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With that, Lincoln turned and left.
I pushed aside thoughts of a good man gone too soon. His protection and sacrifice the ultimate act of love. He died so his brothers could live.
That was the family Zane had built.
That was now my family.
Gotcha, asshole.
It was right there in front of my face the whole fucking time and I’d missed it.
I snatched my cell off the desk, texted Easton to ask him to get everyone into the conference room. Then I shuffled the papers into a stack, pulled some sticky notes off the desk, and ran out of Easton’s…my…our office, not caring I looked like a crazy person. Garrett’s huge glass enclosure in the middle of the main space was clouded so I knew he was working on something that was more sensitive than the normal sensitive stuff Z Corps worked with, and made it into the conference room just as Kira was walking in.
“You look—”
I interrupted her to say, “You’re a genius.”
“Well… I am called Kid Genius and not for nothing, but what did I do?”
“You found what I’d missed for years.”
“What’d you miss?” Jonas asked as he entered the room with the rest of the team on his heels.
“I don’t know how I didn’t put it together,” I blurted out. “It was all right there in front of me.”
“Baby, what was?”
I looked at Easton, tossed the reports on the table, and tapped the stack.
“The connection. Maddon and Patricia.”
The men took their seats, Lincoln, Zane, and Layla coming in last, and when everyone was settled I filled them in.
“Kira dug into Patricia,” I started. “But more importantly, she looked into her husband Yasseen Sawiris’ associates. His business is distribution of large construction equipment. I followed up on the contracts Kira got. He did a lot of business with a land developer. On the outside it looked legit. This developer did a lot of projects around Cairo. Not unusual, there’s always construction going on. But the contracts didn’t add up. I cross referenced the dates and looked up what buildings were being built or renovated. About fifty percent of those contracts to rent equipment were bogus. I went on to other construction companies and found the same thing.”
I pushed the folders to the middle of the table but no one made a move to take them. Not even Easton who was sitting, yes sitting, with his full attention on me, and damn that felt good.
“That could be anything from money laundering, buying protection, basic corruption. But there was a name listed on one of the corporations that was familiar. Austin Wentworth. Wealthy Brit. Not unheard of for there to be foreign investors. When I looked into him, I realized why that name was familiar. Years ago Charlie and I were discussing wine, namely my palate for cheap wine, and he told me a story about him and Maddon being in Italy and staying at a villa Wentworth owned and his wine collection. Charlie told me Wentworth had a cellar that was worth millions and collected rare bottles of Changyu. Changyu is a Chinese wine manufactured in Yantai. Those bottles were gifts. Why would a Brit who invested in real estate development in Cairo, Nairobi, and Durban, all in Africa, come to be on the receiving end of very expensive, rare Chinese wine that is not exported, and bottled exclusively for state dinners?”
I didn’t let anyone answer. I was too jazzed at what I’d found.
I took a breath and forged ahead.
“I’ll tell you why. Bolin Chen, Wentworth’s university roommate. I looked into Chen. His brother Jun De Chen works for the Ministry of State Security. And there’s Maddon’s connection. I’ve tracked the locations of Wentworth and Maddon’s meetings, and get this—Wentworth is scheduled to arrive in DC in three days.”
“Holy shit,” Theo muttered, reaching for the files.
“I don’t have the access or I would’ve emailed—”
“Crap, sister, I forgot to give you your credentials.” Kira grabbed a pad of paper and a pen off the table and started scribbling. “Username and temporary password. When you log in you can change it.”
I had a username and password.
Me.
I had a username and password to access Z Corps’ computer system. Their highly encrypted, unhackable system.
The pad went sailing across the wood surface. I barely pulled myself out of my stupor to stop the pad before it went off the edge.
