His eyes narrow on me. “I thought I told you to stay put.”
I glower at him. “You’re out of line. We work together.”
Nolan’s gaze flicker’s to Piper’s door. “Someone in this house is leaking information. The security breach was outgoing signals centered downstairs. There’s little cell service here. They breached internet security.”
I hand him my phone. “I’m being blackmailed directly on top of it. Money in exchange for this not to go beyond what’s already been released.”
He watches the video in silence, eyes flicking between my phone screen and his own, thumbs moving at surgical speed.
Nolan rocks back onto his heels. “The ransom’s amateur hour. Account’s a dead end. But the breach is inside, not remote.”
“How sure are you?”
He looks at me like I just asked if water is wet. “It was an isolated hobby camera inside the kitchen only Kellen goes into. Did he take it down when we finally went to sleep last night?”
My stomach drops to the floor. I’m usually on top of this shit. But Kellen and Piper, this entire pack, it’s knocking me off my game. “Shit.”
“Yeah,” Nolan agrees. He taps out a command on his phone. “I’ll have server logs from external uploads on anything that came out of here in sixty seconds. Then we deal with them and this is over before it gets bad.”
I’d argue it’salreadybad, but we can sort that later.
Nolan’s phone dings. He checks it, then holds the screen out to me. “There, Susie Jones. She’s a cleaner, and she’s even working today. Clocked in an hour ago.”
“Despite being here last night,” I comment.
Nolan moves toward the grand staircase that’ll take us down to the living spaces that are cleaned first. “Care to do the honors, or should I?”
Since I’m to blame for fucking this up—not taking the camera down as I usually do, letting Kellen have his viral channel in the first place despite being in blatant violation of Palace law—Nolan should lead the arrest.
I gesture forward. “Your show.”
Two minutes later, a panicked, trembling Susie Jones stands before us while we wait for more Ravenwood security team members to appear and escort Susie off the premises with nomoney and very little chance of ever working in an official household or government position ever again.
I watch Nolan give the final orders for security to take care of removing Susie and manage to just about bury my guilt when he turns to me. “I?—”
Nolan raises his hand. “Don’t. I could’ve taken the camera down too, and I didn’t.”
That doesn’t resolve anything. “Between this and what happened at Reverie Rest, I’d say we’re doing a shit job, Pierce.”
Nolan nods and then starts pacing. “Agreed. We need to step it up.” He stops pacing. “But the crisis is handled for now… save what the king and queen might say, that is.”
“I’ll handle that one,” I offer. I’ve already been doing it for years.
“Thanks.” Nolan’s gaze flits upstairs to our clients. “We should give them the all-clear, although I’d bet my life Piper is still passed out cold.”
My eyes narrow. “I thought she didn’t sleep?”
Nolan shakes his head and smiles. “Not at night, she doesn’t.”
He heads for the stairs. I follow, but depart near Kellen’s suite. I do my normal perimeter check out of habit since I now have a pattern of missing things, apparently, but everything is fine.
Kellen’s room is still dim when I let myself inside again, but he’s sitting up now, still scrolling his phone. His expression is somewhere between resigned and… relieved?
He pats the mattress beside him. “You survived?”
I sit beside him. My hands are shaking. “It’s handled.”
He leans his head against my shoulder. “Good. Thank you.”
