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In ways, it feels like Aurora has healed me, but this conundrum I’ve found myself in can only get worse if I don’t find a way to fix it fast.
* * *
The next two weeks go by, and Aurora gets better, although she clings to me as if she’s afraid something will happen to her if I’m not around.
She starts loosening up and going back to Sunset Cove when Madison offers to stay with her for a week.
Madison has been an amazing support, providing the distraction Aurora needed by doing practice interviews in prep for the upcoming interview atPeople Magazine.
I took care of that Rachel problem with one phone call. In circumstances of shit like that, all you have to do is roar the loudest and stake your claim to being at the top of the food chain. I threatened to get their investors to pull all their funding on her father’s biggest project if she didn’t cease and desist her threats against Aurora.
Of course, she agreed.
I also got her to fix what she’d done in the past to restore Aurora’s good name and compensate her with a year’s salary she would have made atMontrose Magazine. Money like that is nothing to people like her, so she agreed to that too.
It was a triumph that made my wife happy, and I wished I could revel in the euphoria the way she did. I could see the burden lift from her shoulders, but it was nothing in the grand scheme of my worries.
Fast forward to today when I’m supposed to be meeting with Vladimir and my grandfather again.
The thought of sitting there like I did before makes my insides feel like they’ve been twisted with barbwire.
I’m even late for work.
Aurora left for Sunset Cove an hour ago, but I’ve been stuck here, stuck in my mind.
This can’t go on. More and more, I feel like a coward running away with his tail tucked between his legs. That’s not me.
My phone rings when I’m getting ready. It’s Jericho.
I answer it, wondering what he could want to talk about at this time of morning that couldn’t wait until he saw me at the office.
“Hey.” I press the phone to my ear while I button up my shirt.
“Knight, we have a big problem.”
My hands still, lingering on the loop of the last button. “What’s going on?”
“We’ve been hacked. Your computer and mine.”
My scalp tightens, and my blood boils with fury. “What the fuck do you mean we’ve been hacked? That’s near impossible.” Because of all the shit we do, the systems Jericho has in place are supposed to be tighter than at the White House. No one can simplyhackus.
“It must have been some high-tech off-the-grid hacker. Because of the files they copied, I know someone hired them to get to you.”
“What files?”
“Everything to do with William and his mafia connections, his debt, addictions, and other shit. There was everything about Conrad and Nathan, the inheritance provisos for Sunset Cove, Aurora, and plans we have for Park Avenue. Knight, my computer had all that evidence, so it won’t take a genius to figure out what we did. It’s hard dirt.”
The instant he says that, one name comes to mind—Bastian.
Fucking Bastian.
As I’m sure he’s done worse shit than me finding out any of that stuff won’t lose me Sunset Cove, but there is one other thing I stand to lose.
Aurora.
My last encounter with Bastian comes back to my mind.
He told me he’d find out what I was up to, why my marriage was arranged, and that I shouldn’t wear my weakness on my sleeve for the world to see.
