Elf Against the Wall: A Holiday Romantic Comedy (The Wynter Brothers Book 2)
Elf Against the Wall: Chapter 4

“You fucking idiot.” My oldest brother, Hudson, didn’t even look up from his computer when I walked into the abandoned auto service garage I’d turned into a makeshift field office.

“How the hell did you get caught?” Jake, the second youngest, demanded, approaching me, coffee mug in his hand.

“Why the fuck do you care? I didn’t ask you all to be here.” I slammed my helmet onto one of the tool-laden tables, sending one of the wrenches spinning.

The scent of machine oil hung in the air. Usually, the smell calmed me, but not today. I worked the heavy gloves off my fingers, wincing at the bite on my hand.

Fucking dog. Fucking girl. Fucking job.

Talbot, the fourth youngest, was hovering in front of an oversize TV screen, watching footage from the drones Lawrence, the third youngest, was operating—Lawrence aka the only Wynter brother that I’d asked to come help me tonight.

“I thought you were watching my six,” I snarled at him, resisting the urge to bodycheck him so he didn’t lose control of the drone and send it crashing into the Murphys’ roof.

My brother grimaced.

“I was, but then…” He gestured to my other three brothers, his eyes never leaving the screen.

The drone feed was a little hazy from the snow, but with the infrared, we could make out Henry Murphy’s little sister sweeping away my boot prints, just like she’d agreed to, the little demon dog hopping around like a possessed windup toy at her feet.

“Aw, look at the little doggie! Did you see the little dog, Anderson? Anderson?” Jake nudged me. “Did you see the dog?”

“Yeah, it bit me.”

“Aw, let me see that.” Hudson took my hand, inspected the puncture marks, then flicked the bite wound hard with two fingers.

“Ow!” I shoved him.

“You deserve it for being caught.”

“I was careful,” I snarled at him.

“The fuck you were.” My older brother was up in my face now.

“This isn’t your fucking job.” I didn’t back down. “Why the fuck are you all here?”

“It’s my goddamn company, and your fuckup is about to cost us a huge client. So yeah, I say this shit show is absolutely my business,” Hudson snapped.

I ran an angry hand through my hair. “She wasn’t supposed to be there, and Lawrence was supposed to be running comms.”

“Mea culpa! Jake brought sandwiches. I thought you would be good for three minutes.”

“You should have had two people, one watching the party, one watching the house,” Hudson said flatly.

“I know how to run surveillance,” I forced through clenched teeth.

“Then act like it.”

Ignoring him, I plugged in the hard drive that I’d used to copy all of the data from tonight’s three targets, including Dr. Murphy.

“The point of this exercise is to make money, not waste it.” Lawrence jumped to my defense. “You don’t get red-carpet service to cover up a mistake.”

“Now it’s worse.” Hudson berated us as I started copying over all the files for analysis. “That girl’s going to call the police. Word will get out that we were involved with a break-in at a beloved sports surgeon’s family home. He’s done operations on half the NHL. He’s a fucking New England hero.”

“Even if she does, there’s no evidence,” Lawrence countered. “We cut into the Ring camera feeds, and Anderson didn’t leave a trace. See? No footprints.”

“Why… is she cleaning up after you?” Hudson inclined his head to the screen, where Evelyn Murphy, or Evie, as she was listed in her father’s phone contacts, was tramping back from a detached garage, a little bottle of quick-acting glue in her hands.

I looked up then quickly back at my screen.

“She and I have an understanding.”

“Did you threaten her?” Jake scoffed. “Because I’m sure that’s going to hold.”

“No, I—” Frustrated, I tapped my fingers on the mouse. “We made a deal.”

“A deal? What deal?” Hudson was back in my face now.

“I have it under control.”

My brother grabbed the collar of my motorcycle jacket roughly. “I am sick of you fucking up.”

I stared mulishly into eyes, which were identical to my own.

“And I’m sick of you lying about it to cover up your mistakes.” Hudson shook me.

“Fine. She tried to blackmail me. I’m going to make her regret it.”

“You fucking better.” He threw me back down into my seat.

Evie was back out on the back porch, shaking out the rug I’d had her pinned down on.

Her dog didn’t seem to like that very much and jumped up to clamp its sharp teeth onto the corner of the carpet while Evie yelled at the animal, trying to shake it loose.

I winced, remembering the dog’s teeth in my fingers.

“What’s its name?” Jake wore a shit-eating grin.

“Snowball,” I muttered.

“Snowball!” Jake collapsed with laughter. “Snowball the Pomeranian took down one of the most feared men in America.”

Talbot grinned and sat down next to me with a first aid kit.

“Hope you’re up-to-date on your tetanus shots.” Jake tousled my hair.

“Fuck all of you. If you’re not helping, you can leave.”

Hudson grabbed his laptop and sat next to me, glowering, but he did log into the server where I was copying the files and began wordlessly analyzing them.

“What are we looking for?”

I ignored him.

“The usual,” Lawrence said when he realized I wasn’t answering. “You know what Aaron Richmond wants.”

Jake and Talbot also grabbed files to work through while Lawrence recalled the drone and swapped the feed to one with fresh batteries.

Hudson took a breath, held it, then said, “I know you have a hard deadline for December twenty-fourth. I can ask Grayson if he could convince Aaron to give you a stay of execution.”

“That’s just going to piss him off. You know how Aaron feels about his older brother. Anyway, I have it under control,” I promised. “The Nick Steppes files definitely have what we need. The Bergeson Real Estate files should yield something, and if we’re lucky, the Murphy files will be a gold mine. Then problem solved.”

And I could ghost Evie and her deranged little dog.

“St. Nick hath blessed us!”

It wasn’t even forty-five minutes into reviewing the files that Jake got a hit on one of the Steppes files.

“It’s a smoking gun for insurance fraud.”

Talbot went to stand behind him.

“Can you—”

“Backtrack it to give the Van de Berg fraud investigators a legitimate opening for relitigating the claim? Already on it. And he acts like this is my first day on the job.”

“It’s been amateur hour tonight. You can’t blame him,” Hudson said snidely.

“Family incoming,” Lawrence announced.

There on the screen was Henry with the rest of the Murphys, all coming back from their holiday party. The world’s most perfect family.

“Now he can actually announce incoming civilians,” I remarked dryly.

I absently wondered if Evie managed to fix the statue. From reviewing all of her father’s files, he was a meticulous man with a laser-focused attention to detail.

The lights flicked on in the house. Shadows moved in front of the windows.

The light in the round attic window stayed on as the rest slowly winked out.

A few hours later, Talbot got a partial hit on the Bergeson Real Estate files.

“I think there might be something here, based on the text-message log. These people were better about covering their tracks, though.”

“Which means that they definitely were trying to commit fraud. We just need the proof.”

“Might want to see if you can’t send Skylar to fish it out of this Braeden Wallace,” Talbot suggested. “It looks like he was in contact with the Bergeson Real Estate head honchos. Based on this tragic company headshot, he’s a shallow douche.”

“This is not an official paying job,” Hudson interjected. “Skylar is expensive, and she’s busy doing actual work. You need to investigate it yourself, Anderson.”

I sat and stewed as the night progressed into morning. It was becoming more and more obvious that Dr. Murphy at least had conducted business aboveboard, and there was zero chance of insurance fraud.

“Fuck.” I leaned back in my chair.

“You can cut the drone feed. That house is clean,” Hudson told Lawrence.

“Wait. Just—”

Lawrence looked at me expectantly.

I stared at the screen as Evie, dog spinning crazily at her feet, carefully maneuvered an empty rolling grocery basket down the wide porch steps like it was a normal Saturday, like she and her family weren’t out to ruin my life.

I swore under my breath. The irritation, the lack of sleep, the stress of the impending deadline—fury at her boiled in my normally ice-cold veins.

“Blackmailed by a girl, bitten by a dog, and you didn’t even get the files we needed.” Hudson tossed his pen onto the table. “This is not a great start to the holiday season.”

“I have this under control. She’s going to learn what it means to try to fuck me over. Just…” I added. “Don’t tell Aaron Richmond.”

A cold smile spread across Hudson’s face. “I don’t have to tell Aaron anything.” He leaned in to whisper, “Because he already knows.”

I swore again.

Dr. Murphy’s social calendar was up on the screen.

“I know how to bring that girl to heel.”