Page 25 of Duality (The Archers #1)

EVELYN

I jolted as movement out of the corner of my eye startled me.

Adrian placed a glass of water by my elbow, and his eyebrow arched.

I was jumpier than usual, probably due to the lack of sleep over the last few days.

I was used to running on minimal sleep, but the two to three hours a night I was getting was no longer cutting it, and my nerves were shot.

“Fifteen more minutes until dinner’s ready,” Alexander said, standing in the doorway of the kitchen. He wiped his hands on the towel he was holding, and I blinked at him, momentarily distracted by the tight white t-shirt he was wearing. I was still getting used to seeing him without a suit on.

My eyes burned, and the words were blurring on the paper in front of me, but I couldn’t stop yet.

The last few days had been information overload as we sorted through everything we’d downloaded from the Citadel servers.

Liam had a program running for keywords and identifying the people and companies listed on the invoices, but I insisted on doing things manually as well.

It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Liam’s program to catch the obvious things, but we didn’t really know what we were looking for.

The mountain of paperwork in front of me wasn’t getting any smaller, and I couldn’t stop now.

We had to find the needle in the haystack that would help us identify the source of the leak.

I couldn’t keep my people or the guys safe unless I could plug up the leak Citadel had found.

“I’m not done yet,” I replied to Alexander.

He exchanged a look with Adrian that had my hackles rising. I got that they were used to being in charge, but this was my domain. We were on my turf.

After the weekend, Alexander had alerted a few members of SDS’s management about the real reason behind their disappearance.

He hadn’t told them details, just that they were safe and close by and working to figure out what Citadel was up to.

He had some SDS resources working on tracking down the leads we had found in the paperwork, but the brothers were hesitant to bring them in fully.

Marcus had brought up the concern of Citadel having had planted a spy in their ranks.

He hadn’t looked at me while he said it, but I knew it was a concern of theirs.

I couldn’t blame them, but it didn’t make having them in my space any easier.

We needed to get this wrapped up quickly so things could go back to normal.

Well, whatever our new normal was going to look like.

“You need to eat,” Adrian said. “You skipped lunch.”

Like a traitor, my stomach chose that moment to growl loudly. I shot him a glare. Adrian’s lips quirked, but he wisely chose not to say anything. I huffed. Fine, a half-hour break couldn’t hurt. I could get more coffee.

However, when I entered the kitchen, my coffee maker was nowhere to be found. I glared at Adrian, who didn’t seem fazed.

“Water first,” he grunted.

“You know…” I said as I took my seat at the table. “I am a fully functioning adult who has taken care of herself her entire life. I can drink coffee whenever I feel like it.”

Sebastian just grinned as he set down a glass of water in front of me. “We know you can take care of yourself, my darling Evie, but that doesn’t mean you have to.”

I frowned at him, but he only grinned wider. He was saved from my response by Alexander setting down a steaming tray in the center of the table. Steam rose from the bubbling lasagna, and my eyes widened. It smelled heavenly.

I narrowed my eyes suspiciously at Alexander. “Who told you?”

I had money on it being Danny who had told them that lasagna was my favorite.

Danny had been surprisingly Team Stone from the beginning, which had shocked me.

He was usually the one scaring guys away, not that he really had to; I was scary enough.

But Danny had been all but throwing us together at every turn.

In fact, he had ushered out my other lieutenants earlier this afternoon to go “take care of things.” Just because we were protecting the guys, it didn’t mean that there weren’t others in the city who needed our help.

But with the hit out on the guys, we had scaled back our other cases.

It killed me, but I couldn’t let anyone else become a target.

Alexander arched an eyebrow at me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

It was definitely Danny. Still, I didn’t protest as Alexander served me a large portion of lasagna and a slice of crispy garlic bread. Fine, I would allow the occasional house guest, as long as they cooked like this for me.

“How much longer will Liam’s program take to sort through the documents?” Marcus asked once we were all eating.

“At least another forty-eight hours,” Sebastian said, mumbling around a bite of food, his words practically intelligible.

Alexander shot him an exasperated look, and I ducked my head to hide my smile.

“Ow,” Sebastian yelped and jumped as Marcus glared at him. “Fuck, fine! Forty-eight hours,” he said more clearly.

Alexander groaned and rested his head in his hands. “Can you all stop acting like children for just one dinner?”

“It does seem to be their default setting,” I agreed, a smirk on my lips. I couldn’t deny that they brought a certain lightness into the house.

“My darling, Evie, I can assure you that I’m all man.” Sebastian waggled his eyebrows.

“That remains to be seen,” I shot back.

“But you want to see it?” Sebastian’s grin was victorious.

“That is not what I meant,” I backpedaled. I did not mean I wanted to see him naked. Without clothes on his gorgeous body?—

Focus, Evelyn. Seeing your bosses naked would be bad. Right?

“Can we focus?” Marcus grumbled. “Quit fucking around.”

Both Sebastian and I glared at him. He really needed to pull that stick out of his ass before I did it for him, then beat him over the head with it.

“Anyway…” Sebastian rolled his eyes. “Liam said his program will take another forty-eight hours. He’s really built a sweet program. He’s an impressive hacker. We should consider hiring him for some SDS work. He could review our systems.”

Oh, hell no.

“He’s one of mine. Don’t poach my people.” I glared at him. It was one thing that they knew who I was, who we were, and that they were in my house and forcing me to drink water. It was another thing to try to hire my people away.

“They could be our people,” Sebastian said.

Our people? What the fuck was he talking about? Did he think the Archers would merge with SDS after this? That was ridiculous and would never happen in a million years.

“Yeah, right.” I rolled my eyes. “Don’t poach my people,” I delivered the warning again sternly.

Sebastian looked like he was going to say something else, but he yelped again. “Stop kicking me.” He glared at Marcus.

Adrian and Alexander swiftly changed the conversation to last night’s football game and other trivial topics around the office operations.

I didn’t know how they could focus on anything else during all of this, but a part of me envied their ability to shut it off.

Between the Archers and SDS, work had consumed me for the last few years and resulted in a lack of an off switch.

I probably should have been paying attention when they talked about SDS operations, but my brain was still on the documents I had just been reading.

There had to be a clue in there somewhere; something that would tell us how Citadel knew inside information about the Archers.

So far, all I had compiled was a list of companies Citadel did business with.

There were a ton of them. Some I recognized and others I didn’t.

Liam was working through the list of those I didn’t.

Companies like Westbridge Consulting, Eagle Holdings, and Grayridge Solutions were probably shell companies, but we needed to look into them, even if it took up time and resources. We had to find the leak.

I wasn’t na?ve; I knew the likelihood of betrayal in any organization was high.

Although with the Archers’ mission, most people felt a stronger sense of loyalty to our organization.

We helped people when they were at their most vulnerable and had no one to turn to.

I wasn’t saying that it was impossible for someone to betray us because they were angry at us; we had definitely failed before.

But the more likely scenario, which I had discussed with Izzy, was we had been betrayed for money.

So there had to be a clue in the hundreds of invoices Citadel issued or paid in their systems. I just had to find it.

Although the lasagna was delicious, I barely tasted the last few bites as I went over the last set of documents in my head. They were shipping documents, but maybe there was a double meaning I wasn’t catching there.

Working on autopilot, I pushed back in my seat, gathering my plate to take to the sink and wash.

I startled when Adrian took them from me.

He frowned, exchanging a glance with Alexander.

I didn’t like that the two of them were ganging up on me.

Adrian had always been closer to Marcus than to Sebastian and Alexander, although all of them got along well.

But in the last week or so, I noticed he had gotten closer to Alexander.

Their bossy caretaker personalities blended well, but they were wasted on me.

“We were thinking of watching that new action movie tonight,” Alexander said.

Somehow in the last few days, my living room had been cleaned out and a new sectional delivered, along with a new TV. Danny swore it had been delivered using our usual channels to maintain the secrecy of my home’s location, but he had been light on any additional details.

“You all go ahead,” I said firmly. “I’m going to keep working.” I was prepared for them to fight me on this, but Adrian just nodded.

“We’ll clean up and join you,” he said.

“You can watch the movie,” I protested. Some space was probably good for us. Good for me, at least.

“Nope, you’re not alone.” Sebastian grinned at me, echoing his words from our…interlude in the closet the other night.

Sebastian and Alexander joined me in the dining room, while Adrian and Marcus cleaned up. I didn’t realize I had drunk all my water until Adrian set a steaming cup of coffee down next to me.

“It’s half decaf,” he said with a smirk when I reached for it eagerly.

I narrowed my eyes at him but took a sip, anyway. The bitter warmth spread through me, and I sighed. Perfect. Now to find this needle in a haystack.

It was quiet for the next hour. The sound of paper rustling and cups being picked up and set down were the only sounds. My eyes caught on a line from the pending invoice I was reading. Frontline Solutions received fifty grand for “situational management assessment.”

The invoice was innocent enough, but I had seen Frontline Solutions before. And we were fucked. Well, maybe not.

“What is it? What did you find?” Adrian asked, picking up on my rigid stance.

I breathed out heavily. This could go one of two ways, and it really depended on sibling love. But first, I needed to make a phone call.

“I need to call a Ghost.”