Hunter frowned. Logan swore.

  Joaquin just shook his head. “We’re not firing you.”

  Had she heard that right? “Y-you’re not?”

  With a tired sigh, Hunter leaned in. “None of us ever imagined this war that’s embroiled our family would come to your doorstep. You didn’t ask for your daughter to be abducted. You probably never even imagined it was possible.”

  “No, but—”

  “Should you have told us?” Logan prompted. “Yeah. But we understand why you didn’t. Trees explained. I hate to make you promise that you will next time, because I hope like hell there isn’t one…”

  “I don’t think I could handle it, to be honest.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to. And if you don’t think you can come back to work and feel safe after what you’ve endured, I understand, but I want you to know we’re going to send you help.”

  “Help?”

  Joaquin jumped in with a nod. “The alarm system is your first line of defense. It should feel safer whenever you find yourself here alone.”

  “Y’all arranged that?”

  “Yeah.” Hunter grimaced. “Trees reamed us out. We promised we’d do what we could to protect you in the future.”

  Bless Trees. She hadn’t known that having so many protective men as friends would feel like having brothers. It warmed her. “Thank you. I know you have your own problems to worry about, so the fact you took care of me, despite everything I’ve done…”

  Tessa couldn’t help it. Tears fell. After the day she’d had and the fact she’d barely slept in thirty-six hours, they never seemed far away.

  “Hey.” Logan took her hand and squeezed. “Don’t cry. I know it’s been a long, horrible day. But Hallie is safe, you’re safe, and—”

  “What about Zy?”

  “What about him?” Hunter asked, but he looked at her as if he already knew the answer.

  She was in love with him. But that wasn’t what he wanted to hear.

  “I’m worried. I haven’t heard anything in hours. I didn’t think his injuries were life-threatening, but no one will tell me anything. My head is spinning with all kinds of possibilities. Did he have internal bleeding they couldn’t stop? Did he hit his head so hard that his brain swelled? Is it a concussion or a coma…or something worse?” Tessa tried, but she couldn’t carry on without breaking down.

  If something had happened to Zy, one of the most joyous moments—rescuing Hallie—would be tainted by one of the most crushing, tragic events ever. She didn’t know how she’d ever recover. Honestly, she didn’t think she would. She would probably spend her life alone, rather than settle for less than the love she’d shared with him. She certainly couldn’t stay in Louisiana. She’d probably pack Hallie up, return to Tennessee, and start over. Or hell, maybe move out west, get away from all her memories—good and bad—of the past.

  Logan cocked his head at her. “Are you in love with Zy?”

  Tessa hesitated. They didn’t want to know simply because they were curious. These three never did anything without a reason, and less than a week ago, she had been strictly forbidden from touching Zy at all. Maybe they’d rewritten the contracts, never imagining that one of their operatives would ever fall in love with the office receptionist…but they’d probably frown on that.

  “I don’t know what you want from me,” she demurred.

  “I want the truth, baby,” said a deep, heartbreakingly familiar voice.

  Tessa gasped and looked up. Zy stood in her front door, bandaged and battered but otherwise gorgeous, healthy, and alive. She could hardly believe her eyes.

  She stood, her heart thundering. “You’re here?”

  He nodded and sauntered in. “Yeah. And I’m waiting for you to answer that question. Do you love me?”

  After a teeth-gnashing game of twenty million questions with the local police at the hospital and a seemingly never-ending battery of tests demanded by the ER doctor over nine fucking hours, Zy finally pushed his way out of the hospital and marched for the taxi he’d called. He was free—and he had an agenda.

  It sucked big, hairy balls that the colonel had been forced to pause his efforts to save his daughter to make the local cops see reason, but finally after some coaxing and good-ol’-boying, the police had let Zy go. Apparently, his statement had matched Trees’s and Tessa’s almost to the last detail. The preliminary forensics, too.

  His buddy had hung with him for a while, but Zy hadn’t needed hand-holding. Since he couldn’t do it himself, he’d needed Trees to do him a few favors, including bending the bosses’ ears about everything Tessa had suffered, then checking on her.

  Zy wished like hell she had come to see him. But she had Hallie to worry about, of course. After all she’d been through, she needed time with her daughter. But he’d hoped she would poke her head in to check on him. The fact that she hadn’t sent disquiet sludging through him.

  Had he hurt her so much in the bunker that she was ready to turn her back on him—on them—for good?

  If she was, he had no one to blame but himself.

  One thing he couldn’t put off another second? Calling his father. People were fucking dying because Phillip Garrett was a greedy asshat. He was going to put a stop to that shit once and for all.

  Once he settled into the backseat of the taxi that smelled like old leather and butt sweat and ensured the plexiglass divider would give him some privacy, he pressed the contact on his phone he hated most to tap and waited.

  His father picked up quickly, but his greeting sounded almost reluctant. “Chase?”

  “Yeah.”

  “This is a surprise. We don’t talk for months, then twice in the same week?”

  “I thought you might want to know that your son—granted, the throwaway and not your beloved Ivy-League carbon copy—almost died this morning in a shitty mobile home in BFE, Louisiana, because you’re so fucking unscrupulous that you’re willing to take cash or favors or whatever the fuck you’re getting from drug dealers so they can use Abuzz to communicate. I’m sorry for you that they failed to off me, but it was close. Better luck next time.”

  “Wha… I don’t… Someone almost killed you? This morning?”

  “What the fuck do you think I do for a living? I take down bad guys. Every. Single. Day. And you’ve been enabling them for a buck. But not anymore. I’m stopping it. They also kidnapped my girlfriend’s daughter. They put a gun to her head. She’s an infant. And it was all coordinated on your fucking app. Won’t that look good in the press, especially after you banned people so publicly for merely talking about government overreach because you thought they might get violent? These people are violent—and they’re criminals. Give me a fucking break.”

  “Son…”

  The emotional appeal in that one word pissed him off. “Don’t call me that.”

  “But you are.”

  “In blood only. If you don’t want me to go to the press with everything I have—accounts, screenshots, secret groups that clearly violate your terms of service—you ban every one of those motherfuckers and you live up to your promise of a safe platform. If you don’t, in twenty-four hours everything I have will be public. And since it resulted in three deaths just this morning, not to mention another man’s torture a few months back and a woman’s abduction—who’s still missing, by the way—won’t that make you look good?”

  “Don’t do that. Please. If I ban them and cut off their communication, they’ll come after me. They’ll kill me.”

  Zy shook his head. His father probably hadn’t seen self-risk in taking money from criminals. Now he was about to get a harsh lesson in reality, and Zy couldn’t feel sorry for him at all. “If you didn’t understand who you were getting into bed with, that’s your stupidity. But you can afford to hire bodyguards. My job is to protect people who can’t, and I’m going to fucking do it. Twenty-four hours or I talk.”

  “Wait!” his father jumped in, sounding desperate. “I’ll give you ten million dollars to keep this quiet. Cash. In a Swiss bank account. Today.”

  That was a lot of fucking money, but money didn’t motivate Zy. He had enough to be happy and take care of Tessa—if she would have him. He didn’t need more. “Ten million isn’t enough to buy my principles.”

  “Fifteen.”

  “You can’t buy me off. No amount of money will ever be enough to make me look the other way.”

  “You don’t know what that much money could do for you…”

  Yeah, he did. Make a shitload of problems he didn’t need. “Pass. I’m serious. You have twenty-four hours.”

  “What if I sold the company?”

  And divested himself of his fiefdom and Theo’s inheritance? “Elaborate.”

  “Your mother and I are going public with the divorce day after tomorrow. It would be the logical time to announce that I’m selling the business, too.”

  So he could supposedly give her half. The fact he hadn’t needed to do that in order to settle with his mother said he had another plan…but the public didn’t know that.

  “Who would you sell it to?” Because they might be as bad or worse.

  “I had an offer last week from an investment group. I haven’t actually replied yet. I wasn’t interested at the time, but I wanted to see how high I could drive them.”

  Of course the asshole had. Zy wasn’t even surprised that he’d toyed with people for an ego stroke.

  “But I could take them up on it…and let them know there are some security problems on the platform,” Phillip rushed to add.

  “The sale needs to get announced by five p.m. Pacific.”

  “That’s awfully fast. These things take weeks, sometimes months.

  “Get it done today. Or else.”

  His father hesitated, and Zy could feel him fuming. Finally, he huffed. “Fine.”

  That was one hurdle down, but Zy had other provisions. Even if his father and the investment group agreed to a deal today, the actual close of the sale would take a while. “Two more things: first, you have an ‘outage’ or a ‘glitch’ or whatever you need to have to not piss off these cartels, but disable, throttle, or delete their accounts until the company changes hands. Be all apologies for the technical problems, but get it done.”

  His dad sighed. “All right.”

  “And you give ten percent of the sale of the business to helping others. Women’s shelters, food banks, halfway houses. Not through your buddies and their tax shelters or pet projects. And not to your investment guy to line your pockets later. Actual people in need. Don’t buy another fucking Lamborghini or whatever overpriced phallic symbol you drive these days. Be a human being.”

  Phillip turned very quiet. “You’re right.”

  Zy didn’t kid himself. His dad’s sudden change of heart and self-enlightenment wouldn’t last, but if it protected the people he loved for now, he’d done what he could. “And one more thing. I know you’re going to dive back into the tech pool, and I’d be an idiot to think you don’t already have something working, but you don’t do business with these criminals again. Ever.”

  “Fine.” His dad paused. “I don’t even know who you are. How are you so not like the rest of us?”

  More than once, Zy had wondered the same thing. He still didn’t know why he’d never been a fortune chaser like his father, lazy and worried only about appearances like his mother, or a budding tycoon more concerned about his own pleasure than actually contributing to society like his brother. “I grew up with three examples of what not to be. That was all I needed.”

  That and the fact he’d been determined to be his own man.

  “Are you still in Louisiana?”

  “Why?”

  “It’s…backward and mostly full of bumpkins and—”

  “The ‘bumpkins’ are great people who care about each other and their community. They’re turning into the kind of family I’ve always wanted and never had.”

  “Ouch.”

  “You never spared my feelings as a kid. I’m just returning the favor. Oh, and when you announce the divorce tomorrow, my name better not be anywhere on that press release.”

  “I’ll have it removed.” His father sighed. “Will I ever hear from you again?”

  “I don’t know.” Then the taxi driver pulled into Tessa’s neighborhood, and his patience with this conversation ended. “That all depends on you. I have to go.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Zy knew his dad wasn’t merely apologizing for this latest fiasco but a lifelong host of disappointments. “And I’m sorry it’s come to this. Maybe someday.”

  “Goodbye, son.” His father actually sounded choked up.

  And Zy didn’t have the energy to decide whether he believed the man or not. The taxi was stopping in front of Tessa’s place, and this was the future he needed to focus on. “Goodbye.”

  With that, he hung up, paid the taxi driver, then hauled ass out of the car—well, as much as he could in his banged-up condition. Then he hobbled up Tessa’s walkway. On the other side of the door, he heard familiar male voices. The bosses were here? They fucking better not be firing her…

  “Are you in love with Zy?” That was Logan.

  Exactly what Zy wanted to know. His heart caught in his throat as he eavesdropped, waiting for her reply.

  “I don’t know what you want from me,” Tessa said. Her voice was so soft, but he heard the catch in it.

  Zy frowned. What kind of answer was that?

  He pushed the door open and took in the scene, Tessa surrounded by all the bosses, looking exhausted and worried and put on the spot by the three bastards they worked for. “I want the truth, baby.”

  She stood, clearly shocked. “You’re here?”

  Had she thought he wouldn’t come as soon as he could? Or was she simply wishing he hadn’t?

  He nodded and entered, shutting the door behind him. “Yeah. And I’m waiting for you to answer that question. Do you love me?”

  “And that’s our cue to leave.” Hunter stood.

  The other two followed suit, Logan frowning as if he wasn’t quite ready to rush out the door.

  Good. Since Zy was on a roll, cleaning house and sweeping out the shit, he might as well continue. “After you three apologize for lying to her and manipulating her.”

  She gaped. “I’m the one who owed them the apology. I passed on company secrets. I didn’t do what I should have when Hallie went missing and—”

  “You’ve already owned up to it,” Hunter put in.

  “And that’s good,” Zy added. “But what they’re not telling you is why they suddenly removed the restrictions in our contracts keeping us apart.”

  Tessa frowned and turned to the trio.

  Hunter grimaced. “When we suspected you or Trees of being our mole, we assigned Zy to investigate you both. He was pissed and he resisted. After weeks of almost no progress, we decided to change the contracts, which, as you know, we finalized on Monday. Then we told him he had two weeks to prove which of you was our mole. If he didn’t, we planned to fire you all.”

  She gaped, then lifted trembling fingers over her pretty pink mouth. “You put Zy in a terrible position.”

  He nodded. “The worst, and I’m sorry for my part, baby. I should never have suspected you.”

  “I gave you reasons to.” She looked down contritely, then turned to the bosses. “I understand why you did what you did, but I wish you’d come to me directly instead of putting Zy in the middle.”

  Logan sighed and elbowed his older brother.

  Hunter looked grumpy but nodded. “Yeah. In hindsight, we should have. So we’re apologizing to both of you.”

  “And we’ll try to be less asshole-ish in the future,” Logan added.

  Joaquin rubbed at the back of his neck. “This management thing is still new for us. We’re, um…feeling our way through and sometimes we’re a little blind.”

  “I understand,” she murmured. “And I hope you find your sister soon. If there’s anything I can do, let me know.”

  “You’ll be in the office next week?” Hunter asked.

  “Maybe not first thing on Monday.” Of course she needed more time with her daughter. But then she looked up at him, a silent acknowledgment that they had unresolved issues. “But soon.”

  “Same here,” Zy cut in. “I’m not medically cleared for the next forty-eight hours.”

  “Concussion protocol?”

  He nodded. “If I have one, it’s mild. I lost consciousness at the scene and woke up with a bitch of a headache. But it’s getting better. They monitored me for hours, even after all the tests. But they still want me to be cautious.”

  “Gotcha. Apology accepted? You’re coming back soon?” Logan asked like it very much mattered to him.

  “Yeah.” They might have fucked up, but they meant well. After dealing with his dad, he knew how critical that distinction was.

  “Thanks. We don’t know when or if we’ll return to normal, so…um, keep on being in charge.”

  “All right. But we should spell Kane. He needs a break.”

  “Yeah. Call us later. Jack and Deke are willing to loan us one of theirs. We haven’t met Trevor except in passing, but he’s got to be a good guy if his nickname for One-Mile is Serial Killer.”

  They all forced a laugh at the joke, but the truth was, after everything they’d been through, nothing felt light or humorous. And if they didn’t recover Kimber, Zy didn’t know if anything ever would again.

  After that, the trio filed to the door. Tessa shut it behind them. Zy followed her and locked it.

  They were alone.

  She set the alarm that hadn’t been there before, and he wondered who had installed it and when, but that was a question for later, not the one burning hottest through his brain.

  He braced his hand against the door, above her head, caging her close to him. “Where’s Hallie? Is she all right?”

  She turned to him. “Yes, thank goodness. The doctors at the ER could hardly find a scratch on her. She’s sleeping now. She was exhausted.”