The MC President's Forsaken Wife (Zara and Knox) novel Chapter 145

Chapter 83-1

I sit opposite Locke wearing one of his oversized shirts and a soft pair of dark leggings, my legs tucked beneath me and my hair twisted into a messy knot that stopped pretending to be presentable hours ago.

“Show me again,” I say, resting my chin in my hand.

Locke rotates his laptop screen toward me, his long fingers resting on the edge of the chassis. “This specific corporate entity right here.”

I squint at the screen, reading the official filing name. “Hawthorne Logistics LLC. Hmmm. You know, I remember it.”

“You remember practically everything,” Locke notes.

“That’s the only reason you keep me around, I know.”

“Well, that, and your famously agreeable disposition.” He pauses. “And your amazingly hot ass.”

I grin at him, then return my focus to the screen. Hawthorne Logistics. The name’s been quietly bugging me since nine o’clock this morning. I close my eyes. Not to rest, but to force the memory into focus.

picture Knox’s private home office. He’d asked me to bring him a fresh cup of coffee and then immediately stepped out to take an urgent phone call. I’d looked down at the desk. I wasn’t deliberately snooping, I was just looking. But because I looked, the image remained burned into my mind.

“Hawthorne Consulting,” I say, opening my eyes.

Locke’s hand stills. “What did you say?”

“It wasn’t Logistics,” I clarify, the memory solidifying. “The registered entity I saw years ago was Hawthorne Consulting Group.”

“Where was it incorporated?”

“Delaware, I think. Wait… I remember the registered agent address.”

That immediately gets his full, undivided attention. I recite the street address from memory, and Locke’s fingers fly across the keys in a rapid sequence of commands. He pulls up corporate databases, running

search after search.

“There it is,” he says, turning the screen back toward me.

Hawthorne Consulting Group was officially dissolved four years ago, but its primary registered agent is identical to the one currently assigned to Hawthorne Logistics.

“He didn’t build entirely new fraud structures from scratch,” I say slowly, watching the money trail move seamlessly from the dissolved entity to the active one. “He simply renamed the pipeline.”

“Yes,” Locke agrees flatly.

“Oh

my

God,” I whisper, dragging one of the printed transaction sheets closer. “Look at the names he used for these companies. Hawthorne. Mercer. Valecrest. Northgate.”

Chapter 83

Locke’s gaze sharpens. “What about them?”

“They aren’t just random corporate words. They’re locations.”

“Locations?” he echoes blankly. “You mean towns?”

Claim

“Hotels, actually,” I say, a cold knot forming in my stomach. “Hawthorne is a hotel in Boston, Mercer is in Chicago. Northgate is in Vancouver.”

Locke watches me carefully, catching the subtle shift in my posture. “And Valecrest?”

I swallow hard, the taste of ash in my mouth. “A luxury mountain resort in Colorado.”

“Have you been to these hotels?” he asks me. “With Knox?”

“No,” I say, my voice trembling slightly. “I’ve never been to any of them. Valecrest is the resort where he took Becca for a three-week getaway. I found the hotel receipts in his pants pocket. All of these names – every single one of them are the hotels where Knox took his mistress whole we were married.”

The intense nausea that surges up through my throat has absolutely nothing to do with chemotherapy.

“He named his shell companies after the hotels he took Becca to,” I whisper, staring at the paper in revulsion. “That’s completely fucked up.”

“It’s exceptionally fucked up,” Locke agrees quietly. “And professionally, it’s extraordinarily useful.”

“To a narcissist like Knox, internal tracking systems need to mean something personal to them,” Locke explains. “It allows them to mentally track their assets without writing down an obvious map. Every hotel corresponds to a specific timeframe, a specific account, or a specific phase of his hidden capital.”

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