Page 23 of Duality (The Archers #1)

EVELYN

“ G o!” Liam called.

We sprinted across the parking lot, sticking to the shadows as much as possible.

We hit the side of the building in under ten seconds and flattened ourselves against the building under the camera.

Adrenaline danced in my veins, and I kept my breathing steady to stay focused despite the pounding of my heart in my ears.

If we got caught by the guards, we would lose our element of surprise with Citadel.

If Citadel knew we were on to them, they could launch another attack that we would be ill-prepared for. This had to go well.

“All right, now,” Liam said through the comms.

I pressed the small box against the card reader next to the door.

A second passed. There was a soft beep, then the door clicked open.

Sebastian entered first; his gun raised as he cleared the hallway.

He motioned us forward, and Grace eased the door shut behind us.

Luckily for us, the IT room was just down the hall.

“One guard on the third floor, one on the second, and one in the control room,” Liam said.

“Copy,” I whispered back.

We silently moved down the hall and into the IT room. I took out a thumb drive from one of my many pockets and plugged it into a port at the computer against the wall.

“All yours, Liam.”

“Awww, Boss Lady, you spoil me,” Liam gushed, and I heard his fingers crack over the comms before the computer in front of me turned on remotely.

Programs started running on the screen, and I looked up around the room.

Sebastian was studying the servers lined against the wall, while Grace kept an eye on the hallway through the small window in the door.

“All right. I’m in, and cameras are looped,” Liam said. “Happy hunting.”

I let out a slow breath. First step done.

While we worked on gaining access to the computers on the other floors, Liam would keep the cameras looped and start hacking into this computer.

For every computer we were able to access tonight, he was going to create a clone of each computer on a secondary computer at the house, so we could dig into the files without Citadel knowing.

“Guard Two just exited the back door for a smoke break. You probably have ten minutes. Fifteen if his badge malfunctions getting back in,” Liam said.

“Let’s move,” I directed.

Grace nodded, pulling the door open a crack and peeking out before stepping into the hall.

We avoided the elevators, instead opting for the stairs as we made our way up to the third floor.

We exited into a large room filled with cubicles.

It looked like a standard office. You would never know that every invoice Citadel sent or paid went through this very room.

Maybe one of those papers would tell us where our leak came from.

Grace prowled away to patrol around the room. Sebastian touched my arm softly before nodding towards an office marked “supervisor”. I nodded, and he dropped to his knees, picking the lock with a speed and dexterity that had my eyebrows shooting up.

He grinned up at me. “What? You thought we’ve only ever been Boy Scouts?”

I mean, kind of.

He shook his head. “When we were first starting out, we were known to bend the rules a time or two.”

My eyebrows hit my hairline. “I have a hard time believing that,” I murmured as he held the door open for me. Marcus didn’t seem the type to walk in the gray so maybe it was the others?.

“You’ve got to cut him a little slack,” Adrian’s voice rumbled through the comms, startling me. I forgot he was on this line. “He used to be a lot less uptight.”

I ignored the fact that he knew who I was thinking about without even seeing my face. “If you say so. Now focus. We’re trying to hit at least three computers, and time’s ticking.”

While Sebastian went to work on the supervisor’s computer, I yank open the filing cabinets against the far wall, rifling through the paperwork and snapping photos of anything that looked important.

It was likely that there was an electronic copy on the supervisor’s computer, but just in case there wasn’t, we would still have the picture of the paper copy.

“So…” Sebastian said, like we were having a casual conversation and not in the middle of a heist. “You never told us why you care so much about taking down Citadel.”

Eric’s and Brittany’s faces flashed through my mind, and my hands stilled.

Even though it had been a few weeks, I really hadn’t had the time or space to grieve the way I needed to.

Not with everything going on. Sebastian had no idea what his innocent question was doing to me.

His words felt like a knife stabbed through my chest, and grief threatened to overwhelm me.

“Why don’t you mind your business and focus, Stone,” Grace snapped over the comms, but her impassioned defense only seemed to inflame the curiosity in his light blue eyes.

I let out a slow breath, trying to push away the wave of anger and grief that threatened to overwhelm me.

“It’s okay, Grace,” I murmured.

It would have come out, eventually. I was honestly shocked the guys hadn’t been digging deeper into the Archers. It wasn’t like we’d blocked them from phone and computer access over the last few days. Meeting Sebastian’s soft eyes now, I had a feeling that maybe they were waiting for me to share.

I put my hand to my ear. “Liam, can you put Marcus and Alexander on the line for a moment?” If I was going to explain this, I was only going to do it once.

“We’re here,” Alexander said. His voice was strong and sure. How would it sound after I told him how I failed to keep my people safe?

“What’s going on?” Marcus asked, his voice gruff and brisk.

I winced, but it was too late to say it was nothing.

“Sebastian asked me why taking down Citadel was so important to me, and because apparently information about my life is a group project, I figured it would be easier to share all at once.”

When Sebastian had looked at me with puppy dog eyes yesterday morning, I figured Alexander had shared the details of my sordid past with them. I wasn’t really mad about it, because I didn’t want to tell the story more than once, but some secrets were mine to keep.

“We’ve always watched Citadel closely,” I began, arching my eyebrow when Sebastian stopped typing.

Just because it was story time didn’t mean we weren’t on the clock still.

I gestured at him to keep going and only started speaking again when he started typing.

“We’ve had run-ins with them in the past, but it usually wasn’t directly.

It was tangentially, with people who would later become clients of Citadel.

Except a few weeks ago…” I paused. It felt like someone wrapped a fist around my lungs and squeezed.

“A few weeks ago,” I continued, “Citadel hit one of our safe houses. They executed one of mine and a woman we were protecting.”

Eric’s and Brittany’s cold, lifeless bodies in the morgue flashed before my eyes. The sound of Clayton’s wail when I told him the news echoed in my ears. These were the memories I was going to carry with me for the rest of my life. The memories of my failings.

I heard Adrian swear over the comms, but it felt like I was in a bubble, my surroundings muted in a haze as I fought back the burn of tears.

“Evie.” Sebastian stood in front of me, his hands slowly coming up to cup my shoulders before pulling me into a hug.

I let myself sink into his chest for a few moments, reveling in the comfort he was providing.

When was the last time I had been hugged?

I couldn’t remember, to be honest. “That’s who you came into the office upset about. ”

I nodded, face pressed against his chest as I soaked up all the comfort that I could allow myself in this minute of weakness.

I tried to memorize the feeling of safety being enveloped in his arms provided.

It wouldn’t last. This couldn’t happen again.

Even if they were rapidly crashing through my defenses, there was no future for us after the dust settled.

The Archers were everything to me, and the guys would never be a part of it.

Behind him, the computer dinged softly, and reality came crashing back in.

I pulled back. I couldn’t lose focus. We couldn’t lose focus. Too much was riding on this.

“Let’s get back to it,” I said, taking a breath and letting my mask fall into place. We didn’t have time for me to fall apart.

Sebastian’s mouth opened, like he was going to say something, but I gently shoved him back to the computer before tapping on my comms again. “Okay, Liam, back to mission comms.”

“We’re not done talking about this—” Marcus promised before he was cut off.

“Oops,” Liam said, and I could hear the grin in his voice.

I rolled my eyes but didn’t respond, mentally thanking him for always having my back.

Instead, I moved to the office door as Sebastian finished behind me.

Grace raised an eyebrow at me from across the room.

I nodded once, I was okay even if grief rattled sharply around in my chest. I felt more than heard Sebastian coming up behind me.

His movements were silent, but the warm heat of his body pressed into my back.

“All done with the first computer,” Sebastian said softly.

“I’ve got it up and running,” Liam confirmed. “Moving on to computers two and three.”

From our stakeout over the last few days, we’d identified three people who were likely to have more access than most into Citadel’s systems. Two of the three were supervisors, while one was in HR.

Hopefully, with access to those three computers, we could start sorting through the information Citadel had access to and figure out where our leak came from.