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“Mathew doesn’t have a whole organisation for nothing, and neither does Erika.” I ignore Jorge’s growl. “We’ll figure out a way. You know that we can. You know that we won’t stop until they’re safe.”

Riley’s pheromones change, just a little, more focused, determined, still very dangerous. “And until then, they’ll be safe here. Protected by everyone. We won’t let them out of our sights until we know that nobody will ever put them in danger ever again.”

She moves, touching Luca’s cheek tenderly before hugging both of them close again. “And I’ll ask if Sam can come with them. He helped me when they rescued me from the Diamonds. He’s got experience with people who’ve been held by the Suits.”

Of course. I hadn’t even thought about that. His problems won’t be solved in just a few days, but we can make a start. If he gets the right help, we might be able to deal with the worst of it and take a bit of stress off everyone, especially off Luca.

Riley’s words and change in pheromones seems to ease some of the tension in the room. By far not enough of it, but it’s a start.

“We’re safe here.” I kiss the top of Vera’s head. “We’re all safe here, in the house. As long as we’re all together, we’ll be safe. All of us, including Luca.”

Vera slowly nods, her pheromones softening as she glances at me.

Everyone is on edge, nobody feels safe, and since everyone is also at the end of their energy, exhausted, wrung out, emotions and pheromones are running high. Making everything so much worse, making every curve up into a peak and every curve down into a crater.

It’s dangerous, but then, dangerous is basically the norm here, so I’m sure we’ll make it work.

Somehow.

Hopefully without too much blood and no dead bodies…

10

Mathew

“How many times has it happened since Vera and Caleb got here?” I stare at the laptop screen, my mouth open, ice running through my veins as Timothy shows me clips of what he calls ‘blips’, strange static in the security feed.

“It happened a few times between when Hubert first came here to hire you and when they arrived. And has happened a couple of times since then.” Timothy’s voice is tense, trying to avoid clearly answering.

“How many?” I look straight at him, I need exact numbers.

“Twenty-one times in total. Multiple people went over the footage, it’s twenty-one times, no more”

That’s not ‘a few times’, that averages out to more than once a week. “And you didn’t tell me about this, why?”

“You had enough—” When he sees the look in my eyes, he reaches out to another laptop and clicks around.

“I set up a second set of cameras and other security measures around the perimeter, on a separate system. That system has been working fine the whole time, no interference, no blips, all clean. I’ve been using the second system for our security, and I’ve been running a program on the first that acts like we’re still using it, in case it’s being monitored. I didn’t tell you about it because I first wanted to be sure what was going on.”

He turns to me. “When we realised that something was up the night Vera and Caleb arrived, I immediately beefed up our security. At no point before or since then was our security ever down. And nothing unusual has happened on any of our other systems.”

“Apart from the ‘blips’ on our perimeter security…” Which are a pretty big deal.

Timothy nods. “On the system we’ve been keeping running but haven’t relied on.” He puts extra emphasis on the last words. “Our security is still good.”

“And how are you so sure that they’re not aware that you’re running a secondary security system on the perimeter?” The Hearts, or whoever are doing this, aren’t dumb, they understand how security works.

I really wish Timothy had told me about this sooner because I suddenly feel a lot less sure about our safety. Especially now there are a lot of people here, not just us, but also Luca’s family and the kids we rescued.

“They only tapped into the system on our perimeter, not any of the ones that are closer to the house or other buildings. We run the systems separately for this exact reason. This also meant that we were able to set up new cameras and sensors that could keep an eye on both what the perimeter system is supposed to look at and keep an eye on the cameras themselves.”

He pulls up a different program. “The new system fully runs from a generator, so there’s no difference in our electricity use, in case they’re also monitoring that. And we’re buying fuel for the generators with cash when we’re in the city for something else. I know that you told us to replace any cameras and systems that could have been affected the night Vera and Caleb arrived, but that seemed like a waste of time and energy. This way, I could keep an eye on what’s going on while still keeping the security up.”

“Much good that has done you. You still don’t know what’s going on.” I generally don’t immediately involve myself with the running of this place, unless I really have to, trusting that Derrick and Timothy will handle it, so I can focus on the running of the organisation instead.

“I know that I’ve been distracted since Vera and Caleb arrived, but I would have liked to have known about this before finding out that there’s a bounty on my whole pack, the family of one of my pack members and a whole bunch of kids, who are all living in my house at the moment.”

I sit down, my head spinning and my stomach is starting to become unhappy. “Tell me you’ve got good news?”