Page 83 of Road to Redemption

Dom blinked, catching up with Leo’s line of reasoning as the Major smiled proudly at the breakthrough. “If a cache like that exists, it would have to be somewhere with a lot of physical room to store the drivers. But you guys are a tech company. You’ve gotta have some sort of server room or⁠—”

“No,” Dom frowned, pulling on her helmet. “It’s too risky, and there’s no benefit for the cause. Isaac’s already gotten too close to our scent. I don’t need to give him extra chances to catch me breaking his rules.”

“There is a benefit, though,” I piped up, earning a steely glare from Dom. “Email evidence like that doesn’t just look bad for the people Isaac was blackmailing. I bet there’s plenty in there to implicate Isaac and Gabriel — all of their lackeys, really. We have no idea what they have planned for us, but evidence like that could be the difference between taking them down or dying under their thumb.”

The words came out a bit more dramatic than I’d intended, but the sentiment hit all the same. I could tell that, despite her stubbornness, Dom was tempted to say yes. She just needed one final push.

Leo glanced over her shoulder at me for support, and I nodded.

I’ll back you. Make the ask.

Then, rolling back her shoulders, Leo crossed her arms over her chest. “Listen, I know that I’ve been cooler than Kiera and Spencer about the bullshit you spun all of us on. But that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook with me. I don’t ever ask you for anything. You owe me, Dom. And I’m coming to collect. Get me the emails, and we can call it even.”

Dom’s eyes took on an icy edge at Leo’s demand. But the sharp irritation quickly melted down into resignation. Between my pleading look and the threat of losing her friendship with Leo, Dom knew she was backed into a corner.

“Fine,” she growled, twisting the ignition on her bike. “But I won’t put the mission in danger to do it.”

Leo smirked as Dom lifted her kickstand. “Thank you, Dom.”

But Dom just shook her head, “You know, for a second, I thought you might not be as needy as the others.”

“Love you too,” Leo laughed as Dom flicked down her visor and peeled out of the carriage house. Her hulking form quickly transformed into a tiny black dot on the horizon, and then to nothing at all.

And though I knew this had been a victory, a pit still grew in my stomach as I watched her disappear: both at the thought of the horrible shit she might find, but also at the potential consequences if she was caught.

Was the risk we were taking worth the reward? And would anything we found really help us take down the man at the top of it all?

44

KIERA

How long does it take to find a few emails?

I drummed my fingers along the arm of the chair in the living room.

It had only been a few days since Leo asked Dom for her favor. But that didn’t stop me from getting nervous to see what Zeus and Isaac were hiding.

Spencer and Leo were busy with their own distraction, sitting next to each other on the couch. They’d plugged in some gaming console and booted up the latest Call of Duty game.

Between matches, as they waited for a new lobby to load in, I could see the anxiety wash over them both.

My eyes caught on Spencer, her brows furrowed tight as she brushed her messy hair out of her face.

“Spence?” I asked, tilting my head.

“Yeah?” Spencer gasped for air like she’d forgotten to breathe.

“You okay?”

Nodding, Spencer shrugged. “Just a lot.”

Leo leaned back into the couch and turned to look at her friend. “Do you want to elaborate, champ?”

“It’s Caleb.” Spence sighed. “At laser tag, he was asking about his mom.”

“About what she was like?”

Spencer shook her head. “No, like what happened to her.” Before either of us could push, Spencer waved her hand. “I pushed him off for the night but he keeps texting about it. He wants real details, not just the bullshit I used to tell them.”