Bea smiled up at me. “Isn't it?”
“Nothing terrifying about the way I love you.”
Then I pressed a kiss to her lips with Ben Wells gagging as background noise.
Chapter Forty-three
Salvatore
BenandIstoodon the sidewalk, watching Bea drive away. When she was out of sight, he clapped me on the shoulder.
“What’s your plan for the day?”
“Finding out who sent Bea that email.”
The amiable smile slid off his face. “You’re going to handle that?”
“I am.”
His chin dropped as he leveled me with a penetrating stare. “I mean, are you going tohandlethat? Because whoever decided to send it messed with my friend’s head. When I walked into her house, she was standing in the middle of her living room, staring at a wall like she wasn’t even there. It was fucked, man.”
Anger simmered beneath my skin, but I kept it contained. “It won’t happen again.”
“Good.” He nodded a few times, his head bouncing. “I’m glad you turned out to be a real one, Tore. Bea’s a real one too. She might act tough, but she’s one of the most authentic people I’ve ever met. I’m sure you know that.”
“I do.” And I found I didn’t mind this man seeing it too. I’d assumed I’d be jealous of their friendship, but having witnessed it with my own two eyes, I wasn’t. Bea deserved people in her corner. “And you can call me Sal. Tore’s for people who don’t really know me.”
“All right, all right.” He bumped me with his shoulder. “Glad to finally meet you, Sal. Bea told me you’re into art.”
“I am.” And I was pleased to hear she’d shared positive things about me.
“I’m getting into it myself. I discovered a couple galleries nearby and got to know the dealers. Maybe, sometime, you might want to go together?”
My brow dropped. “You and me?” This wasn’t the direction I’d seen our conversation going. And though the offer wasn’t unattractive, I didn’t understand why he’d want to do that with me.
“Yeah.” He grinned. “I’m in the market for a new friend, especially one into art. What do you say?”
Oh.WhatdidI say?
“I don’t have many friends,” I blurted, immediately regretting it. Christ, I was thirty-two years old. When would I stop being awkward as hell?
“Yeah, same,” Ben agreed. “I mean, I’ve got my teammates, but I already spend too much time with them. And my brothers are my brothers. Shira and Bea are cool, but sometimes, I just want to hang with another guy, look at art, and maybe grab a bite. If you’re in, I’m in.”
“I…uh—” I spun my ring, thinking it over for a beat. “I’d like that too. I’m in.”
I returned to Nox and went straight to my office, determined to find answers.
Leaning forward, elbows on the desk, fingers moving across the keyboard in practiced, silent bursts, I sliced through layers of code and server logs. The email hadn’t come from Paul’s account. I already knew that. SPF failed. DKIM failed. The headers were dirty. The timestamps were inconsistent. It had been a clumsy attempt at spoofing and came from someone on the inside.
I didn’t allow my fury to stop me. That would come later. For now, I remained detached, analytical, solving a puzzle, even if, in the back of my mind, I was almost certain I knew the answer.
The VPN used to mask the originating IP was consumer level and sloppy. Embarrassingly so. I recognized one of the relay nodes from Nox’s remote access network.
The firewall logs showed the access point. The timestamps matched. Only one set of credentials had been used in that window.
Sam’s.
This wasn’t definitive proof. There was a possibility someone else had gotten to his machine and his ID had been spoofed as well. I opened a secondary terminal and ran a fingerprint match, checking for typing cadence, syntax rhythm, script call patterns—behavior everyone had that made them easy to digitally identify.
