Page 119 of Beautifully Scarred Omega

Sophie walks past me into the living room. I watch Max angle his body slightly away from her as she passes and Sophie’s hand tighten on the box when his sleeve brushes her arm. Neither of them looks at the other. Sophie sets the box on the coffee table and Max reaches over and removes the throw blanket from the couch to give her space to sit.

Interesting.

Ethan appears from the kitchen with four mugs of tea. He hands one to Sophie, one to Max, one to me, keeps one for himself, and then he sits down and opens his notebook.

“Right,” I say. “Shall we begin?”

We spread everything across the living room.

Sophie drops to the floor, cross-legged, her laptop open on the coffee table in front of her. Papers fan out around her in a semicircle—background checks, access logs, communication records, timeline charts. She arranges them efficiently, like someone who’s built a hundred case boards in a hundred temporary spaces, and within two minutes the coffee table has disappeared under a mountain of evidence.

Ethan settles beside her on the floor, his back against the couch, his notebook on his knee. He reaches across for a stack of access logs and starts reading without being asked, his pen already moving, annotating margins.

Max takes the armchair that faces the room. He sits back, one ankle crossed over his knee, a stack of communication records in one hand, his coffee untouched beside him.

I’m on the couch, legs stretched along the cushions, Diana’s personnel file open on my lap.

We stay like that for a while, each of us immersed in the work, the room quiet except for the rustle of pages and the scratch of Ethan’s pen.

“Victor Hartman has been cleared,” Sophie says. “I can’t believe we missed it initially and Synthera’s records didn’t show it, but he’s married. Declan found the records. He’s also having several affairs and he’s using his work phone for encrypted personal communications because his wife monitors his personal device. The military-grade encryption was sourced through a private cybersecurity company—Declan’s team was able to trace the purchase. So it’s paranoid infidelity, not espionage.”

“He’s married?” I say. “He asked you out on a date and he’s married?”

“With several affairs, apparently,” Sophie says, her tone flat.

Ethan shakes his head. “Military-grade encryption to hide his affairs. That’s almost impressive in its stupidity.”

“Yeah,” Sophie says, closing Victor’s folder. “At least we’ve cleared him now, where Synthera is concerned.”

“How did the dinner go?” Ethan asks.

“Quick,” Sophie says. “It didn’t take me long to figure him out.”

“And the drive?” I ask casually, looking at Sophie, then at Max.

Sophie’s eyes dart to Max then back to her laptop. “It was fine.”

Max glances at her and shifts in his chair.

Ethan and I look at each other.

I can see it too, Eth.

Sophie is already moving on.

“Now that Phoebe and Victor are cleared, we only have one suspect left,” she continues.

“Diana Quinn,” Max says.

“Yes.” Sophie pulls a thick folder from the box and opens it on the coffee table. “Former Nexagen employee. Eighteen months at Synthera. PhD in pharmaceutical chemistry. Hired by Yoon’s team after a competitive interview process.” She spreads the pages. “On paper, she’s clean. No unexplained income and no debts. And she’s good at her job—genuinely good. I’ve seen her work with the omegas in the clinical wing and I can tell she really cares about them and what Synthera is trying to do.”

“But,” Ethan says.

“But.” Sophie taps a page. “Phone to the bathroom every single time she goes. A browser window she minimizes the second anyone walks by—and she nearly jumps out of her chair doing it. And this.”

She pulls up a spreadsheet on her laptop. “Diana’s been accessing formulation files outside her project scope. Three times in the last week—files she has no reason to open. Pre-launch formulations for products that haven’t been announced yet.”

“She could be cross-referencing,” Ethan says. “Researchers do that.”