Page 62 of Final Drive

Tyler: We tell everyone at breakfast. All of them. Then we work out how to take these two apart without anybody catching charges.

I put the phone away and start the bike.

The anger hasn’t gone anywhere, but it’s pointed at something now. Quinton thinks he’s been running this. He’s been doing it longer than us and he’s walked away clean every time before.

He’s never had eight of us come at him at once.

By the time we’re finished, he’s going to wish he had never looked in Reese Callahan’s direction.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Tyler

Breakfast is tense.

Everyone’s at the table except Reese, who’s still asleep upstairs. Gray wanted to wake her. Eli argued she needed the rest, and for once Gray let it go. So we’re sitting here with plates of eggs nobody is eating, waiting for me to explain why I called a meeting at seven in the morning.

I’ve presented to professors and recruiters and one actual board of directors. None of it feels like this, because none of it was going to break something in the room.

“Just tell us,” Gray says. His patience ran out about thirty seconds after he sat down.

I open the laptop and turn it so they can all see. “Kinsley and Quinton have been coordinating since Reese joined the crew. I found their alt accounts. They’ve been trading her schedule, her habits, where she is on campus and when.”

“We knew they were connected,” Beckett says. “Jackson saw them last night.”

“This isn’t two people hooking up.” I scroll. “Read the progression. First they’re trading information about her. Then he starts reporting back on whether she trusts him, whether she’s answering, whether she’s pulling away from us.” I stop on the line I haven’t been able to get out of my head. “Kinsley asks if he’s going to fall for her. He says she’s useful. That’s all.”

Bo leans in to read over my shoulder. The longer he reads, the harder his fingers curl around the edge of the table.

“He’s been tracking her like she’s game.”

“Yes.”

“Son of a bitch.” Zane shoves his chair back hard enough to bark against the floor. He doesn’t stand, but he wants to. “The whole time he’s been playing the nice guy and we just let her⁠—”

“We didn’t let her do anything,” Eli says. “She’s an adult and she chose who to spend time with.”

“Based on lies.”

“Which is why we’re doing this now.”

Gray hasn’t looked away from the screen. “Keep going.”

I scroll to the next set. “Three weeks ago Kinsley confirmed her designation. She saw Reese taking suppressants.” I leave the messages up long enough for everyone to read them. “They were already using Reese to get at Gray and the crew. Once they knew she was Omega, they realized they had something bigger.”

“And Gray,” Jackson says from the window. He’s been standing there since we started, arms crossed, watching everybody’s faces instead of the screen. “Quinton’s messages are clear. He wants to hurt Gray through her.”

Cameron speaks for the first time. “Why? What did Gray do to him?”

“That’s the part you need to hear.” I pull up Sophia’s emails and take a breath. “I found Sophia. The girl they both dated at Exeter.”

Gray goes rigid. “Tyler.”

“You need to hear it. All of you do.”

I summarize it as carefully as I know how, and for once careful doesn’t feel like enough. The places Quinton kept turning up. The lies about Gray. The party. The bedroom. The hand over her mouth. The person who opened the door before it went any further.

Nobody says anything when I finish.