And speaking of my last sexual conquest, I thought as Damien entered the room.
We’d spent several days in bed with his current playmate, Tracey. I’d rather enjoyed the experience but caught on quickly that Damien felt an inkling of possessive intent toward the girl. So I’d backed off. It wasn’t in my repertoire to submit, and I suspected he would demand it if we played too much.
Still, it had been an enlightening few days.
Damien had talents any man or woman would consider admirable.
His golden-brown eyes met mine, but it wasn’t lust shining up at me now so much as determination. A few clicks on his phone wiped the screen from the wall and replaced it with a spinning circle at the center. Little document icons floated around it, compiling into a glowing folder.
“What the hell is that?” I demanded.
“Lilith’s phone,” he explained. “Some sort of countdown began a few hours ago, and I’ve been trying to track the source. And then ten minutes ago, I found that data stream flowing through an unsecure connection. I’ve already started downloading copies of them to our own servers.”
“What’s in the files?” Darius asked.
“I don’t know.” Damien sounded frustrated. “They’re encrypted, and I won’t be able to gather them all until the download is complete, which, according to the clock, is going to take at least a day. But what concerns me more is the countdown.” He clicked on an icon in the top left, bringing up the screen.
Thirty-six hours until self-destruct. Please make the appropriate preparations, and thank you for your service.
My eyes widened as I read the message.
“I think it’s related to the lab,” Damien said before I could ask. “Either someone knows she’s dead and set off a trigger to destroy all the evidence of whatever the fuck she’s been doing, or her death somehow set off a series of fail-safes. And then there’s this.”
Another message popped up.
Toxin malfunction.Will address immediately. —Dr. C.
“That message is actually how I found the files. I think they’re linked somehow because they’re coming from the same source.” He shuffled the images around again to pull up a map. “Dr. C. appears to be located in former upstate Michigan, which is also where the files are coming from.”
“Lilith Region,” I translated.
“It’s also a short flight from Chicago,” Darius added, meeting my gaze. “That’s where the lab is.”
A clock appeared on the screen, the hour mark set at twenty-nine and counting down.
Then it froze and a new message scrawled across the screen.
Detection protocol enabled.
I frowned. “Detection? As in… us?”
10:00:00.
“Oh, fuck,” I breathed. “We just lost twenty hours.”
“Because it sensed my trace through some backdoor safety measure,” Damien muttered. “Shit.” He shut everything down on the wall and met my gaze. “I’m coming with you. Whatever traps she’s left at that lab are likely technical in nature. You need me.”
I didn’t argue. “Yes.” All of this reeked of Lilith’s penchant for strategy. She probably had some sort of fail-safe tied to her essence, thus igniting a series of protective procedures in the event of her death.
And one of those would very likely lead to the destruction of Cam.
“When do we leave?” I demanded.
“Rick is already preparing a plane for departure,” Damien replied. “I just need to gather some toys and we’ll be ready.”
I glanced at Darius. “Juliet staying or traveling?”
“Traveling,” he said without missing a beat. “She’s still in training, but she grows stronger every day. It won’t do her any good to leave her here when she could learn something out there.”
