“You have one of the kindest hearts of anyone I’ve ever met, but that’s also your blind spot. I’m not accusing Zane. I’m just pointing out once again that you need to keep your eyes open, okay?”

Layla knew in her gut that Scarlett spoke the truth. The question now was what she was going to do about it.

Hunter sat in his office, staring at his computer in frustration. He’d been tasked by Mason to find out who had stolen the cartel cash, but unfortunately, even after all the work he’d been putting in, he was no closer to finding the culprit.

He’d received a load of documents from the DEA that had been secured through warrants to a variety of banks and financial institutions. He’d been sworn to secrecy, so he hadn’t been able to talk to Layla about any of this, and he felt the weight of guilt at poring over her finances—which he’d done because he wanted to satisfy himself and Mason that Layla was clean. Layla’s finances were exactly what he’d expected. She lived a reasonable lifestyle, putting a good part of her modest government salary into her savings account. He didn’t find any suspicious accounts or activities. No questionable transfers. Her biggest splurges seemed to be at her favorite clothing store, a boutique in Georgetown, and those purchases only happened a couple of times a year.

Now he was deep into the other core team members’ information. He noticed that Cass’s savings account was depleted. He would be on the lookout for any other indicators of financial stress. Making some notes for follow-up, he decided to review Zane’s documents.

He was surprised to see the size of Zane’s accounts. This guy had money. Lots of money. But would he be so brazen as to steal cash from the cartel and then put it all in his domestic accounts? Hunter’s best working theory was that the stolen money had ultimately ended up offshore somewhere. But Zane’s financial situation meant he needed to do more digging. He knew Zane was former military, which also didn’t explain that amount of cash. The number of zeros was enough to make Hunter’s head spin. This man was beyond rich.

After putting in a number of hours, Hunter headed over to Elijah’s place. Hunter had decided to hang out with him while Layla saw her friends for dinner. He hated to leave her, but she’d shown him just how capable she could be. And he knew she wouldn’t be alone, because she was going to Viv’s house.

“Talk to me, man.” Elijah handed him a soda and took a seat in one of the huge chairs in front of the flat-screen TV. A game was playing, but he’d put it on mute.