Page 6 of Dane

He scoffed, muttering, “Of course, you’d say that.” We stood there a long time, the silence stretching thin. I started to turn, meaning to find Hannah or at least put another door between us, but he spoke again. “You staying?”

I hesitated. “I don’t know. Probably not.”

He made a sound, not quite a laugh. “You’ll stay. You’ll wait until Hannah begs you to stay or Knuckles sets his foot down, but you’ll stay.”

I let out a breath, unable to hold on to my frustration. “What do you want from me, Dane?”

He took stepped forward now, pointing at me with venom. “I want you to feel every fucking day of that year and a half from my point of view. I want you to lie awake at night, unsure if your cellie was planning on shanking you because you didn’t give him your Goddamned tuna salad sandwich. Every time you had to lay awake in a dorm full of men who’d love to either stab you in the eye or fuck you until they split you in two. Every morning you woke up free. Every time you drank your coffee or went to the Goddamn grocery store, I was trying to survive in a place entirely dominated by race and affiliation. I either had to be a lone wolf and be attacked by the pack, find a group of two or three men I might not trust but I knew would have my back at least ninety percent of the time -- as long as I didn’t cross them -- or join a gang and end up their slave for life even once I got out.” His voice dropped, low and venomous. “Don’t you dare tell yourself you were helpless. You had choices.”

“You’re right.”

He opened his mouth, then seemed to think better of it. He turned away, hands shoved in his pockets, then paused again. “You’ll take the room next to Hannah’s. If you need anything, ask her. If something feels wrong, you tell me.”

I blinked, confused. “You?”

He stiffened, his eyes briefly clouded with confusion, then scowled at me. “I said Knuckles. I don’t want you telling me shit, woman.”

“Sorry. Sure.” No way was I contradicting this man. Not in his present mood.

He pointed to the elevator at the end of the hall. “Third floor, second door on the left. That’s the room next to Hannah and Knuckles. Door won’t be locked, so you can go inside. There’s a lock on the inside, though. Hannah will likely be by later with a key for you. She’ll bring supplies when she does.”

“Thanks,” I whispered, then went in the direction he indicated. I didn’t look back at him, but felt the heat of his stare dead center in my back. As the lift started up, I turned to find he’d followed me and watched me from below as the car ascended, never breaking his glare.

Chapter Four

Dane

The lift gate shut on Brielle. She stared back at me through the metal grille until the car rose out of view. I stood there for a bit even after the lift continued upward. Then I turned, ran a hand down my face, and walked back toward Knight’s office.

Knight was camped out in his office, the glow from a bank of monitors illuminating his face. He looked up when I came in, eyes catching the light and giving me the shivers. He’d always creeped me out a little, but he was also the only person I knew who could untangle whatever the fuck Brielle Sloan had dropped in our laps.

He pointed at the cracked coffee mug in front of him. “There’s a fresh pot on the table in the corner. You look like you need it.”

I ignored the coffee and shut the door behind me. “Give it to me straight. Is it bullshit?”

He grinned, showing a flash of teeth. “Nope. Not even close.” Knight sat back, crossing his arms. “Drive’s clean, no worms, no back doors, nothing clever. Which is why I moved everything to my system. Files are what she said. Numbers, emails, memos, photos. She went old school, too -- scanned handwritten notes, phone pics of whiteboards. Like she knew someone would sanitize the final report and wanted a backup. She’s a bit paranoid, but thorough. And, honestly, given what she was looking into, she’s right to be cautious.”

I moved to the other side of his desk, and he gestured at the monitor. “You wanna see the punchline?”

“Is it enough to hang Sutton?”

He shrugged. “There’s enough here to make the feds sit up and take notice. Thing is, the bank robbery wasn’t the main event.” Knight’s fingers flew over the keyboard. He pulled up a spreadsheet, lines of data in relentless little rows. “Sutton was bleeding the institution for years. He’s asshole deep in embezzlement, wire fraud, fake vendor payments, you name it. But he fucked up bad with a set of overseas investments. Took the loss on the chin, tried to cover with funny money and failed. He staged the robbery to explain a chunk of the hole.”

It was so dumb I almost laughed. “The fuck? You’re telling me the robbery was… what? A diversion?”

Knight’s smile twisted. “Not just a diversion. It was supposed to be a permanent fix. The bank normally wouldn’t have enough available cash on hand to make a robbery worth the effort, but it just so happened this particular bank was managing a large move of cash that day. If the heist went clean, Sutton might not clear the hole he found himself in, but pins enough of the loss on outsiders for the excess to be ignored. And gets a nice bonus for the great crisis management. Unfortunately for him, his crew screwed up. Sutton had to burn a scapegoat.”

“Me,” I said.

He nodded, slow. “And the girl. But mostly you.” He clicked into another file, an email thread between Sutton and someone tagged only as “BLC.” “They talked about ‘mitigating exposure’ and ‘maintaining asset compliance.’”

“He threatened her?” I asked, surprised at how hoarse my voice sounded. And how tight my throat felt.

Knight grunted. “With jail, for sure. Threatened to spin it as an inside job with her at the center. Threatened to hurt her grandmother, too. There’s enough threat language in the emails to make even me raise an eyebrow. Now, imagine being a nineteen-year-old woman, working her first real job, living at home, taking care of her grandmother. Also, imagine knowing this man feels safe enough in his power over you to send emails this threatening. Over a company server. To say the girl was under considerable stress is an understatement.”

I watched the data scroll by. If Knight was right -- and I’d never seen him be anything but -- then Brielle had held a Goddamned lot back about her story. She’d been boxed in, maybe worse than I’d been.

Knight flicked his screen, and a new document came up. “Here’s the thing I don’t get, though,” he said. “Seven years back, a complaint got filed anonymously with the state banking regulators. Three pages that covered every major trick Sutton pulled. They closed it for ‘insufficient specificity’ and moved on.”