Page 16

Lina

I’d just been to check on Betty again. She was still fast asleep, and the peaceful rise and fall of her chest were a comforting sight. She’d woken once in the night, needing some medicine, but she was definitely on the mend.

Now, as I returned to my room, I was met by the delicious sight of Stephen sound asleep in my bed. After we’d fucked on my desk, we’d come up to my bedroom and done it again. It had been slower and quieter, a new flavor of intimacy burgeoning between us with a peacefulness that seemed to linger on as I savored the sight of him sleeping in the soft dawn light filtering through the drawn curtains.

The sheets had slipped low on his back, exposing the strong muscles that rippled beneath his taut, bronzed skin. I felt breathless with anticipation as I replayed last night’s events, each moment swirling through me, making me eager to wake him and have my fill of him before the day took us away from each other.

In the lightening room, my gaze distinguished some markings down the center of his spine, a tattoo I realized. I hadn’t noticed last night. But as I took in the shapes of the black markings, shock thumped through me.

The lingering warmth of Stephen’s kisses, still thrumming in my veins, seemed to turn to ice. The tattoo was a totem mark. It was the one the rogue wolves who had attacked at my arranged ceremony had along their backs.

I forced my trembling legs to react, rushing to my bedside table. I snatched up my phone, snapping a picture of Stephen’s exposed back and another with his face angled toward me, visible in the picture. Cold reality washed over me as I recorded this new evidence that once more twisted everything I thought I’d known.

Stephen blinked awake, his emerald eyes sweeping over my silk robe where I stood beside the bed.

A smile formed on his lips, but it quickly vanished as he took in my tense stance and expression. “What’s wrong?” His voice was thick with sleep. “Is it Betty?” he demanded, instinctively rising as if he were about to go stumbling out of bed to her.

I felt my heart crack, those fractures across my heart starting to splinter, threatening to make a mess if I let them. But I couldn’t pretend my thoughts hadn’t already galloped ahead. In this moment, as dread clawed at me, I knew I’d already begun to envisage a future with Stephen. I had already imagined telling him who Betty really was. After last night’s honesty, the future had seemed to glimmer with possibility.

It was a future that I knew was about to vanish. “I’ve just checked on her. She’s fine,” I said, my voice clipped.

His gaze flickered over me, searching. “Then what is it?”

I forced the words out. “You have a totem tattoo on your spine.”

Shock seized his features. He quickly got out of bed now, shucking on his pants that were on the floor. He regarded me with a wary look. He sat down at the foot of the bed, angling himself toward me. “I set up the rogue wolf attack on your mate ceremony.”

My gut clenched. As soon as I’d seen the totem tattoo, I’d known. But I shook my head, part of me wanting him to deny it. “But you were injured in the attack—”

“Victor and Ben, my associates, were rough,” he agreed, his hand falling to the white scar marking the edge of his torso and crisscrossing his right rib, running down his right side. “I needed to get Magnus to trust me,” he explained. “I needed to divert his suspicion from me. Protecting him—and you,” Stephen added, regret clouding his expression and wincing as pain stamped across my face. “It was the best way to ensure I gained his trust.”

The bottom fell out of my world. All this time, I’d thought that Magnus had organized the rogue wolf attack on our mate ceremony—to take out my parents and me and take the Silvermoon Pack for himself.

But I’d been utterly mistaken. It had been Stephen. He was the leader of the rogue wolves.

“You used me,” I said, my voice sounding hollow.

Just last night, he confessed to me that he was sorry he hadn’t found a way to protect me as his mate all those years ago and that he regretted choosing vengeance over me. But he hadn’t just walked away from me. He’d used me in his plan to gain Magnus’s trust without regard for the danger it posed to me and my family.

“My father died in that attack,” I accused.

A flicker of remorse crossed his face, but he quickly argued, “Your father sold you to Magnus.” His voice was low and rife with defiance.

“That’s your excuse?” I snapped, bitterness eclipsing the urge to simply walk away. “You—orchestrated a violent attack, endangering me and my family—yet you twist it as if you were saving me from my father?”

“I did set the attack to save you from that ceremony, too,” he argued. “Your father would have let you be yoked to a man no woman should be.” The furious light returned to his green eyes. “I moved my attack forward to stop you from suffering the fate my mother did.”

“And got my mother injured in the process,” I threw back at him.

Real regret this time flashed across Stephen’s face, but once again, that righteous fire lit up his gaze. “And you would never organize an attack, risking lives to make your cover look authentic?”

I flushed, realizing I had done similarly when I’d organized the attack on Stephen and me on the way to the airport.

But my fury for his lies overshadowed my guilt. “If you’d let Paul shoot me, you’d never have been in any danger,” I argued.

“So, I’m the bad guy for wanting to protect you?” he shot back.

The thought of how he had shielded me—both at the mate ceremony and from the gunmen whirled through me. But just as I’d set up that attack, he’d set up the one in the beginning. The fact was his need for vengeance against Magnus had, from the very beginning, eclipsed his feelings for me. I couldn’t trust him. The rawness of that thought had my throat closing up, disappointment seeping through me.

“Lina,” he said, “please, let me help you. With both of us looking for your mother and helping each other at Blackthorn Corporation, we’ll be better placed to rescue her.”

I shook my head. “No, I see you for who you really are now—someone who puts vengeance before the safety of their mate. Last night was a mistake—”

He stood up, coming toward me. “Lina, please—” He reached for me.

“Don’t come near me.” I ground out, flinching away.

He froze, hurt clouding his expression.

“I want you to leave,” I told him fiercely. “I don’t want to see you except at work. And if you dare tell Magnus anything about me and my friends, I’ll present evidence of your alliance with the rogue wolves.” I clenched my phone in my fist.

Fury stole over his features, and a muscle ticked in his jaw as his attention fell to what I held.

“Lina, don’t do this. I never meant to hurt you. I regret how I handled things between us back then, but I want to be here for you now.”

“I don’t need you,” I argued. “I don’t want you in my life, Stephen.”

His nostrils flared, and a muscle ticked in his clenched jaw, but in a moment, he’d pulled on his shirt. I flushed as I saw how shredded it was down the middle, barely covering up evidence of our shared passion, something I told myself I could forget once again. Something I needed to.

In a moment, I had the bedroom door open. He strode down the stairs. I got to the front door, opened it, and silently willed him to leave, refusing to look at him.

But his step paused. “I know you’re strong, but you don’t need to do this alone, Lina.”

I shook my head, feeling emotion constricting my throat again, but I forced it away. “You’re wrong. I do need to do it alone because that’s the path you set us on when you chose vengeance over your own mate.” I averted my gaze and shut him out of my life for the second time.

Needing to wash the torturous spicy and earthy scent of Stephen off, I showered and dressed in a fresh pair of pants and jumper, tossing my shredded clothes into the bin. After a quick check on Betty—still safe in her slumber, her little form stirring ever so slightly beneath her blankets—I went downstairs to our office with cleaning supplies.

As I moved through the sunlight beneath the skylights, my heart squeezed painfully as I cleaned up, wishing I could wash away all traces from my memory and heart of what had transpired between Stephen and me here as easily.

I’d just retrieved my laptop from my bag and booted it up when the sound of the bookcase rolling aside echoed down the corridor.

Both Emily and Matt walked in. I’d texted them that Stephen had gone, so they knew the office space was useable again.

“God, I slept like a log,” Matt said, his voice buoyant as he carried a cup of coffee and a chai tea for me before going to his desk.

“Thanks,” I said, a wash of comfort enveloping me as I reveled in how familiar this felt with the three of us settling into our space.

“How come Stephen didn’t feel the need to tail you anymore?” Em asked, eyebrows knitting together as she twirled around in her chair to face me.

As much as I wanted to push aside the events of last night, I owed my friends honesty about the danger surrounding us. “I found him in here last night,” I revealed.

“Shit,” Matt said, his expression tightening. “Shall I go get Betty ready?” The protectiveness in his tone touched me.

Em’s gaze darted straight to her machines, probably already calculating what she needed to wipe.

I shook my head quickly, reassuring them. “We’re fine. Stephen won’t report us to Magnus.”

“How can you be sure?” Em asked incredulously.

“Because it turns out Magnus murdered his mother, Charlotte Blackthorn, the original alpha of the Blackthorn Pack.”

“Holy cow!” Emily exclaimed, returning to sip her coffee and stare at me as if she were watching one of her favorite K-Dramas.

“There’s more,” I said darkly. I attached the picture of Stephen in my bed, the totem tattoo on his back on full display, sending it to both Matt and Em; it needed to get uploaded to our network so that should I need it, the evidence I had on him was backed up. I tried to see it as just that, but as Em brought it up on her laptop screen, my heart climbed into my throat.

“What the fuck?” Em exclaimed.

“Stephen’s the leader of the rogue wolves,” I explained.

“Something he only told you after jumping into bed with you, I guess?” Em said.

Yeah, of course, eagle-eyed Em has spotted that it’s my bed he’s in.

“Yeah, the whole I’m-a-rogue-wolf thing only came up after,” I said, disappointment and vulnerability washing through me.

“Fuck, I’m sorry, Lina,” Matt said.

I shrugged. “That’s how I know he won’t speak out about us. We’ve got dirt on him. He won’t tell Magnus anything.”

“I’ve got news, too,” Emily announced. “I got some work in this morning—”

“Yeah, thanks for that,” Matt grumbled into his coffee cup, his voice laced with mock irritation. “Nothing like waking up to the sweet sound of keys clacking in one’s ears.”

As his words hung in the air, a flush crept up his neck, and I could see Emily’s cheeks turning a shade pinker. They exchanged a glance, a flicker of shared intimacy passing between them.

Oh my god!

My mouth fell open as it hit me that Stephen and I weren’t the only ones who had been bunking up together.

Emily quickly re-focused her attention on her computer, her fingers flying over the keyboard. As always, her computer was her safety blanket. Matt, on the other hand, struggled to maintain his nonchalance, his eyes darting to me and betraying a mix of embarrassment and happiness.

Their reactions spoke volumes, and it was clear: my two best friends had finally crossed that line into the intimacy they’d been dancing around forever.

“Don’t make a big thing of it, Lina,” Em said without looking away from the screen, the hint of discomfort thrumming through her tone.

But it was a big thing. My two best friends had finally gotten together, and I wanted to bounce off the walls in excitement despite how much my own heart was bruised by Stephen. But I refrained, knowing Emily would clamp up tighter than a clam if I pressed too hard. I’d have to rein in my excitement for the how and when until I could get the details from Matt later.

“Tell me what you’ve found,” I prompted Emily, diving back into the mission ahead.

She cleared her throat and swiveled around to her screens, bringing up text onto the big screens on the wall. “So, Magnus has been sending his men to scour Silvermoon territory,” she said. “For a while, I couldn’t pinpoint what he was after. Then, I intercepted a few emails that referenced a lockbox—reinforced with a strong metal, chromium. It’s supposed to be one of the toughest metals on Earth.”

“A box?” My heart quickened, and a flash of memory flickered in my mind. “It reminds me of a lockbox made out of Chromium.” My mom’s voice echoed through my mind. I saw her in Central Park, a coffee cup in hand, and her slim mouth turned down in a frown. A rush of recognition surged within me, igniting a flicker of hope. “I think my mom might have mentioned it once.”

“What did she say about it?” Matt asked, turning to me, anticipation lining his features.

“When? Where?” Emily asked, her voice eager, too, as she pressed for details.

I hesitated, feeling a small sliver of doubt creep in. It had been a fleeting memory, and the more I tried to place when it had been, the farther it seemed to get from me. “I don’t know.” The memory was hazy, like a dream lingering at the edge of my mind. “We were in Central Park, and I’m sure she mentioned a lockbox once, and maybe the word Chromium, but… maybe it’s just wishful thinking.”

“Maybe it’ll come back to you in time,” Matt offered kindly, anchoring me to the now and helping me push away the tide of uncertainty threatening to swamp me.

“That’s not all,” Emily said, her voice snapping my attention back as she clicked play on a video cast up on one of the big monitors on the wall.

The video played footage captured by one of our cameras angled into Magnus’s office in Blackthorn Villa. I hadn’t been able to bug more cameras at the Blackthorn Corporate office, given how closely Stephen had tailed me, but I had, while alone in the villa, bugged the network of cameras there.

Emily said, “You know how I said cool people and villains have doors behind their bookcases?”

On the screen, through Magnus’s open study door, a sliver of the wall behind his desk flickered across the screen, one where a bookcase stood ajar.

“But the footage came from one of the Blackthorn Corporation buildings,” I said.

That’s why our plan had been for me to infiltrate their head office, the one Magnus spent most of his time in and where I’d spent the last month searching for my mother.

Emily shook her head. “With the IP address, it looked like it was coming from a Blackthorn building. But their security team was using an elaborate VPN—virtual private network—” she added at my frown, “disguising their true location.”

“With the bugs you planted in the villa, not only have you found this secret room, but you’ve shown this footage is actually coming from Blackthorn Villa.”

My heart raced as Emily’s words sank in. This last month, while I’d been sleeping in that villa every night, there was a secret space below me.

Adrenaline coursed through my veins. Had we found where my mother was?

My pulse raced with expectation. I knew that Magnus’s men patrolled the ground floor of Blackthorn Villa while he wasn’t there. It had taken every ounce of my watchfulness, working out their patterns, before I’d been able to safely bug the cameras.

But one thing was for sure, when I returned to New York, I was damn well going to find a way to get into that secret room, no matter what.