Page 135 of Ballrooms & Blackmail

He exhales slowly then moves over to me. “You need to see something.”

The room goes silent.

Completely silent.

Except for my pulse pounding in my ears, so loudly I can barely think.

I force myself upright, force myself to breathe as he places his phone in front of me and?—

The first picture is of me and Thorn at my apartment complex, him leaning down to kiss me.

“Oh, God,” I say. “They?—”

He swipes, pulling up a different picture and?—

“No,” I whisper, my stomach churning, bile burning the back of my throat.

Because Thorn is on the screen, his body prone, his eyes closed, blood pooled beside him.

“No,” I say again. “No!”

The room suddenly feels too small. I can’t breathe. The walls are closing in. The ceiling is collapsing. The windows are shattering—or maybe that’s my heart?—

“Breathe, sweetheart,” Pascal orders softly, his hand settling between my shoulder blades.

“Not Thorn,” I whisper. “Please not Thorn.”

Not now.

Now when we finally?—

Pascal’s phone rings again, the sound slicing through me.

“Yeah?” he says after swiping across the screen and lifting it to his ear. He listens for a heartbeat then goes ramrod stiff. “What?” he snaps. “Well, fucking cut the feed and check all the others. Immediately.” He jabs at the phone, ending the call.

“What’s happened?” Attie asks.

“We’ve been hacked.” He drops his cell on the counter, shoves his hands through his hand, more on edge than I’ve ever seen him. “We need to do a full scrub of our systems.”

“How is that even possible?” she asks.

“Fuck if I know,” he grits out. “But we’re going to find out.” He jerks his chin toward the phone in her hand. “You need to check your channels too. They knew Thorn was leaving and they grabbed him in the middle of the fucking street in the middle of the fucking day. Which means that we’re all at risk, Ats. We need to move now.”

Her eyes come to mine for a single heartbeat and the bleakness in them somehow doesn’t send my panic skyrocketing.

They’re worried.

They’re scrambling and spinning.

And I’m…

Everything calms.

I can breathe, can think.

Can fucking figure this out.

“Call them back,” I say softly.