracked his knuckles. “And me? I’ll go make some coffee that don’t taste like swamp water boiled with battery acid.”

Liam bristled. “My coffee is perfectly fine.”

Sabin scoffed. “Yeah, if you like sufferin’.”

“It’s coffee, not a damn dessert.”

Sabin gestured toward Davey’s untouched cup. “It’s a hate crime against taste buds, is what it is.”

Rowan arched a brow. “He’s not wrong. I knew from just the color it was deadly.”

Liam muttered something under his breath and took a sip of his toxic brew just to prove a point.

Davey barely registered the argument, the words turning into background noise as his gaze drifted back to Rowan. She was watching him—not the way she had a moment ago, with fire and fight in her eyes, but quietly, cautiously. Her arms were crossed, her weight shifting slightly from foot to foot. Her fingers flexed restlessly against her arms as if she didn’t know what to do with her hands.

For just a second, the worry bled through. The part she tried so hard to swallow down. The part that had been there since the moment he refused to let her run, refused to let her fight this alone—the moment he jumped headfirst into the fire with her.

The banter around them kept rolling, but the weight in his chest didn’t lift.

The coffee was the least of their concerns.

His gut churned, tension settling low in his spine as he braced himself for what came next.

One way or another, by the end of the day, he’d have his answers.

Even if he didn’t like them.