Asch pulls her against him, kissing her hard. His hand slides up her back until it’s resting at the back of her neck. He squeezes lightly then draws back enough so he can look at her properly. “You okay?” he asks, his voice quiet.
Something dark flickers across Pandora’s expression. “We established that I’mfine, Asch.” She pushes him away, then gets off my lap to retrieve something from the duffel bag.
The external drives that had been set up to store all the blackmail material we’d collected from our frat members. It’s backed up in other places, but that anyone outside the frat even had access is… not great.
As we’ve already experienced.
“So, any idea of what to do with all this stuff so we can get Samantha back?” Pandora asks. “I assume uploading this to some leak website isn’t going to get us what we want.”
“Doubt it,” River says, shaking his head. “But maybe if there’s something on Ezio, we could pressure him to help us?”
He doesn’t sound convinced.
“No. Ezio would go right to Blaze’s dad if we even tried it,” Asch says.
“Who even is that dickwad?” Pandora asks. She sits down on the coffee table, and I’m glad the place came with a sturdy one and not the delicate glass coffee table in my parents’ living room. “Blah blah, former frat member, but he has to besomebodyif he’s trusted with all this bullshit, right?”
I shrug. “He joined the Syndicate after he graduated. I don’t remember all the details, I wasn’t exactly part of the business yet. He showed up for meetings a few times.”
“I don’t know if he’s putting on a front or if he actually knows as much as he’s pretending to, honestly.” Asch glances at Pandora. “He’s positive you’re involved with Zayden’s disappearance, and he’s going to keep sniffing around until he figures something out.”
“Ugh.” Pandora taps her foot against my shin. “Can’t you tell him to back off? You’re the Bouchard heir!”
“What do you think I’ve been trying to do?” I grumble. “But he isn’t taking any hints, and my dad wants him here, so I can’t get rid of him entirely.”
“We need to work around him, then,” River says.
“And how do you plan on doing that when he’s right in the middle of everything?” Asch asks, sitting on the edge of the couch.
“I don’t know!” River snaps.
“I guess we could stab him?” Pandora suggests.
“No!” River and Asch both shout.
“Okay, shut up, all of you.” I get up and rush up the stairs. I hear them still arguing even after I leave. I grab my laptop,barely remembering to unplug it, then rejoin everybody in the living room.
“Tell me you have cables for those drives,” I say to Pandora.
She holds up a bunch of cables. “Tell me your laptop has ports of any kind.”
“Not just ports. It even has a headphone jack,” I say smugly.
“Ohh, a headphone jack,” Asch drawls. “How quaint.”
“I haven’t seen one of those on a computer in a long time,” River comments. “But we don’t need one of those. Just put it on speaker. May as well hear what Pandora already knows.”
“I had to pay extra for that,” I grumble. “So I can use proper headphones with good sound quality—ugh, never mind.” I set the laptop down on the coffee table and plug in the drive.
I’m dismayed when I find it opens without a password prompt at all. I wonder how Pandora got past all the security.
I click around until I find the folder I want. Pandora leans closer to look over my shoulder.
“Are these folders organized?” she asks. “It all looks like random letters and numbers.”
“Of course they’re organized.” I have to back out of the current folder and go to another one. I’d been off by a year, but I find Ezio’s confessional video.
I start it up and fullscreen it.
