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According to Marcus, pretty much everything we got off Luca’s computer was protected by various levels of encryption. Zee promised he’d be able to hack at least some of it, although he isn’t sure he’ll be able to access it all.
We each doze a bit as we wait, making sure at least one person is awake at all times. Theo obsessively checks all our weapons and reloads mine. One of the guys slips into the bedroom in the early hours of the morning to check on Dominic, and I’m glad as hell that no one asked me to do it.
I don’t think I can face him yet.
I don’t want to speak to him again until I’m sure I can do it with a blank face.
Because the truth is, I haven’t decided yet if I want to tell him what I know.
“Angel.”
The soft voice near my ear is warm and deep, and my eyes pop open. I didn’t even realize I fell asleep that time, and consciousness comes rushing back quickly as I blink and sit up.
I’m leaning on Ryland, who seems to have just woken up as well. He presses a soft kiss to my hair as we both look at Marcus.
“Zee managed to break into some of the files,” Marcus tells us. “He just sent me the first batch.”
A burst of adrenaline shoots through my veins. “Yeah?”
He nods, settling back into the chair opposite the beat-up coffee table. “Yeah. There’s still plenty he hasn’t been able to access, but we can start going through this while he works. I’ll send some of the documents to you, you should be able to read them on your phone. We should all go through this shit—we’ll get through it faster.”
“Okay.” I sit up straighter, and Theo joins me and Ryland on the couch,
We’re all still dressed in the same clothes we wore to Luca’s party, although they’re a bit worse for wear—torn and dirty, stained with spots of blood. Ryland has taken off his suit jacket and rolled his sleeves up his tattooed forearms, and Marcus removed his tie a while ago, unbuttoning the top several buttons of his shirt. Theo is still shirtless, his ab muscles flexing a little as he digs into his pocket for his phone.
I wonder how long we’ll be able to stay here, locked up in this little house. There’s water, and I think there’s some non-perishable food in the kitchen, although nothing all that appetizing. I wish I had a change of clothes, but that’s honestly the least of our worries right now.
Marcus sits down on the chair set to one side of the coffee table, leaning over his laptop as he taps quickly at the keys. Then he looks up. “I sent each of you a batch of files. If you find anything useful, we’ll all take a look at it.”
I nod, accepting my phone from Ryland, who’s been holding it for me. My dress was outfitted with small pockets to hold the flash drive and connector, but it didn’t have pockets big enough for a cell.
The room goes quiet as all four of us pour through the information Zee was able to unlock. Considering these files were the least encrypted ones on Luca’s computer, I’m not entirely convinced we’ll find anything yet. It’s hard to imagine someone as cunning and intelligent as Luca being careless with his data.
Still, it’s worth looking.
It’s also boring as fuck.
A lot of the documents I scroll through have to do with Luca’s known businesses, and it’s pretty damn dry. Invoices and spreadsheets, notes on buyers and suppliers, that kind of thing.
It doesn’t help that it’s so late it’s early, and the little bit of sleep I got wasn’t nearly enough to make me feel chipper and alert.
But when I open up a new file out of the dozens Marcus sent me, I sit up a little straighter, my brows pulling together as I stare at the small screen on my phone.
“Something good?” Ryland asks, noticing the change in my posture.
“Not sure. Not about the Viper,” I murmur. “But interesting anyway.”
There’s no mention of the Viper in the document I’m reading. But there is mention of Genevieve, Luca’s late wife.
I don’t know much about her other than what the guys told me when they first explained the game to me. She was apparently Luca’s whole world. She died quite a while ago, and he never remarried or even took a mistress. That was ostensibly the reason why he created the game in the first place—because he had no heir of his own.
The documents I’m staring at now are her medical records, doctors’ reports and bloodwork from the time she was sick. She had cancer, which I already knew, but it looks like she chose to forgo some of the more aggressive and potentially effective treatments.
“She never went through chemo,” I murmur. “I don’t get it. If Luca loved her so much, why wouldn’t he make sure she tried every kind of treatment available?”
Marcus looks up from the laptop. “I don’t know. What are the files named? I’ll look through them too.”
I rattle off the names so he can search for them on the laptop, then continue scrolling on my phone. My breath catches in my throat as my gaze snags on a report from a checkup.
