Page 114 of Glitched Fates & Stolen Mates

“I’m getting to that. So, about two months ago, there was a knock on the door of my flat. I opened it, and it was a man and a woman, smartly dressed in suits. They flashed badges at me and basically pushed their way into my flat. We sat down, and they explained they were there because they believed that I could be in grave danger. That Priya was in grave danger.”

Rory sat up straighter. Flynn’s face paled. Seb looked like he was calculating how many people he could murder before dinner.

“They told me that Sebastián had a pattern of grooming young men and women, manipulating and using them for illegal means. That he was one of the Met’s most wanted. That this hotel was a front for criminal activity, that you definitely weren’t historical renovation specialists. And then they said that if I helped them, in exchange they would make sure that Priya was completely protected when they busted you all.”

The silence that followed was deafening. My pulse hammered against my eardrums.

“So you agreed to that,” Rory said flatly.

Emma flushed bright red. “They were very convincing.”

“I’m sure,” Flynn said, his voice tight.

Seb’s face turned thunderous. I’d never seen him quite this mad. After the day we’d had, I didn’t blame him. “Go on,” he hissed through a clenched jaw.

“So, yeah, I agreed. I started asking Priya more and more questions—casual ones about your personal lives, trying to find out more about you all. I was careful not to probe too obviously, in case she suspected something. But Priya never gave me anything to pass on that they seemed particularly interested in. The biggest thing, though…” Emma’s voice faltered, and she took a moment. “They… they got me to plant that device here. The one you found yesterday.”

Absolute silence.

Emma’s confession lingered in the air, a physical weight pressing down on our lungs. Every circuit in my head screamed: Infection. Breach. Payload deployed.

The quiet stretched. No one moved.

“When?” Seb finally spat out.

“Like… a week after they first came,” she whispered.

Flynn pushed up out of his armchair, reaching across to hug Emma. “Oh, Emma. That’s absolutely awful.”

Seb looked far from amused. I wasn’t feeling particularly sympathetic either, if I was being honest.

“So… we think this has to do with Kit?” I managed to ask.

Emma nodded miserably. “Those people—who never really told me who they were, but made out to be law enforcement of some type, I guess—seemed especially interested in Kit. They tried not to make it too obvious, but it was clear after a while. And, with that device, they wanted me to put it somewhere where it had the best chance of recording him.”

My stomach dropped.

“I told them I had no idea how I’d do that, that I’d only been to the hotel once before.”

“That time it was raining,” Priya said softly. “You dropped by the hotel after your shift, saying it was too wet to walk home. Everyone was out or upstairs. I told you to wait in the basement, and I went to make tea…”

Emma nodded. “I noticed your cameras more that time around. You can probably see me making it super obvious, glancing about the place. I had to pray that I wouldn’t be caught installing it on the staircase. God, you don’t know how sick I felt doing it.”

“Oh, we can imagine,” Seb said sarcastically.

“But… but…” Flynn said. “But you’re so short!”

Emma offered him a weak half smile. “I had to stand on the handrail. It was quite a feat. I was sure I was going to slip and break my neck.”

Seb’s head swivelled to glare at me. “Why didn’t we find this when we searched the camera feeds? Emma, alone in the basement, at least?”

If Kit was here, this would be the moment he’d leap in to defend me. But no Kit anymore. I had to defend myself.

“Well, I’ve only had one day and lots of interruptions,” I said. “You know, what with first being asked to dismantle the device, then today torturing Wren and being called to your office.”

“Torturing Wren?!” Emma exclaimed.

“Hold on…” Priya said slowly, her brow furrowed in concentration. “Emma, I’m thinking back to our conversation ages ago, where you said you’d maybe like to take up running. You were asking about Kit’s running routes. Was that all a farce?”