Page 58

“What about Stewart?”
My gut clenches at Demon’s question. He’s trembling beneath my hand that’s on his back, and his unease is causing Jez to worry. Seeing the two of them like this makes my blood boil, and it takes everything in me not to let my rage show.
“Stewart?” Bela asks, but before anyone can answer, she snaps her fingers. “Oh, wait… Are you talking about Stewart Crane?”
“The one and only,” Demon snaps.
“What about him?” Jinx asks. “He’s a nobody.”
“Yeah, about that,” Jez begins. “He’s more than an acquaintance of Ted’s.”
Diabla narrows her eyes. “That sounds ominous.”
“He’s a fucking pedophile bastard who needs to die,” I say through gritted teeth, earning me a sharp look from Demon and Jez. “What? He is, and he does.”
“Prospect’s right,” Malice adds. “Whatever you thought you knew about good ol’ Stewie, forget it because the information you have is likely nowhere near the information you need.”
“Someone care to fill me in?” Soul asks.
“No,” Demon barks, and when Prez glares at him, he sighs. “Sorry. Um…”
“We’ll start doing a deeper dive into Stewart,” Jez begins, looking at her brother. “And you’ll just have to trust me that you’ll get the info you need.”
Grim lifts his hands, and Malice translates. “I don’t like it.”
“You don’t have to like it,” Jez snaps, her signing jerky. “But you have to respect it.”
The big guy stalks toward her, and when Demon and I move to stand between them, she puts her arms out to stop us. Grim narrows his eyes on us both, but I swear I see a ghost of a smile before he masks it.
“You trust them?” Malice says as Grim signs with his gaze on Jez. “You trust both of them with your life?”
“Yes,” she responds without hesitation.
He nods. “Good enough for me.” Then he turns and stalks out of the room.
Jez exhales and refocuses on her brother. “My team really needs to get to work, so if you don’t mind…”
Soul opens his mouth to argue, but Malice doesn’t give him a chance. “We’ll be around if you need us.”
“Are you se?—”
“You need to leave,” Demon says, his tone hard. “If I have any shot at making Stewart pay, then I need Jez and her team to do what they do.”
Soul stares at him for a long time, and I can practically see the thought bubbles rising from his head full of questions. It’s clear that it’s not in his nature to take orders from anyone, and I get that. He is the president, after all. But he must sense that he’s dangerously close to crossing a line he won’t be able to uncross because he strides toward Jez and pulls her into his arms for a hug.
“Just… Be careful, okay?” he says.
“Always,” she replies.
Once Soul, Malice, and the rest of the club leave the room, Jez’s entire demeanor shifts from a woman trying to prove herself to the confident boss-bitch I know her to be.
“Okay, hackers, time to work,” she states as she sits in her chair.
For the next two hours, the only sounds in the room are the clacking of keyboards and Demon’s occasional muttered curse when he can’t stop himself from looking at a monitor.
“I think I got something,” Jinx says, breaking the silence.
Demon rushes to stand behind her chair. “What is it?”