“Why didn’t you tell me first?” I ask. “You’ve known from the beginning that I’m investigating him and his company for the death of one of his employees.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “At first, I didn’t think the two were related. I still don’t know. His high-end restaurants are run out of a completely different division from his chain restaurants. Either way, once I found out the truth, I confronted him and told him to resign from the Group or I’d tell them myself.”

“But you still haven’t gone to them.”

“Because I gave the thumb drive to you instead,” he confesses. “I’ve known all along that Blackmon isn’t worth two fucking pennies. That’s why, after my uncle died and I took over the company, I severed business ties with him almost immediately.”

“He’s still a club member, though,” I remind him.

“He was,” Dae counters. “That was part of the deal to end our business relationship. He’d stay on as a member, paying only half the typical annual fee while relinquishing his twenty percent ownership. But since I learned about the bribery, I used it to cancel his membership.”

“When?” I demand to know.

“A week ago.”

I nod as the pieces start to come together. “And you demanded he go to the Global Group to resign.”

“Yes,” he answers immediately.

“That must’ve pissed him off enough that he came to see me,” I surmise.

Dae’s face hardens in a way I’ve never seen before. In his eyes, I see storm clouds brewing.

“He shouldn’t have done that.” His voice is so low I almost don’t hear him. The coldness in it causes the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up.

“Why?” I push. “Because you’re pissed that he exposed the fact that you lied to me?”

“I just explained that what I told you when you first came to me wasn’t a lie. As far as I’m concerned, Blackmon and I still don’t have a working relationship.

“He’s as good as gone from the Global Group. He was trying to buy his time by going to you. He tried to rattle me, but he just signed his own grave, which is all he did.”

Dae starts to head toward the stairs, but my hands on his chest stop him.

“Where are you going?” I ask.

“To make some phone calls.”

I shake my head. “No.”

“No?” Those clouds in his eyes only grow more tumultuous. “I should’ve done this last night when you told me he came to your office. Now he’s going to pay for getting you involved.”

“Dae, stop,” I protest. “First of all, I was already involved. Are you forgetting that we even got to know one another because I came to you seeking information about him?”

Some emotion I can’t readily identify peeks through the storm clouds, but it’s gone in the blink of an eye.

“If he believes you’re on to whatever other shit he’s involved with, you could be in danger. Especially since the bastard was bold enough to come to your job.”

“It also tells me he’s not smart,” I retort. “He’s prone to act on emotion rather than intellect. He came to visit me because he wanted to see what I knew. He tried to steer me in a different direction.

“He told on himself, and I know if I keep investigating, he’ll do it even more.”

“Which is still putting you in danger.” Dae shakes his head and tries to take a step around me. I know he’ll make that phone call to whomever he was going to in the first place.

“No,” I insist, my hands on his chest again. “So far, there’s no reason to believe he’ll act out violently. He’ll work to cover his tracks, and because he’s sloppy, the more he does, the more he’ll reveal. I’m this close to uncovering the dark, underhanded network he’s involved in. Just …”

I push out a breath. “You asked me to trust you, and now I’m asking you to do the same for me.”

A muscle in his jaw ticks. An internal fight rages in his eyes.

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