Page 94 of My Craving

“No, and she hasn’t stopped threatening us with him coming to save her.”

We enter the security room and find Ronan at the main console with Zee connected remotely. Kieran and Conor are already there, along with Declan and Xavier. Declan has Xavier pulled against his side while they watch the monitors.

Alina and Dare are being held in separate rooms. Dare sits back in his chair despite the restraints around his wrists, apparently comfortable enough for a man who has no idea what’s about to happen to him. Alina is nothing like him. She keeps looking toward the door, shifting in her chair every few minutes before checking the room again. She’s waiting for Dare, still believing the plan hasn’t completely fallen apart.

Nash stops beside me, and I slide my arm around his waist before looking at Ronan. “Tell me what you found.”

“We were right about most of it. What we didn’t have was the rest of Maria’s money trail or proof of what Alina planned to do once she got close enough to you.”

Ronan brings several files up on the larger monitor. I recognize some of the accounts from what Nash and I went through after Zee found the information on Ion and Elena, but there are more now.

“The eight million Maria took from you wasn’t all of it,” Ronan says. “She’d been moving money before she ever came to Philadelphia. Some came from Ion and Elena, some from other relatives, and Zee found several accounts she emptied completely.”

“So they really did spend all those years looking for her because they thought she took everything and disappeared,” Nash says.

“Pretty much. But this is the part we didn’t have before.” Ronan switches to another set of records. “The offshore account Daidí thought still held the money was emptied several years after Maria died.”

I move closer to the screen. “By who?”

“We’re still working on that. The money bounced through enough accounts that Zee lost the trail, but it never went back to the Rusus. Ion and Elena didn’t have it when Alina killed them.”

Nash looks toward the monitor showing her. “She killed her parents for money that was already gone.”

“She thought they’d found it and were keeping it from her. We recovered months of messages between them before they died.”

Ronan opens another file. “What we didn’t know was how far ahead she’d planned.”

Emails and messages fill the screen, some between Alina and Dare and others written only by her. There’s enough there that I don’t need Ronan to interpret most of it for me. Alina never expected our arrangement to remain casual. She intended to make herself useful, become part of my life and gain access to everything Maria had failed to take twenty-two years ago. Once she had enough control over the money and assets she wanted, I was supposed to die.

Nash moves closer until his shoulder presses against my arm. “And when Duncan ended things with her?”

Ronan looks at him. “You became the reason she thought the plan failed.”

“And Dare?”

“We can connect him to Daniela Norris and at least five other deaths now. Probably more by the time Zee finishes going through everything. Daniela was the first one. Zee found messages between Alina and Dare from the week she disappeared. Dare killed her, and Alina took over her identity a few months later.”

Nash looks toward the monitor showing Dare. “What were they planning to do with me at the gala?”

Ronan brings up the messages recovered from Dare’s second phone. “He was supposed to drug you and take you out through the service area. Once he had you away from the hotel, they planned to keep you restrained while Alina contacted Duncan.”

“For the money.”

“Yes.”

I read enough of the messages on the screen to understand what Ronan isn’t saying. There are instructions about how long Dare could keep Nash sedated, where he intended to take him and what Alina wanted sent to me once they had him.

Nash has gone quiet beside me, and I slide my hand from his waist to the back of his neck, my thumb moving against his skin. “You don’t have to read the rest.”

“I’m not reading it because I need to know what he would’ve done to me. I want to know what they thought you would do.”

Ronan opens another message. Alina expected me to give her access to the money as soon as she proved she had Nash. If I refused or delayed, Dare was supposed to hurt him and send me proof until I cooperated.

Nash lets out a quiet breath. “She really thought that would work.”

“It would have.” His head turns toward me, and I don’t soften the answer. “If they had you and I believed giving her what she wanted would stop them from hurting you, I would have given her every fucking dollar she asked for.”

Nash watches me for a moment before reaching up and closing his hand around my wrist. Ronan closes the last file, and I look through the glass at Dare. There’s nothing else I need from a screen.