Page 82 of Dark Billionaire Stalker
"What time is it?" Her voice is rough with sleep.
"Early. Go back to sleep."
She studies my face, and I see the moment she notices something is wrong. She's perceptive—too perceptive, sometimes.
"What happened?"
"Nothing. Business."
"Gabriel." She props herself up on one elbow. "You're lying."
I should deflect. Should distract her with my hands, my mouth, the reliable alchemy of her body against mine. But something in her expression stops me—a directness that demands honesty.
"Someone's been asking questions about you," I say carefully. "Digging into your background."
Her face goes pale. "Who?"
"I'm not sure yet. I have people looking into it."
"Is it..." She swallows. "Is it connected to what I saw? At the gala?"
The question is so far from the truth that I almost laugh. She thinks this is about the murder. About her being a witness, a loose end.
She has no idea.
"I don't know," I say, which is technically true. "But I'm handling it. You're safe here."
"Safe." She repeats the word like she's tasting it. "You keep saying that. But I don't think I've been safe since the moment I walked into your ballroom."
"You're safer with me than without me."
"Is that supposed to be comforting?"
"It's supposed to be true."
She holds my gaze for a long moment. I can see the questions churning behind her eyes—questions she wants to ask, doors she wants to open. But she doesn't push. Not yet.
"Okay," she says finally. "I trust you."
The words hit me harder than they should. Trust. She trusts me. This woman, who's seen me standing over a corpse,who knows what I'm capable of, who has every reason to run—she trusts me.
I don't deserve it. I know I don't deserve it.
But I'll take it anyway.
I spend the rest of the morning in my study, poring over the files Hutton sends. Zach's history with the Brotherhood. Daniel's crime and conviction. The exile that stripped Zach of everything he'd built over thirty years.
The picture that emerges is of a man with nothing left to lose. Dangerous. Patient. And now, apparently, focused on Poppy.
But why?
I keep coming back to the questions about her mother. The name change documents. The specific interest in Linda's history before she became Linda Rivers.
What does Zach know that I don't?
I pull up Josiah's original research—the file he compiled weeks ago, when I first became interested in Poppy. Linda Marsh, born in a small town two hundred miles from here. Changed her name when Poppy was two. Moved frequently. Kept a low profile.
And before that—almost nothing. A few utility bills. A lease on an apartment. Poppy's birth certificate with the father listed as unknown.
