A Dom is Forever (Masters and Mercenaries #3)(11)

“So the aunt sets up the trust fund in a way that she gets to use it free and clear?” That didn’t sound particularly fair. “Why would her parents do that?”

“Her father was the last of an old-money line. He preferred his charity work over everything else. By the time the money came to him, the industry that had created the money was gone. He wasn’t a particularly good caretaker. He spent millions on various charity projects,” Alex explained. “And when it came to lawyers, he likely figured his sister-in-law was family and wouldn’t harm him. As far as I can tell, this whole group is very na?ve.”

“Tell me about the accident. The car accident,” Ian corrected. “Is there any way the aunt was involved? She had to be mad she’d lost the money.”

They were getting off topic. Liam needed to steer it back to the case at hand. “They were driving home late one night and got into a high-speed collision with a sixteen-year-old. Brandon died instantly. The baby died a few days later. They were both on the passenger side. Avery was driving. Her spine was damaged in the accident. She was in a coma for several months. The sixteen-year-old was put on trial, but the case got tossed out over some tainted evidence.”

She’d woken up one day and her world was gone. Liam knew how that felt. Did she wonder where they were? Did she wonder sometimes if it had all been a terrible mistake and they were out there somewhere in the world wondering why she didn’t look for them? Liam knew what it meant to not have an inch of closure in the death of a loved one.

“Rough.” Ian leaned forward, looking at the file Adam had prepared. “So this was ten years ago? How long before she walked again?”

Eve frowned. “She was in and out of hospitals for years. She would spend time with Brandon’s mother in the beginning, but something happened and the Charles family seems to have cut off all communications with her by the time she was twenty. I haven’t figured out why yet. She still sends flowers on her motherin-law’s birthday, but they get sent back.”

Avery had no one in the whole world. How had that isolation affected her? Had it turned her bitter under that seemingly sweet exterior?

“She met Thomas Molina’s brother in her last rehab hospital,” Eve continued. “She underwent an experimental surgery two years ago after being accepted into a medical research study the year before. She was lucky. She was walking again within eight months of the surgery. She met Brian Molina last year. He was rehabbing a knee replacement at the same facility she was at. They formed a friendship.”

“Sleeping together?” Ian asked.

Liam took over. He knew that file as well as Eve. “Doubt it. She was fragile at the time. It doesn’t look like they had anything beyond a friendship. When Thomas Molina decided to get out of his house and into the world, Brian recommended Avery for the job of assistant and companion. Despite her lack of skills, she was hired to be the assistant to one of the world’s leading philanthropists. Brian died shortly after she was hired. Drug overdose.”

Avery wasn’t fragile now. She was strong enough to take a lover, yet it seemed she hadn’t. There was nothing in her manner with Molina that led him to believe they were truly intimate. Molina was likely interested, but Avery seemed oblivious.

He would have to make sure she wasn’t clueless when it came to him. Not at all. She would be very, very aware of him.

“The troubling part is the missing money,” Adam said.

“Missing money?” Liam hadn’t heard about missing money.

Adam turned his computer around to show the screen to Liam. “I ran her financials last night. She should have still had that million from her trust fund. Insurance and then a research fund paid for her medical care and expenses. So where’s the money? Over the course of several years she depleted the trust. Every withdrawal was in cash and was exactly nine thousand, nine hundred, and ninety-nine dollars.”

The amount stayed below the bank’s reporting regulations. Anything over ten thousand would have been reported to the government. Someone was being sneaky. Someone didn’t want records of where she was putting her money.

“Give me the full report.” It looked like Avery Charles wasn’t quite as innocent as she looked. She was like everyone else. She had her secrets.

Liam intended to discover every single one.





“Do you know a Lachlan Bates?” Avery polished off the last of her sandwich as her boss walked in the office.

She was sure he’d been trying to get to his desk for a good twenty minutes. When he refused to use his chair, he inevitably stopped to talk to everyone on the way from the lift to his office. Lift. She’d just thought lift instead of elevator. She was becoming so European.

She wished she had someone to send postcards to.

“Did I lose you, dear?” Thomas stood at her desk, leaning heavily on his cane, an amused look on his face. He had his cane in his right hand and a tablet in his left. He used the tablet the way most people used a laptop. Though his legs were frail, his fingers and hands weren’t. She’d watched them fly across the virtual keyboard before. She couldn’t text without feeling graceless.

She sighed and refocused. “Sorry. I was thinking about something.”

“You were thinking about Lydia and Frank Charles, weren’t you?” Thomas had always been brutally observant. Avery sometimes wondered if the man could read minds. “You get that wistful look on your face when you think of them. I wish you would allow me to reach out to them.”