Page 70

Chapter Fifteen

Marlow

We’ve been working on this for a few hours now, and a knock at the door startles Jimmie before Jolie pops her head in.

“Dinner is ready if you’re hungry.”

“Thanks, we will be out in a second.”

She nods her head and disappears.

“I think I . . .”

I turn my attention back to Jimmie. “What can you see?”

“It’s what we can’t see. This is unlike anything either of us has ever come across. What if it’s a jigsaw puzzle?”

“You’re a fucking genius! That’s the link you were talking about. When I was a kid, he would compare what I did to a puzzle, and I worked on coding puzzles, but they were nothing like this one. Though I was only five at the time.”

“So apply the same principles as school—the work starts out easy, and the information is repeated year after year. It just gets more technical as time goes on.”

Jimmie slides the laptop to me, and I do as he says. My mind easily accesses the information from when I was a child. I’m no super brain like Brennan or Boston, but when it comes to computers, I just get it.

“I did it,” I say with a laugh, clicking the folder.

Its password locked, but at least those are easy to crack. I let Jimmie do the honours of removing the password, which he tells me was a level one. I sigh. That means we haven’t even scratched the surface of this, but at least we have some idea of what Mr Z was doing. Not that he would have done this himself; he would have hired someone.

The folder opens and is labelled Zircon Olympia. I run my hand over my face. These could be the files on us we have been searching for. For years, we have wanted to get our hands on them, and now, we might finally have that chance.

“Should we open it? Jolie might not want us to see it,” Jimmie says.

“Maybe, but whatever is in there will lead us to what else is on here.”

“Or we download it onto a secure drive and then go back and look at the puzzle again. There might be another way to solve it and unlock the other files. It’s at least worth a shot before we ask her—she will skin you alive if you don’t. Marlow, she is still really hurt over all the lies. Would she forgive you for this, and are you willing to take that risk?”

“You’re right,” I say, clapping him on the shoulder. “Let’s have some dinner and some sleep. If you want, we can meet up again tomorrow and continue.”

“Are you serious? I would love to.”

“You’re a good friend to her,” I add, before standing. I don’t want shit to get too mushy.

“She is a good friend to me too, and I needed her in my life, even though I didn’t know it.”

We both head to the dining room. It isn’t as large as the one in the main house, but we all manage to fit. When we enter the kitchen, no one is there. We both look around at the empty space. “Maybe they are on the back deck,” I suggest. “Brennan makes a mean steak on the barbeque.”

Sure enough, everyone is on the back patio. Petra is setting the table, and Brennan is pulling the last of the meat off the grill. Jimmie gets a call from Betty and decides he will go home and have dinner with her. It’s a good idea, especially since they are both trying hard to make it work.

“There you are! I was going to send a search party to find you soon,” Petra jokes.

I join the table, and Petra hands me a plate. Kai leans forward to grab a bread roll.

“Don’t be a savage. Let Jolie eat first,” Chester snaps, throwing his butter knife at Kai, who actually catches it mid-air.

“It’s fine. There is plenty of food,” she insists.

“He can be a gentleman and either let you serve your food first, or he can serve it for you,” Chester grits out.

Case stands and takes Jolie’s plate and helps her load it with a bit of everything. Then he places it down in front of her, where she is currently seated on Chester’s lap.

“Can we eat now?” Kai complains, his voice taking on a whiny tone. Chester nods, and Kai proceeds to stack his plate.

Brennan clears his throat after we have all served ourselves. He beats me to making the announcement that I cracked one of the codes. “Jolie... I need to tell you something. I’m sorry we haven’t told you sooner, but I was waiting until we had something solid.”

“Okay,” she says, looking up at him.

“We might have kidnapped one of Ziyon’s security guards and threatened him into working for us.”

“Might or did?” she questions, pointing her fork at him.

“Did,” Chester adds. “But I didn’t kill him, so I get brownie points for that.”

“Ah ha,” she throws back while we all watch on with rapt attention.

We all knew this information and decided it was best to tell her ASAP. But only once we had something to tell because she would worry unnecessarily, and that isn’t good for the babies.

“Corey has been watching Ziyon and Melinda for us. There hasn’t been much to report, but Ziyon taking Melinda somewhere was not planned. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing.”

“Do you think he knows she might have her memories back?”

“We don’t know. Corey has managed to bug the house while they’ve been away, and they are due to arrive back in a few days.”

“But he saw her alive and well?”

“He did,” Brennan confirms.

Her shoulders visibly relax. I know she was worried something happened to Melinda since her text messages have been few and far between and awfully vague.

“I also had a breakthrough, thanks to Jimmie,” I chime in, and everyone turns and looks my way. “It’s going to take a while because it’s a maze of bloody puzzles. I have uncovered Jolie’s file, and I might have to open it to unlock more. But I understand if you don’t want me to read it.”

Her big ocean-coloured eyes lock on mine, and she bites her lip, pulling it between her teeth while she thinks it over. “I’m okay with you opening it, but I would like to see it first. If my file is on there, yours might be too, and the babies, all of them. Blayne brought up a good point today that all the babies created will be part of teams. We need a list of the pairings.”

“I have compiled a list of all the girls who are pregnant. It’s a lot, but there are no links to who belongs with who—besides our babies. I don’t know why he wanted us to know but hid the others.”

“Just another fucking test. Even from his grave he manages to fuck with us,” Boston snaps. “I can’t wait until all of this is over.”

“That makes two of us,” Jolie says. “Once we have all the answers, there will be no more secrets, lies, or tests. We will be transparent with everything that we do. We can’t let the power go to our heads.”

“Our heads? Baby, you’re running this show,” Laughn says, stretching his lanky-ass arm out to squeeze her leg.

“No, we will run this together. It’s a legacy our children will inherit, and I can’t do it alone. That was Mr Z’s problem—he tried to do everything himself. If he and Ziyon had worked together and didn’t let a woman come between them, it could have been so much better. Melinda gave me a box of old photos and a diary when I saw her last There were even some letters, and before their feud, they were a tight-knit family. They looked happy and I want that for us. Please promise me you guys won’t fight over me.”

“Oh, Little Angel, we will fight over you, but the difference is we are all happy with how things are. There will be arguments, heated moments, and maybe even a funeral for Boston at some point.”

Jolie digs her nails into Chester’s leg, and he just pulls her tighter into his body. “Promise me you won’t kill each other then.”

“Do I have to promise? He really fucks me off,” Chester grumbles.

“I would never fuck you off, dickhead. That’s Creed’s job,” Boston jokes. The idiot really keeps on pushing him. If Chester doesn’t kill him, he will at least snap a bone.

“Keep going, and I will bend you over this table and shove my dick so far into your ass, it will come out of your fucking mouth.”

“Will you two just stop?” Jolie demands.

“Let them go, I’m down to watch. I’m having withdrawals. If I piss you off, will you shove your dick in my ass?” Kai jokes, and Chester launches a bread roll at his head, causing Kai to pout.

I know he loves Jolie, but I also discovered she has been Googling what pegging is, especially since all our devices are linked to a hidden server. Chester ordered her a strap on, and I would pay to see an enormous cock strapped to her with her big belly. She can just keep it away from me.

“How rough do you like it?” Laughn asks Kai.

Jolie listens intently.

Kai just shrugs.

Laughn leans back in his chair, and he looks between Kai and Jolie. “I think I have a solution to our issue.”

“What issue is that?” Jolie asks him.

“Well, Kai wants to be fucked in the ass, and I want to throw someone around like a rag doll.” Laughn says, causing Chester to growl at him. “And Cujo over there will murder me if I do that to Jolie. I like to think of myself as a trysexual—I’m more than willing to try everything once. So, it’s a win-win. Plus, neither of us is willing to look outside our little group. I don’t know who sticks their dick in whose ass with those two,” he says, pointing between Creed and Chester, “but it seems they’re too selfish to help out.”

“Are you serious?” Jolie says, her eyes lighting up at the thought.

“Deadly serious.”

“I’m down,” Kai says. “Just call me Raggedy Ann.”

I snort at Kai. I’m not sure I would be down to deal with Laughn’s brand of crazy. He won’t go easy on Kai like I know he does on Jolie. The poor guy will walk funny for a week once he is done with him.

“Let’s just back up a second here. I’m not sacrificing my night, motherfuckers,” I say. “We have a system, and it works. Wait for one of your own nights—everyone is horny.”

We manage to steer the conversation away from sex when Petra declares she has heard enough about our sex lives to last her a lifetime. Brennan fills us in on everything happening this week with the Olympia renovations and the new staff. Creed says it shouldn’t be much longer until we are all back in the main house. He just made a last-minute change per Jolie’s request that Laughn’s snakes have their own wall; it’s going to look sick when you walk into the foyer, and you’re surrounded by deadly snakes. He will even have the room to buy a few more and is deciding if he should branch out and get some spiders for his collection. I know Jolie isn’t a fan, but she’s okay, so long as they can’t get out—which they can’t—Laughn will even have to access them from a hidden room behind the enclosures.

Once dinner is finished, everyone helps Petra clean up while I sneak Jolie back to my room. She wants to read her file. Once I have it opened for her, I leave her in peace to read it while I shower. I know she will share the information with us when she is ready, and we can wait a little longer to figure this out, if that’s what it takes. Jolie is only a little over halfway through her pregnancy. No teams need to be sorted until after all the babies are born, and I won’t rush her into letting me see the contents.