Page 96 of Blood in the Water

Wynn looked at me, but I had no idea.

“An hour or two. Maybe more,” I finally said. It would likely take longer. “It’s better to be prepared, Leona. Plans have a greater chance of getting him out than impatience.”

A little alert brought my attention back to the computer screen. Max walked out of the house, flanked by two men carrying cardboard security boxes on each side.

Those boxes could be anything. But why would Max want them?

“Leona, do you know what those are?” I zoomed in on the garage door cameras. “Have you seen them before?”

“My father uses boxes like that to organize things in his office.”

I wrinkled my nose. Paper filing was dinosaur status. “Your father didn’t rely on much technology?”

That could explain why the security systems were practically nonexistent.

She shook her head. “I have no idea about his business dealings, but he mentioned before that the only way to truly secure information these days was to lock it up in your office. Heworried more about being hacked than someone breaking into his study.”

“Well, it would have been easy with what I’m looking at here,” I grumbled. “There’s practically no information security onanyof the servers in your home.”

She rubbed her eyes. “I feel like I’m missing something huge.”

“What do you mean?” Ilivedfor patterns. If we were missing something, I’d find it.

“Well, for starters, why did Max do any of this? And then why he’d kidnap Cas, and then why he’d bring him back tomyhouse, only to start rifling through my father’s paperwork. He’s been looking for us for weeks. Why didn’t he go through all this stuff when he first killed my father?”

I shook my head, wondering the same thing, but Max’s men continued carrying out boxes and loading them into the SUVs’ backs.

“Can you access my father’s laptop?” Leona asked. “If it’s still there?”

Using my backdoor into the house through the wifi network, I located it, still plugged into the charger and connected to the internet. His storage servers were barely protected, even if there wasn’t much data on them. “Yeah. What do you need?”

She clicked her tongue. “I’m not sure, but maybe it’ll help me understand why my life went to shit. If Max wants his files, I want to see what I can find, too.”

I nodded and ran the code to download the data onto my servers. “Alright, let me see what I can get for you then.”

It downloaded fast, and I then transferred the files to a tablet. Pulling it off its charger, I handed it to her. “That’s everything. I can help you go through it if you want, but I figured you’d want to look first.”

She held the tablet gingerly before she reached out to grab my shoulder. “Thanks, Ciel. I appreciate your help.”

Her palm left little tingles running down my arm. I coughed. “It’s no problem. Do you want me to wipe your dad’s laptop now that we have a copy of the data?”

She nodded. “Yeah. I don’t want Max to have access.”

I nodded. I’d fry that hard drive like it was at the center of a solar flare.

“So what now?” She tucked the tablet under her arm.

“We make a plan to get Caspian back,” Wynn said as I started typing again. “And we watch the house to make sure Max doesn’t move him. When the plan makes sense, we move.”

“Alright, then.” She leaned up on her tiptoes and pressed a light kiss against his cheek. “Thanks to you, too, Wynn. I’ll be in my room if you need me.”

Before we could react, she pushed her way out of my office and disappeared.

35

LEONA

Idropped the tablet in my room and immediately walked to the gym. I’d look through the files later; right now, I needed to talk to a Shadow before he could slip through my fingers.