After Keanu had gone off again and Marie had passed out soon after, Ada couldn’t bring herself to just sit around and wait for his return. She wasn’t helpless, and despite his desire for her to let him handle it, it was still her problem, and she refused to let him take on the brunt of it without doing anything at all.

She couldn’t help but think about everything they’d told her, of the seventeen accounts and the money she’d taken. It had all been a blur when she started taking the money in the beginning, and though she could guess how much money she had taken over the months, even she wasn’t sure of the actual dollar amount.

And the more that thought ran through her head, the more she wanted an actual figure.

Decision made, she went in search of a pen and paper, and the laptop in Keanu’s office that she hadn’t touched since she’d been here. She brought all back to the bed where she sat cross-legged with the laptop resting on her thighs.

With the pen in hand, she started at the beginning from the very first withdrawal she ever made. That one was smaller than the rest—she’d still been too nervous about getting caught and the consequences of it all to take more than she had.

The second was slightly larger and by the time she got to the fifth, she was taking more than fifty-thousand dollars each time. Sometimes the number varied and fluctuated, but for the most part, she took about the same amount once she became comfortable.

Now, it was just a matter of matching the withdrawals from the accounts.

Though she couldn’t directly access the files she needed because of the firm’s security, she was able to get into the bank accounts directly since she’d been the one to set up the majority of them.

For many hours, she sat in that very spot, lining up transactions with their corresponding dates. It wasn’t until the early hours of the morning as the sun peeked over the horizon that she finally finished.

But the result wasn’t at all what she was expecting.

Of all the accounts she’s siphoned money from, only one of them had several large withdrawals, all of which were done anonymously, and all around the same time as she’d been taking the money.

Going over it, she wasn’t sure how she’d missed it at all, but she’d been sloppy back then—more concerned with getting caught than realizing someone else was stealing too.

The beep of the alarm disengaging sounded as the front door opened and shut, then the quick succession of numbers being typed in to disarm it. A few seconds passed before Keanu was stepping into the bedroom, his expression drawn and tight.

He was quiet tonight, almost too quiet.

“Did something happen?” she asked, setting the papers and laptop aside as she reached for him.

In the few days they’d been back in LA, she’d grown used to his assurances, his promises that everything would be alright and that there was nothing to worry about. Despite herself, she’d grown to expect it.

But instead of a quick smile and nod of his head, he wrapped an arm around her waist and lifted her clear off the bed with ridiculous ease before dropping down where she’d been sitting and pulling her onto his lap.

For a long while, he didn’t speak, his face buried in the crook of her neck, the tension in him slowly bleeding away even as hers grew.

“Is it bad?” she whispered, almost afraid to ask, especially knowing her sister was merely across the hall. “You can tell me …”

“It’s nothing I can’t handle.”

It was an answer that told her nothing. “Tell me anyway.”

“I saw an old friend tonight,” he said after a sigh. “It didn’t go the way I thought it would.”

Though she didn’t know what he was talking about, she still squeezed the hand he had resting on her stomach, trying to offer comfort as much as she could. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” He looked over at the mess of papers she’d been working on, picking one up. His brow furrowed as he tried to decipher what she’d written. “What are you in here doing?”

She wanted to question him further about what had happened to him tonight, but thought better of it. He would tell her when he was ready. “I had a thought. You said there were seventeen accounts, but only sixteen actually put out a hit on me, isn’t that right?”

“Yeah, go on.”

Pushing out of his lap, she stood and paced the floor. “I don’t think we ever asked the question of just how they came to know that I had stolen money from them. To be honest, I chose their accounts specifically because their underused and rarely checked. Which can only mean that one of the seventeen had to have told the others what I had done, right?”

Ada didn’t realize she had been ranting on until she paused long enough to look back at him, noting the look of curious amusement on his face.

“What?”

He shook his head. “It makes sense.”

She leveled a look on him that only made him smile. “So when I started digging into it all, I found one account that had multiple transactions that I didn’t make.”

His expression changed then, turning from mild amusement to rapt attention. “Did you find a name?”

She shook her head. “I can’t tell you who took the money out, but I can tell you what the account is for. From what I can gather, it was linked to a nonprofit that’s endorsing Michael Spader.”

Ada expected a look of surprise that crossed his face at the name, but it leaned more toward disbelief than actual surprise that she’d used the name of a candidate for governor.

“What? What’s that look for?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. If you were able to take money from the account, that means he does business with your old firm. Who opened the account for him?”

When she opened her mouth to respond, Ada hesitated. “I didn’t look that up.”

He handed over the laptop she’d been using as she came toward him. “A moment, please. Looks like it was opened by … oh.” She stared at the screen, trying to be sure she was reading it correctly. “My boss opened the account for him, but that doesn’t make any sense. If he knew what I was doing, why—”

“Why did he wait until after the Kingmaker showed an interest in you?” he finished for her. “I suspect it has very little to do with you, and something much bigger, but I’ll know for sure once I ask him.”

Aa chewed on her bottom lip, not liking the sound of that. “If he was planning to use me as his scapegoat, I can only imagine what he would do to you.”

“Worried I won’t come back to you?” he asked, and unlike the playful tone she’d grown used to, he sounded oddly serious.

As if he really wanted an answer to the question.

Was this their moment … “Of course. I want … I want to be wherever you are.”

“For how long?” he asked touching her hand, drawing her closer. “Until this is over? A month? A year?”

“For as long as you’ll have me,” she responded. “I—”

He kissed her before she could finish, making her forget everything but this moment.

Only after she was putty in his arms did he pull away long enough to say, “Tell me after.”

Color splotched across her cheeks. “After?”

“When this is all over, tell me you want to stay. Yeah?”

How could she ever say no to that? “Yeah.”

* * *

“Have you and the boss had a row?” Syn asked as he fixed a cigarette between his lips, cupping the flame of his lighter and inhaling deeply as the end burned bright red.

Keanu barely spared him a glance as he killed the engine of his car, watching the building they were sitting in front of. After his conversation with Ada earlier, he had a lot on his mind and the last thing he wanted to do was spend another moment thinking about Uilleam and everything he’d done.

“What’s that?”

Syn blew out a stream of smoke, tapping ash off out the side window. “He’s being a tit and last I heard, he was with you, so get off it. Tell us what’s happened.”

Ada’s boss, Roger Fitzpatrick, was tucked away inside the posh hotel a block down and hadn’t come out of his room in two days according to one of Keanu’s contacts in the hotel. Though he had a key card tucked away in his pocket that opened any door in the place, he wanted to wait until the man made an appearance out here to grab him for their conversation.

But if they had to wait any longer, Keanu was inclined to go inside to handle it. Time was running out and his patience was wearing thin.

“Thought you didn’t like questions?” he asked Syn, watching as a couple exited the front doors hand in hand.

“Doesn’t mean I can’t ask them, does it?”

Yeah, he knew all about that. “Then answer a question of mine.”

“Fucking hell, I ain’t trying to make conversation, mate.”

Ignoring that, he went on, “How’d the Kingmaker find you?”

No one, with the exception of Winter, knew the story as to how Syn had ended up in the Den. The others’ stories were private as well, but eventually, word had gotten around enough that the details were sparse but enough to get an idea from.

For Syn? Nothing.

No one ever breathed a word about him.

Belladonna seemed to know and if what she hinted at was true, there was a chance Uilleam was behind it, and God forbid Syn ever found out about that. He didn’t think even Nix would be able to hold the Brit off for long.

“He didn’t find me,” Syn said reluctantly, his voice low and tight. “Not exactly. I found him, I think. It’s all a jumble.” He tapped his temple, putting the cigarette back in his mouth, mumbling around the filter, “What’s it matter?”

“Just curious.”

“I can count on one hand the number of times you’ve been curious about me—all of which involve the number of bodies I’ve put in the ground.”

It was clear he was expecting an answer, but Keanu wasn’t sure he could offer one, not yet. Even after all these years, he was still protecting Uilleam—even when he didn’t deserve it.

“Let’s finish this,” he said instead, stepping out of his car, not bothering to look back, knowing Syn was at his heels.

Through the lobby of the hotel—where the cameras would coincidentally be turned the other way for their entry—they walked to the bank of elevators and took one up seventeen floors. The doors opened with a ding, revealing an empty hallway with dim lighting, a vase of fresh flowers resting on a stand to the left.

Keanu pulled the key from his pocket, turning it around in his hands as he approached the first door on his right ‘1738’ emblazoned in gold. He waited until Syn was poised behind him, blade in hand before he lifted the key to the electronic pad, waiting until it flashed green before easing the handle down and pushing the door open without making a sound.

Syn swept around him and entered the room, disappearing around the corner, silent as a ghost.

There was no need for him to move as fast—not when Fitzpatrick had the misfortune of having Syn be the first to enter.

A heartbeat passed, another, then a third, until a man’s audible curse sounded then a petrified scream that echoed off the walls before the sound was muffled.

The beauty of upscale hotels like this? The rooms were practically soundproof.

Fitzpatrick’s eyes were round and terrified as Skorpion rounded the corner, growing impossibly wider at the sight of him, but all too quickly his gaze was drawn back to the man holding the knife to his throat, not caring in the slightest that he was drawing blood in the process.

“What’s this about?” Fitzpatrick asked, his hands trembling.

“Ada Edgar.”

His eyes darted to the left and Keanu could practically see his brain working in the second it took for him to look back at him.

“Has she stolen money from you? I don’t know where she is, but I can find out and …”

He cut off abruptly as Keanu moved closer to him, drawing out his own gun as he did. Fitzpatrick swallowed thickly, mumbling out words he didn’t bother to try to interpret before he was aiming and firing a bullet into the man’s knee.

“Jesus fucking—”

“Oh, what’s this, eh?” Syn complained with a frown. “All violence tonight was meant to be mine.”

“You won’t die tonight,” Keanu said to Fitzpatrick, ignoring the disgruntled muttering from Syn. “No matter what happens, the order is to bring you in alive. Continue to piss me off, I’ll gladly let Syn here take over your interrogation because I don’t have the patience for torture. Believe me when I say he does.”

“Just please,” he said between panting breaths. “Just tell me what you want to know!”

“You targeted her, why?”

His first instinct was to deny the accusation, but instead, a look of defeat crossed his face as he answered. “She was taking money from my clients. Once they found out, they wanted retribution. I couldn’t very well stop them from placing a target on her back.”

He obviously wanted to make this difficult for himself. “Unless you don’t want to walk again,”—he’d already have a limp considering the damage to his other knee—“I suggest you not lie to me again.”

“She stole money from the wrong person!” he finally spat out, eyeing the gun with disdain. “I could excuse the other accounts—we’ve all skimmed a bit off the top every now and then—but she … she stole from the wrong person.”

“Who?” Keanu asked, though he was entirely sure he already knew the answer.

“Michael Spader,” Fitzpatrick confirmed. “He wanted a way to cover up what he’s done and punishment because she’d stolen from him in the first place. It was either her or me.”

And he’d picked himself.

“So your answer was to give her name to the sixteen account holders hoping one of them would take care of it?”

He didn’t bother answering that, merely ducked his head.

“Unfortunately for you, she found me. So the first thing you’re going to do is contact anyone on that list and get her marker removed. Understood?”

Fitzpatrick nodded eagerly, hoping that his complying will mean no more pain comes to him.

“And you’ll wire two million dollars to an account of my choice.”

No hesitation as he nodded again.

Watching him, he didn’t blink as the man pulled a phone from his pocket and began to painstakingly make a call to each name Keanu rattled off. A mistake, he informed them. He’d been wrong, he said. He would wire them the money himself, he promised.

By the end of it, there was no one left that hadn’t agreed to his terms. Between the promises he’d made to the others and the ones Fitzpatrick had just called off, Ada was finally in the clear.

Just to be sure, Keanu searched his phone, making sure there was no trace of her name or likeness on the dark web.

One problem solved with relative ease.

“Now, the money.” It only took a few minutes more before it was sitting neatly inside the account. “We’re good.”

“Then … you’ll let me live?” he asked, hopeful.

“The Kingmaker wants a word with you,” Keanu said, sheathing his gun at his back. “What happens to you is entirely up to him.”

At the mention of that name, all the blood drained from his face.

“But before you go, you owe Ada an apology.”

“Anything.”

“You misunderstand. Words might appease her, but they don’t appease me. You threatened her family and nearly killed her to cover your own ass. The only way you can repay that is in blood.”

Fitzpatrick stumbled out another apology, begging to be spared, for mercy that Keanu wasn’t capable of.

“He needs him alive,” Keanu said to Syn though he never took his eyes off Fitzpatrick. “Believe me when I say, you’re about to learn what pain really means.”

Fitzpatrick blubbered as he was dragged from the room, tears falling even as Syn whistled.

Keanu sat back with a sigh, only letting the tension inside him ease once the screams started.

* * *

“Excellent work, both of you.”

Fitzpatrick might have been unconscious and black and blue all over, but Uilleam didn’t seem to care as he peeked in at the man’s face where he lay in the trunk before turning away. As long as he was alive and able to provide the answers needed, he didn’t particularly care what he looked like.

Syn looked infinitely more relaxed, his bloody hands now tucking an unlit cigarette behind his ear.

“Then it looks like we’re done here,” Keanu said.

“I’m surprised you don’t want to see how this ends,” Uilleam said conversationally.

He spoke as if he hadn’t just threatened him a mere day ago. As if they were old friends sharing a moment.

Maybe he would have if not for the words whispering away in his head. He’d never trusted Uilleam, not completely, but even what little trust he had managed for the man had dwindled to nothing now that he knew, or rather didn’t, about just how he and the people he called his brothers-in-arms had come to the Den.

Not today, or maybe not even tomorrow, but he would find out what Uilleam had done, and he’d make him answer for it however he could.

“Ada’s family—”

“Will remain under my protection,” Uilleam interrupted. “I assume she’s with you, isn’t she?”

The latter, he didn’t answer. If he’d had a choice, he would have much rather had her family stay where he could keep an eye on them, but until he talked to Ada, he couldn’t do anything about it at the moment.

And no matter how much the thought annoyed him, if they were under Uilleam’s protection, nothing would be able to touch them.

“And her money.”

“Already transferred as of,”—Uilleam glanced down at his watch—“twenty minutes ago.”

“Then we’re done here.”

He looked as if he wanted to argue that point with him, but instead, he simply nodded and turned back for the compound. “Bring him along then, Syn. Skorpion has other plans.”

Without a word, Syn lugged the man from the trunk none too gently and dropped him on the ground before closing the trunk and looking back at Keanu. “Let’s do this again soon, yeah?”

He hoped there wouldn’t be any need.

It was an hour’s drive back to his place. An hour he spent figuring out what he wanted to say and how.

This was the first time in a long time that he’d ever ventured into this sort of territory and while he was pretty sure he knew where her head was at, she could have just as well changed her mind in the length of time he’d been gone. Soleil liked her, and he wasn’t afraid to use that against her if he needed to.

He wanted her to stay.

With him—with them.

She only had to say yes.

As he parked outside his house, he could see the light still on in his bedroom window. She’d waited up for him.

Now or never.

Exiting his car, he headed inside, locking up the house before walking into his bedroom, smiling softly at the look of relief that crossed her face.

“You were worried,” he said knowingly.

“Probably always will be. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to you going out and doing what you do.”

“But you’ll be here,” he said, repeating what he’d asked earlier.

She tucked dark hair behind her ear. “There’s no place else I’d rather be.”

“Then stay,” he said. “Soleil wouldn’t forgive me if I let you walk away.”

Her laughter made him pull her into his arms. “I’d never want to disappoint Soleil, but what about you?”

“I want you right where you are.”

Here.

In his home.

In his arms.

She looked as if she was ready to agree until she lost her smile. “My family—”

“Still under protection and the money he promised has been delivered, plus a little something from Fitzpatrick.”

“Sorry?”

“He sent his apologies after getting the contracts on your life pulled, and a severance package.”

Her brows shot up in surprise, but then they lowered as she looked at him suspiciously. “That’s awfully generous.”

“It was the least he could do.”

“Thank you,” she said after a moment, her smile returning. “For this. For everything. I don’t know how I could ever repay you.”

He shrugged, cupping her neck. “You can unpack your suitcase and get comfortable.”

“Because you want me to stay,” she said in a way that told him this was exactly what she’d hoped to hear from him.

“Because I love you.”

Her smile lit up her face. “I love you too, Keanu. Much more than I ever thought possible.”

“I’m going to take that as a compliment.”

She kissed him then, breathless and still smiling. “When is Soleil coming home?”

“Tomorrow, probably.”

“Then I have you to myself for the night.”

Her hands inched down to the hem of his shirt, slipping beneath. “Always.”