I should be furious that she’d done that to me.
Why the fuck can’t I get mad at her?
I shake those thoughts away and go over to the drawers, testing them. Still locked, exactly like last time. I hadn’t had the time to come back to check the contents, distracted as I’d been by Franklin’s funeral and planning for Ezio’s arrival and the whole bullshit with Asch.
“All the stuff was in here,” I say, rattling the locked drawer.
Ezio has a key for that, too, though it takes him a moment of sorting through a keychain to find it. He pushes that into the lock and turns it, revealing the contents of the drawer.
Or rather, thelackof contents in the drawer.
The hard drive we’d kept in there is gone.
I try one of the other drawers, where we’d had paper files. Some are still there, but it’s noticeably more sparse than before.
Crap.
Pandora must have gotten to all the stuff. She’s been sitting on these files for over a week, not saying anything.
Maybe she can’t crack the encryption. There were three separate layers of protection on the hard drive alone. A simple password wouldn’t get anyone in there. There’s two factor authorization, randomized keys, and then even knowing where to find the hidden, separately password locked files.
The paper files are designed to look like generic paperwork. A lot of them have dummy information specifically to deflect away from the real information we’re hiding.
There are backups. Of course there are backups. The information is too valuable to have sitting in a single storage device, in a few flimsy papers. But it’s also information that can’t get out.
I stare at the empty drawer. Can I play it off as somebody else having taken it? Or should I pretend I have the files at my new place?
“Interesting,” Ezio says, his voice mild as he picks up one of the files of paperwork. “I thought we’d entered the new digital age, where documentation would be on a hard drive.” His eyes go to mine, boring into them.
I shake my head. “Zayden removed everything important, I think. Not that he’s been returning my calls. I haven’t seen him since the fire.”
Ezio falls silent, but he doesn’t look away from me. “He’s not answering calls, or his door, and no one has seen him,” he says calmly. “Meanwhile, important files are missing. What do you think that could mean, Blaze?”
I force myself to stay calm, despite how my heart is racing.
“Ask him,” I say. “Zayden was being a little bitch to me the entire time leading up to the fire.” I make an annoyed sound. “You know he had the balls to blame me for that other attack? Like I could somehow have predicted… well, and then poor Franklin died. It’s been a shit show around here.”
The other attack.
The one that had started this whole mess.
We still haven’t figured out why they attacked us, or who they even were beyond ‘masked fuckers.’
“Then, of course, there’s the girl,” Ezio says, as though he doesn’t know her name. “I understand she’s been thoroughly humiliated, but sheisa Pavone, and they’re wild cards at best.”
Isn’t that an understatement.
“Yeah.” I close the drawer and rest against the edge of the desk. “Well, Pandora Pavone isn’t exactly my top priority right now. The logistics of rebuilding are eating into my precious free time as it is. I’ve got projects and essays due, and meanwhile nobody else is lifting a finger.”
The frustration in my voice is real.
If Zayden were around, he’d have jumped to get his fingers all over everything. But the other frat brothers? Even the other officers? None of them are eager to get their hands dirty now. They’re satisfied that everything is over and done with, now that Pandora has been punished.
Asch would help, a small voice whispers in my mind.
Asch can’t help. He’s not somebody who needs to know about secret rooms and shady deals and holding all the influence in thepalm of your hand. He doesn’t know what it takes to lead in this world.
I don’t want him to know.
