Page 30

Chapter thirty

Derek

“I have no fucking idea what’s on the USB.” Sam met my stare across the table, his expression hard.

“Run that by me again?” He had to know what was on it. It was his fucking USB, for fuck’s sake.

“I downloaded the encrypted files from the laptop of a Council member named Jessica Chu. I’ve been investigating her for the last few weeks. She always seems to turn up where there is a ripple outbreak. There’s been too many coincidences, and she has too many connections to people of interest.”

“You stole files?”

“Yes.” Sam’s jaw tightened. “I stole files from Chu; you stole the USB from me. See a theme here, bro?”

“What kind of connections?” Ryan asked, leaning forward.

“She’s been meeting with people off the books. Three weeks ago, I tracked her to a warehouse in Detroit. She met with Danila Norris, a witch who the Council believes is involved in the ripple trade. Jessica should’ve arrested her. Instead, they had tea and cookies, chatted for two hours, and then Elara left and flew home. Chu made no mention of this meeting to the Council.”

“Did you take your concerns to the Council?”

Sam opened his hands wide. “The Council’s compromised. I don’t know who I can trust. Chu’s been meeting with people she shouldn’t, voting in erratic ways. I saw an opportunity during a break in Council meetings to gain access to her laptop. I didn’t have long, but I was able to download a bunch of files before I had to go. When I looked at it, I couldn’t crack the encryption, and I couldn’t risk taking it to anyone at the Council.”

“So, that’s why you’re in back in Three Rivers,” I said, the pieces clicking into place. “You needed Waylen to crack the encryption.”

A small smile tugged at the corner of Sam’s mouth. “Best hacker I know.”

“Did someone say encrypted drive?” Waylen practically vibrated in his chair. “Give it. Give it now.”

I pulled the USB from my pocket.

“If you fuck it u—” Sam started.

“Please,” Waylen scoffed, snatching the drive from my hand. “Who do you think you’re talking to? I don’t fuck things up. I make them sing.”

He plugged it in, and the screens around us immediately lit up with scrolling code. His fingers flew across the keyboard with that focused intensity I’d seen on him during crucial operations. The wizard was in his element now, his glasses reflecting cascading lines of text as multiple windows popped open across his screens.

“Oh,” he breathed, eyes widening behind his glasses. “Oh, this is interesting. They’re using AES-256 with some kind of custom key derivation function.” Waylen’s fingers never stopped moving as he spoke. “We’ve got what looks like standard file encryption, but there’s some weird header data that doesn’t match any protocol I’ve seen.” He pulled up a hex editor on another screen, displaying blocks of alphanumeric characters.

“Weird how?” Sam pressed.

“The metadata structure is all wrong. See this block?” Waylen pointed to a section of the screen. “That’s not following any standard format. Someone’s built a custom encryption solution with multiple authentication checks. Probably a dead man’s switch, too.” His grin widened. “Clever.”

I stood up, pacing around the table and back. Sam shot me a wary look.

“How long is this gonna take?” I asked Waylen.

“You can’t rush a masterpiece, Derek.”

Fuck. I hated this. Hated waiting around when I needed to be out there. Hunting. I picked up one of the tablets from the table, needed to do something, anything, and started scanning the documents Waylen had pulled on Lucian Stone.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, breaking through Waylen’s muttered commentary about encryption patterns. I looked at the name flashing on the screen.

Huh.

“It’s Torres.”

“This should be interesting,” Ryan said. “Put it on speaker.”

The room went quiet, everyone’s attention shifting to the phone as I placed it on the table and hit the answer button.

“Hey, Torres—oh, no, wait. You can’t be Torres, can you?” I said, anger creeping into my voice. “Unless your corpse has discovered a way to talk.”

A laugh came through the speaker, with a slight tinny echo that told me whoever it was was using a voice modulator. Interesting. Because they thought I would recognize their voice? Or that I would record it and run it through voice recognition software? Was it Kane?

“You always were a smart one, weren’t you, Derek? But not smart enough to keep your mate protected, were you?” The voice had an edge of amusement that made my wolf snarl. “Such a pretty thing with all that red hair. Shame she escaped. I had plans for her. Still do, if I’m honest. I want a taste of her. See if she lives up to the promise of her photos.”

Red bloomed across my vision. My wolf clawed to get out, desperate to rip out the throat of anyone threatening our mate. The tablet shattered in my hand, the screen fracturing into a spiderweb of cracks. The scent of my rage must have filled the room—Ryan shifted his weight, and I knew he was ready to intervene if I lost control.

Across the table, Jase’s hands curled into fists. Sam placed a warning hand on his arm, but his own expression was dark, dangerous.

“You’ll try, and you’ll end up just like your guy,” I managed through gritted teeth. “It wasn’t a pretty sight; his body got ripped clean in half trying to get to her. Messy stuff.” I took a calculated guess that they didn’t know who had killed his guy either.

“Casualties happen,” the voice replied smoothly, but I’d caught the slight pause before he’d spoken. He was rattled by the body, just like we were. “It’s all part of the mission. And I’ve got guys lining up around the block to be part of this one. Just imagine how many more will be happy to risk their lives for a taste of your mate?” the voice continued.

Sam scribbled a note on a piece of paper and held it up.

He’s trying to bait you.

No shit.

Carlito stood up, walked around the table, picked up the other tablets, and moved them out of my reach.

I forced myself to sigh loudly. “That all you got? Coz I’ve got things to do, and you’re boring the fuck out of me.”

The voice laughed. “I like you, Derek. You’ve got balls. If things had worked out differently, I could have had a place for you. But let’s cut the shit. The USB, Derek. Hand it over, and this all goes away. I’ll even think about leaving your mate alone.”

“No.” The word came out flat, final.

“No? Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

A sigh crackled through the speaker. “I thought you might say that. Never could make things easy on yourself, could you? Well, never mind. You won’t hand it over, we’ll just have to come get it.”

The line went dead.

I stared at the phone, my mind racing. Kane was coming for Three Rivers. Sofia was out there somewhere in Stone’s hands. And I couldn’t be in two places at once.