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I shook off that worrying thought and focused on her words as she continued. “The reason I was at the docks is because we had a tip-off that the dogs were being held at an Alstone Holdings location. All I was doing was sneaking down there to check it out. As it was, I found nothing. No evidence.” Her gaze shifted slightly to the left, and I studied her closely. She seemed cool and collected, but I could see where she was digging her nails into her palm. There was something more she wasn’t telling us, I’d bet money on it.
“Now you know, and that’s it. Satisfied?”
“Not even slightly,” Cassius growled. “I’ll say it again, how did you get into this shit?”
“Save it for another day, mate.” Weston frowned at him. “It’s late, we’re all tired and on edge. Lena? You want a lift home, or do you wanna stay here?”
“I’ll stay,” she said decisively. “I’m tired, and I already told Mum I wasn’t coming home tonight. And yes, she knows I’m with you, Cass, before you ask.” With that she left the room, with a final glare at Cassius, and I heard her stomping off up the stairs.
I exchanged glances with my boys, before speaking to Winter in a low voice. “Do you think she was telling us everything?”
Winter shifted, moving so she was sideways on my lap, and tilted her head to face mine. “No, I don’t. Not for one minute.” She bit her pouty bottom lip, deep in thought, and my gaze zeroed in on her mouth. Fuck me, she was sexy. I leaned forwards, running my thumb over her mouth.
“Enough of the lip biting, Snowflake. You’re making my dick hard.” I kissed her, unable to hold back, and she sighed, putting her arms around my neck, scraping her nails across the back of my neck and making me shiver.
“Can you not do that now? Please.” We sprang apart to see Weston throwing us a pained look.
“Sorry,” Winter said, although she didn’t sound sorry at all. “Do you have anything from Mercury?”
“Yeah, and if you two would pay attention for one minute, I could show you. You wanna see it on the big screen, so we don’t have to crowd around my phone?”
We followed him into the computer room, and he sat down in front of his giant monitors, typing madly on his keyboard.
A file appeared on the screen. A normal, innocent-looking file icon.
It was the name of the file that caused my breath to catch in my fucking throat.
Andromeda.
FOUR
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Andromeda. I stared at the screen. “West? What’s this?” My voice came out weak and breathless.
“We’ll go through it now. We have a problem, though. Before we look at the file, there’s something you all need to know.” He spun in his chair to face us; his gaze serious. “I think Mercury knows who I am. Who we are.”
“What?” Caiden hissed from behind me.
“The whole thing is fucking weird. I’ve never told Mercury the details of Winter’s dad’s death, or anything to do with that. But this file?” He paused, and his eyes met mine. “Mercury retrieved this file from the storage servers at the university your dad worked at. It was an encrypted file, in a folder full of all his university research. Pretty well hidden, but also hidden in plain sight, if that makes sense? Since it was in with all his other astronomy-related stuff.”
“I-I don’t understand.” My heart was pounding, and I couldn’t make sense of what Weston was saying.
Caiden’s arms came around me, and he took my shaking hands in his. His presence bolstered me, and I took a deep breath. “So you’re telling me that Mercury knew where to look for this file, without knowing about my dad?”
“Yeah.” His gaze was full of worry. “I don’t know what’s going on. Unless Mercury somehow managed to hack into our own secure storage to get the stuff we saved on there and found out that way, but I’ve put so many layers of security on it, it would take him forever to hack into it. And I don’t see why he would, either.”
“So…the most likely explanation is that he knows who we are. Or who I am, at least.” This was another complication, but at the same time… “Okay, I don’t think we necessarily need to worry about Mercury’s identity right now. He’s always been reliable, right? Always helped you out?”
Weston nodded. “Yeah, I’ve never had any reason to doubt him.”
“Well, then. Let’s put that aside for now. Open the file.”
He clicked the little folder icon, and a list of filenames came up. I leaned closer to see. There were audio files, documents, and images, all there to view. Weston clicked on the file at the top of the list, which was sorted in date order.
My dad’s voice came through the speakers, and I fell apart.
I gradually became aware of Caiden’s voice close to my ear. I was huddled into him, my eyes swollen from crying, my throat raw, my tears soaking his T-shirt. He held me tightly, stroking his hand through my hair, soothing me.
