"It's damn close," Dallas murmured, increasing the image on his screen so much that it became a blur of pixels to my eye. "But no forgery is foolproof. This wasn't signed by Zed."
"Obviously," Zed growled from across the room. We were in my office at Copper Wolf headquarters, and Dallas was using my computer to review the signatures.
Dallas shrugged and closed the images down, then sat back in my chair. "I can't really give you much more than that. They used a standard blue-ink ballpoint, and they're-right handed. That's about it."
"That's plenty," I told him with a small smile. "I trust you'll keep this to yourself."
He jerked a nod. "Of course, sir. As always."
I indicated to the splotch of what I guessed might be baby snot on his black T-shirt. "I'll let you get home. I hope baby Maddox is behaving for you."
Dallas grimaced, but it was immediately followed by a fond smile. I got the impression he was the most doting father out there, even with his less-than-legal day job.
"He's going through a sleep regression now and only sleeps on Bree, so she's having a hard time. We'll get through it, though." He arched a lopsided smile at me, then nodded to Zed, who was trying to bandage his own split knuckles and doing a crappy job of it. "Need me to help with that?"
Zed just glared death at our resident hacker, and Dallas raised his hands defensively.
"Never mind then. I'll go." He hurried out of my office, and I crossed over to where Zed was sat with an open box of medical supplies. He'd made a hell of a mess of his knuckles on Vega's face, but it wasn't anything Zed wasn't used to.
"I can handle it," he snapped when I reached for the bandage he was fumbling.
I firmly took his hand in mine, pressing down on his split knuckles as I placed it in my lap. "I never said you couldn't," I replied, grabbing the bandage roll from the couch beside him and tearing open a fresh dressing.
Silently, I dressed his injuries, winding the bandage around the dressing patch to hold it in place on each hand then securing the ends.
"You always do it too loose," I told him with a teasing smirk.
He just glared at me, then gathered up all the wrappers and disposed of them in the trash basket under my desk.
"I do not," he muttered, returning to the sofa, then dropping onto it once more with a heavy sigh. "FBI, huh? Are you certain?"
I jerked a nod, sitting sideways to face him and leaning my head on the back of the sofa. We'd been up all night dealing with the drama at Anarchy, then spent all damn day in my office working through how this slipup had occurred in the first place. It was almost dusk again, and we both had heavy dark circles under our eyes.
"After that mess at Archer's wedding, remember the FBI sent in a couple of investigators to tick their fucking boxes because of public exposure?" I yawned, covering my mouth with my hand, then blinked sleepily at Zed. "I stopped by the church briefly to check on things while they were there. He wasn't one of the lead investigators, but I spotted him smoking beside their van. You know I never forget a face that might try to bite my ass later."
Zed huffed a short laugh, sliding down the sofa until his head rested on the back too. "True that. Wanna hear the information we got out of our good friend Detective Sambal?"
Fucking hell, I'd totally forgotten telling him to squeeze the local law enforcement. "I'm assuming if it was anything useful, you'd have told me already."
He grimaced. "You guessed it. He had no fucking clue who was pulling the strings now, only that they were paying in a currency we aren't willing to provide."
I sat up with a jerk. "No."
He nodded, yawning as he ran a hand over his face. "Unfortunately, yes. So, whoever is behind this isn't just flouting your rules about angel dust. They're also paying off the scum of SGPD with child pornography."
My stomach churned, and a shudder rippled through me. "We need to find this fucker, Zed. We need to end this. Soon."
"We will," he agreed. "He had the element of surprise, but we're on his trail now. No one gets the better of Hades, remember? You're a force to be fucking reckoned with."
I groaned, dropping my face into my hands. There was nothing to say back to that. Zed didn't want to hear my feelings of self-doubt or exhaustion. He wouldn't want to know how tired I was of being me.
He sat forward too, shifting on the sofa beside me, and swept my hair over one shoulder.
"Remind me again where we're going on vacation?" he joked, his bandaged hand cupping the back of my neck. His fingertips rubbed small, firm circles in my tense muscles there, and I exhaled heavily as I turned my face to look at him.
"Maybe when we're dead? I'll leave instructions in my will to be buried somewhere exotic." It was funny because it was probably closer to the truth than a joke.
Zed just rolled his eyes and continued rubbing my neck.
"That's probably not doing wonders for your split knuckles, idiot," I muttered, but leaned further into his touch, nonetheless.
He huffed a laugh. "Oh, sorry, want me to stop?" So damn sarcastic.
"Hell no," I groaned. In fact, I shifted around until I was lying down with my head in his lap, then yawned again. "Just get that knot at the base of my skull, then you're free to go."
"Yes, sir," he chuckled, digging his thumb into the tight spot in my neck.
Next thing I knew, I was waking up to sunlight filling my office. My cheek was resting on Zed's chest, his heartbeat slow and steady and his arm banded around my back.
I didn't immediately get up—I couldn't explain why—instead just lay there for some time, listening to his deep breaths and soaking in the way my whole body had totally relaxed, like that small massage he'd given my neck had alleviated years of tension from my limbs.
He stirred a few minutes later, his fingers flexing against my back as he woke slowly. Then he must have realized where we were—how we were sleeping all snuggled together—and his whole body stiffened up.
Wanting to spare us the awkwardness of the situation, I yawned dramatically and sat up. Zed's hand seemed reluctant to release my waist as I did so, but maybe that was just him still waking up.
"Yeah, uh, I think we both needed that," I told him with a small laugh. My hair must be all over the damn place because when he sat up, he reached out and combed his fingers through it with a slight smile.
"We did," he murmured, his voice thick from sleep.
Something about the way he looked at me, though, gave me the impression he was talking about more than our over twelve-hour nap on my office couch.
Weird.
Wrinkling my nose, I stood and smoothed my skirt down as well as possible. My shoes had been kicked off at some point, so I slipped my feet into them and headed for the mirror beside my bookshelf.
"Fucking hell, that's a good look." I wiped a finger under my eyes to try and clear some of the black smudges of mascara, then gave up. Stupid waterproof makeup.
Zed just grinned, standing up and stretching his arms above his head with a yawn. Dammit. Seph had definitely gotten into my head because I found my gaze automatically drawn to that strip of skin above his jeans when his shirt rode up.