The MC President's Forsaken Wife (Zara and Knox) novel Chapter 80

Chapter 53-1

The next morning

My Dad’s office has become a strange little world over the past couple of weeks.

Every available surface has disappeared beneath ledgers, invoices, shipping manifests and corporate filings, the whiteboard is covered with Locke’s neat handwriting and Jade’s increasingly enthusiastic

arrows.

Outside, I can hear the familiar soundtrack of the clubhouse garage next to us: an engine roaring into life, Tucker arguing with Brick about torque settings, Diesel insisting he hasn’t lost another wrench, despite the chorus of voices informing him that he absolutely has.

It makes me smile without thinking, because somehow the noise has become comforting. It means home. It means family. It means I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.

Locke, on the other hand, has reached that dangerous stage where he stops talking altogether.

He sits opposite me, one massive forearm resting on the table, and stares at another spreadsheet as though sheer determination might force Knox’s secrets to reveal themselves.

“You’ve been glaring at those numbers for twenty minutes,” I observe.

“They’re glaring back.”

I smile. “You losing?”

“So far.” He rubs a tattooed hand over his chiselled jaw, sighs quietly and leans back in his chair. “It doesn’t work.”

“What doesn’t?”

“The money.” He taps the papers in front of him. “Every time I think I’ve found the network and the trail, it disappears. Companies open, companies close, invoices move through three shell corporations and then…” He spreads his hands. “Nothing. It’s like trying to follow smoke.”

I study him for a moment instead of the paperwork.

He’s so beautiful when he’s thinking. Not because he’s handsome – although he most certainly is – but because there’s something quietly captivating about watching an intelligent man wrestle with a problem that refuses to cooperate.

I lower my gaze to the stack of manifests beside me.

Invoices. Shipping schedules. Warehouse leases. Insurance certificates. Payment records. Bank accounts I don’t even know what I’m looking for anymore, not exactly. Just… something. Some thread we’ve both missed.

My eyes drift lazily across another column of payment dates before moving on automatically.

Then stop.

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<Chapter 53.

frown. Without quite understanding why, I pull another file closer. Then another.

My heartbeat begins to quicken. “No…”

I whisper it so softly that I don’t even realise I’ve spoken until Locke looks up.

“What?” he asks.

Claim

I don’t answer. Instead, I reach for Cobra Limited Liability Company’s freight schedule lying beneath one of the ledgers and spread it beside my notes on Knox’s payment records. I compare one date. Then another. Then a third. The hairs on the back of my neck rise.

“Locke.”

His chair scrapes softly across the floor as he comes to stand beside me. “What is it?”

“I’ve seen this before.” I run my finger slowly down the page, then across to another document. “No… that’s impossible.”

“What are you seeing, Zara?”

I glance up at him, my pulse suddenly hammering. “Not the companies.”

His brow furrows. “So then what?”

“The dates.”

He leans closer. “What about them?”

I pull another shipping schedule from the pile, spreading it across the table until the papers overlap in every direction. “Look.”

He does, but he’s utterly blank. Then I tap the first date.

“Cobra LLC delivery.”

The next date.

“Cobra LLC shipment.”

The next.

“Another Cobra LLC shipment.”

His eyes begin moving faster now, darting between pages, and I don’t need to explain anymore. He’s seeing it too.

And what we’ve found changes everything.

An hour later, the office has officially disappeared beneath paper. Not just untidy paper, though; this is organized chaos.

I don’t even remember standing up, but at some point Locke and I both abandoned our chairs.

“It’s every major shipment that Dad’s business moves, anything with over ten trucks,” I say, laying another

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Chapter 534.

Clam

manifest on the table. “It’s mainly materials, steel and machinery deliveries for Cobra Construction, but als O restaurant supplies and equipment for the clubhouse bar. Even stuff for the garage, when it was large shipments.”

Locke nods, already adding another date to the whiteboard. “They’re all legitimate deliveries.”

“They have to be. Nobody has any reason to check them.”

“Exactly.” He circles another entry. “If a Cobra Construction building site expects ten trucks arriving, nobody blinks if eleven arrive. They’d just figure extra stuff arrived and got sent at the same time, or that somebody miscalculated the load size.”

“Christ,” I say softly. “Locke, how do I tell Dad about this? It’s going to kill him.”

Neither of us notices the office door opening, or the footsteps, or the man standing quietly in the doorway watching us. It’s only when a familiar voice breaks the silence that we both jump.

“So, either somebody died…”

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