Page 18 of Ghost

“You keep looking at me like that, and this break is going to take longer than ten minutes,” he warned.

“I wasn’t staring.”

“Mm-hmm.”

His hum called out my lie, and his smile widened. So I leaned forward and kissed him to wipe the smugness off his face. I’d only meant it to be a quick touch of my lips against his, but then he cupped the back of my neck and drew me closer. The kiss quickly turned hot enough to make me forget the warehouse beyond the loading area, but he stopped before I did something ridiculous like climb onto his lap.

Pulling back, he pressed the water back into my hand. “Finish.”

“Kissing does not make you less bossy,” I grumbled.

“I was hoping it would make you more cooperative.”

I ignored his grin this time and didn’t mention that he’d been right about me needing to eat. I was more focused when we returned to the table covered in paperwork.

With a clearer head, I arranged the altered reports chronologically. The discrepancies began small and increased gradually over time. Most of them belonged to jobs I supervised. And looking at them in this order, I realized the largest differences appeared in the months after I began pushing for a two-person approval system.

“Someone picked my jobs because they thought I’d be easy to blame.”

The warmth bled from his dark eyes. “They miscalculated.”

Before I could open the next box of older reconciliation reports, the warehouse alarms blared, and warning lights flashed above our heads. Someone yelled at the far end of the warehouse. “Smoke!”

Jumping to my feet, I knocked the binder on the floor as I ran to the doorway to see what was happening. Employees were running away from the records room. One of them shouted, “Someone might still be in there!”

Instinct took over before caution had time to catch up, and I ran toward danger instead of away from it.

8

GHOST

Dark smoke rolled from the corridor leading to the records room. Tamsin barely made it two strides before I caught her around the waist and hauled her back against me, locking one arm across her stomach as she twisted hard enough to drive her soft ass into my thighs.

“Let me go,” she snapped, fighting my hold as she pointed toward the smoke. “You heard him. Someone could still be in there.”

“Who?” I turned her in my arms until she faced me, keeping both hands firm around her waist when she tried to look past my shoulder. “Name and last position, Tamsin.”

“Kendra. She works in accounting.” She caught the front of my shirt and leaned around me, her words coming fast without losing clarity. “Her desk is in the office attached to the records room, and that corridor keeps going toward the east controlled-storage section. The exterior emergency shutoff is outside on the south wall.”

I keyed my comm while keeping one arm locked around her. Brothers were already moving toward the rear of the building, and I redirected two of them to the side corridor Tamsin described while another team cleared the remaining employees through the loading doors. Two more headed for the south wall and the shutoff, while the men nearest controlled storage began pushing everyone away from that entire section.

“Accounting office off the records corridor,” I rasped over the channel. “Missing employee is Kendra. Approach from the east side and stay fucking clear of the controlled-storage door until Tamsin confirms the route.”

The acknowledgments came immediately. Tamsin listened with her face tipped toward my earpiece, her body still taut inside my hold, then tried to follow when I released her and started toward the smoke. I caught her wrist and pointed toward the growing group of Bellamy employees near the loading area.

“Count your people.”

“You need me inside.” Her brows drew together as she tried to pull her hand free, and frustration tightened every delicate line of her face. “I know that building better than any of your brothers.”

“I know.” I took the spare handheld from my belt, switched it to the team channel, and pressed it into her palm. “That’s why you’re gonna direct them from here.”

“I can do it faster if I’m inside.”

“Need you where I know you’re breathing.” I closed her fingers around the radio and held her gaze until she stopped testing my grip. “Account for every employee, tell us which routes put controlled material between Kendra and us, and warn me immediately if anyone else is missing.”

Tamsin’s lips flattened, but she looked toward the thickening smoke and made the smarter choice. She turned toward the employees, called for department leads, and began taking names before I had reached the rear corridor.

Heat rolled over me the moment I entered the corridor with three brothers at my back. Smoke pressed against the ceiling in dark layers while the alarm strobed red through the haze, turning every doorway and shelf into a shifting shadow. We pulled emergency smoke hoods from the wall station, and I listened to Tamsin’s voice through the comm clipped near my shoulder as she confirmed the shortest route to the accounting office.