Chapter 125 The Legal Strategy

"All you did was ask to see your own project’s data," Vincent said. "You’re on the team. That’s not a crime by itself. Unless they can show you pulled it off the system or handed it to somebody outside, they don’t have a case worth filing."

He stood and buttoned his jacket.

"Intent is a story. Transfer is a record. They’ve got no record."

Serena caught it right away.

To charge her they needed the act. All they had was what they thought was going on in her head, and nobody can put that in an evidence bag.

"What happens now?"

"They have to put you in front of a magistrate. That’s tomorrow morning at the latest. I’ll be there." He picked up the briefcase. "Between now and then I’m talking to Sebastian Hale, and I’m pulling everything there is on Killian Sterling and Eira Crawford."

He turned for the door.

"Vincent. Wait."

He looked back.

"Sebastian and I." She stopped. Her voice went thin. "It wasn’t his fault. I knew exactly what I was doing. Don’t put this on him."

Vincent stood there a second.

"Serena. There are other men in this country." He said it quietly. "You don’t have to keep doing this to yourself."

Her eyes filled up.

"Vincent—"

He nodded once and walked out.

-- -

Eira looked at the name on her screen. Vincent Crawford.

She typed it into a tab. Firm bio first, then about forty articles. Photos. Bar admissions in two systems. A case list long enough that she quit scrolling.

She looked at his face a while. Something moved in her chest and went quiet again before she could name it.

"Crawford’s golden boy." Lila was reading over her shoulder. "That’s who she got? How?"

"I don’t know."

"My mom is going to lose it." Lila dropped onto the couch and put her feet up. "Her family’s territory runs right up against Crawford’s. Her father and Henry’s father signed the border treaty back in the day, so the two of them got shipped to all the same things. Joint runs, treaty dinners, that summer program the Council runs for heirs. Two Alpha kids stuck at the same kids’ table for fifteen years."

Eira turned the letter over in her hands and said nothing.

"They were close. Then she mated my dad and moved out to Sterling territory, and you know how that goes. Two thousand miles, two different packs. It just stopped." Lila shrugged. "Henry found his Luna a couple years later and took over Crawford."

"Mm."

"You know what nobody prints, though?" Lila said. "Something happened in that family when Vincent was five or six. Big. Whatever it was, it broke Clara."

Eira’s thumb stopped moving on the paper.

"Henry stepped back from the Alpha seat for a while. His father took the pack again and the Beta ran the day to day. My grandfather covered a lot of it too, borders, arbitration, all of it." Lila made a face. "My mom still won’t say a word about what happened, and my mom will say anything about anybody."

"How long was he out?"

"Couple years? Then Lainey came. Born in the middle of a blizzard, which is a whole thing at Thanksgiving." Lila’s voice lifted. "Clara got a lot better after that. That’s when Henry came back."

Quiet for a second.

"Lainey shoots for magazines now. She’s good."

"How old."

"Twenty three, twenty four?" Lila looked over. "Why?"

"No reason."

Lila caught her face changing and swung the wheel hard.

"Okay, I know you have negative free time, but any chance you’d look at my companion bot? I’m dead in the water on the main controller."

"Killian said you were coming into R and D. We just signed with Sterling."

"That’s the recon platform. Forty pounds and ugly." Lila waved it off. "Mine’s small. Domestic. About ten times smarter than anything on a shelf right now."

"I’ll look," Eira said. "Robotics isn’t my field. You’ll need four or five chips in that thing and I can help with two."

"YES." Lila got both arms around her. "Going on record. My brother does not deserve you."

Eira went still. "What?"

"Nothing." Lila let go, grinning. "Ignore me."

They spent the rest of the afternoon talking and laughing.

Alpha Sebastian spent his getting taken apart.

The Hale Group board first thing, two hours of it. Then the Carter shareholders, who came in smiling and left without shaking anybody’s hand. Then his own executive team, who were more scared than angry, which was worse.

By five thirty he sat down in his own chair and felt like somebody had reached in and pulled his spine out through his back.

Jordan set a glass of water on the desk.

"Ms. Winthrop was released about an hour ago. No charges filed. She’s still under investigation."

"And the attorney?" Alpha Sebastian pressed the bridge of his nose and drank half the glass.

"She brought in her own. Vincent Crawford. He’s downstairs. He’d like fifteen minutes."

Alpha Sebastian knew the name. Everybody knew the name.

"He wants to see me?"

"Whether she gets charged comes down mostly to what you say. His words."

Alpha Sebastian had seen that coming since yesterday. He nodded. "Send him up."

Jordan called the front desk.

Downstairs, the receptionist handed Vincent a key card. "Top floor, sir."

He stepped into the elevator.

His phone went off as the doors opened.

Associate: Mr. Crawford, Hale and Dr. Crawford dissolved their mate bond. Filing went final last week.

Vincent stopped with one foot out of the car.

[So Hale had actually done it. For Serena.]

And the dates said he’d done it before the broadcast. Before anybody in the country knew who Eira Crawford was.

"Mr. Crawford?" Jordan was in the hall. "Right this way."

Vincent put the phone away and followed him in.

The two men Serena had wrapped her life around finally stood in the same room.

"Vincent Crawford."

"Sebastian Hale."

One handshake. Short.

Vincent didn’t sit down first and didn’t waste anything.

"One question. Did Serena Winthrop ever talk to you about project data?"

Alpha Sebastian looked at him a long time.

Vincent held it. "You can talk to me, Mr. Hale. She did something for me once. I owe her, and she knows it."

Alpha Sebastian’s jaw moved.

But he answered.

"She brought it up. I shut it down."

"Brought it up." Vincent’s eyes came up off the pad.

Alpha Sebastian got it. "No. She didn’t."

"Good." Vincent’s voice dropped. "Hold onto that. Serena Winthrop never said one word to you about that program. Not on a call, not over dinner, not in a text at two in the morning. If it’s in writing somewhere, I need to know tonight and not from an agent."

"It isn’t."

They went another twenty minutes. What the Bureau already had, what they’d come asking for next, where Alpha Sebastian was exposed and where he wasn’t.

Alpha Sebastian checked his watch three times.

Vincent noticed the third one.

"Somewhere you need to be?"

"Yeah." Alpha Sebastian’s mouth pulled tight. "I have to find somebody."

"Serena?"

"No." He stopped a second. "My wife. Eira."

Vincent closed the pad.

"Mr. Hale, I read the filing on the way up." He said it evenly. "She isn’t your wife."