Page 89 of No Cap

“Give me a second,” he said as he started to type. “Found it. Whoa.”

“What?” I asked, wincing at the surprise evident in his ‘whoa.’

“Tax fraud,” he said. “Dael and Broddie Aue were in some pyramid scheme through Broddie’s investment banking firm. They froze all the parents’ accounts, took everything that was registered to the investment banking business…”

He pretty much laid out exactly what Tayson had shared with me an hour ago, ending with, “They’re looking at twenty-five years each. The firm that Broddie Aue worked with has fired him. All his 401Ks, bank accounts, cars, home, and a few other things were seized by the state of Texas pending a trial.”

I rubbed between my eyes. “What was the pyramid scheme?”

“According to about thirteen elder individuals, they conned them out of their money and wouldn’t give it back.” Easton sounded like he was reading from a report. “Looks like they’re accused of stealing upward of nineteen million dollars, funneling it through the company they were working for, and then starting their own accounts where that money went. There’s more but… you get the gist.”

Yeah, yeah I did.

“Shit,” I sighed.

“That sounded like a bad ‘shit,’” Easton murmured. “What’s up?”

“The girl I’m seeing has an awful relationship with her family,” I gave him a rundown on what I’d seen so far between them. “Then this morning, the brother came by and was all sad and shit, trying to make amends, he said. But in reality, he’s been kicked out of his house, doesn’t have anywhere to go, and wants to see if his sister will put him up.”

“I hope she doesn’t,” he admitted. “When do I get to meet her?”

A loud bang on the other end of the line, and then a little cherubic voice said, “Daddy! Mommy says that we can go outside as soon as you’re off the phone! Can we go now?”

Easton sighed.

“I’ll bring her to the fishing trip this summer,” I said. “You can meet her then.”

Easton chuckled as I heard him get up from his creaky desk chair. “I’ll look forward to it. Let me know if you need anything else.”

We both hung up on a shriek of excitement on his end.

I rubbed my chest, wondering what this feeling was, or the way a dark wave of envy rolled over me as I thought about Easton and his family.

Did I want that?

Did I want something so permanent with Hollis?

I must if I was willing to go to bat with her over her family, or hell, even inviting her to fish this summer.

That was sacred. You only brought people who mattered.

And scarily, Hollis was beginning to matter.

A lot.

Speaking of the things that mattered, Hollis walked in the door on that last scary thought.

She looked haggard, like the day had kicked her ass, chewed her up, and spit her out.

“You look rough,” I said to the woman who was quickly starting to steal my heart.

“I am rough,” she pointed out. “You’ll never guess what happened.”

“What?”

She ripped some papers out of her bag, and then showed them to me. “I’m being sued!”

One, two, three…didn’t work. I still want to kill him.