Vaughn froze for an instant, then very slowly turned in his seat to stare. “You look like Reece, but you can’t possibly be him. Real Reece has conniptions over money issues. So where’s my real brother, and who do I have to kill to get him back?”
“You’ve been spending too much time with Jude. His smartass is rubbing off on you. It’s not attractive.”
“Good thing I’m not trying to attract your ugly ass then.”
“Fucking younger brothers.” Reece rolled his eyes to the ceiling in a silent plea for patience, then started back to his office. “Go home, Vaughn.”
“I will. But first I need to contact Gabe and Quinn, give them Lark’s description, since HORNET is all over the country. Figure if I cast a wide enough net, she’s bound to get caught in it.”
Reece paused in the doorway and glanced back. Vaughn was again working on his computer with laser-like focus. He was good with technology, but Reece was better. The least he could do was take some of the pressure off, and maybe Vaughn wouldn’t run himself into the ground during his search.
“I’ll look into her financials, see what I can dig up.”
Vaughn met his gaze, eyes full of gratitude in the instant before he glanced away. When he spoke, his voice came out soft, a little rusty. “Thanks.”
Jesus. Vaughn really was tied up in knots over this woman. Out of all the craziness in the past year—Jude reuniting with his lost love Libby, Cam and Eva taking their friendship to the next level, Vaughn nearly getting blown up, and whatever the hell was going on with Greer—this had to be the craziest. Vaughn just wasn’t the kind of guy to commit to a woman, but he sure as hell was committing everything he had to the search for Lark.
Reece returned to his office, sat behind his desk, but ignored the expense reports on his screen. Instead, he clicked over to the internet and ran some searches on Lark. He got about what he expected: the engagement announcement for Lark and her ex-fiancé, an article about said fiancé’s nasty past and her disappearance after he was caught for his crimes. For a while, speculation was he’d killed her before he was caught, but Vaughn didn’t seem to think so. And now that they knew she had been living in D.C. under a stolen name, Reece had to agree. She was in the wind, but was it because she was a frightened victim or a criminal?
He’d dig more later. Right now, he had to get those reports done for DMW Systems, the software company he’d built from the ground up after leaving the army. Currently, most of his contracts were government, but he hoped to take his company into the private sector and was in the process of securing a major investor who would help cement DMW’s spot as a top competitor in the field. Everything had to be perfect or it wasn’t going to happen. Irving James III was about as old school as old school money got and the fact he was even considering investing in a tech company was a miracle in and of itself. Reece’s “good old fashioned family values” and “patriotism” had drawn the billionaire’s attention. Now he had to find a way to keep it.
He worked until he realized the outer office had gone silent. Straightening in his seat, stretching his arms over his head to work out the kinks, he checked the clock on his screen. After two a.m. No wonder he didn’t hear any noise out there. Vaughn probably called it quits hours ago since they were scheduled to be on a seven thirty flight to Vegas.
By his estimation, Reece had just enough time to get home, pack, shower, and maybe if he was lucky, even squeeze in an hour of sleep.
He reached to close the lid of his laptop, and his email dinged. Probably shouldn’t look at it if he wanted that hour of sleep…
He opened the program.
The sender’s name wasn’t one he recognized, but the subject line hit him like a punch to the solar plexus.
SCANDAL! DMW SYSTEMS CEO HAS SEX WITH BARISTA AT COFFEEHOUSE.
What. The. Fuck?
He ran a virus scan, found none, and opened the attachment. Sure enough, there was a grainy video, like from a cheap security camera. It showed Shelby sitting on the desk with him between her legs and the screen went black right before he pulled away, leaving the viewer to interpret what happened next. Text appeared, followed by a string of numbers he could only assume was a bank account.
If you want this video to stay secret, pay up. $20,000.
Reece sat back in his chair, ran his hands through his hair, and just stared at the screen. This could not be happening. Not now.
Of course, logically speaking, this was the perfect time to hit him with blackmail. So it had to be someone he knew. Someone who had access to, or at least the ability to access the coffee shop’s security footage. Someone who knew his government contracts were running out this year and he needed Irving James’s investment if he wanted to keep both DMW and Wilde Security afloat. Someone who knew one moral misstep on his part would bring everything he’d built crashing down.