Page 41 of Ugly Truths (The Veiled Truths Trilogy #2)

Elena

I t’s been seven weeks since Ben, Corey, and Luis started working on the servers while I’ve been watching from the sidelines.

I’d hoped that after a few weeks, Silas would send me with Davey to the satellite office, but that never happened.

They’ve been worried about someone recognizing me, especially with Brenden still lurking.

The last thing they want is for that information to get back to William, especially after Silas banned Jeremy from returning until the audit was complete.

Davey crafted several solid excuses for why this particular audit is taking longer than the others, but that hasn’t lessened William’s irritation. I’ve overheard enough late-night calls to Silas to know he’s furious with the delays.

Still, I’ve done what I can to help from a distance.

Mostly, I offer counsel over phone calls and help Davey patch up the corporate cloud by retracing the steps I took in the spring.

We thought the server files would unlock everything about Sierra Blanca.

Instead, they’ve felt like dead ends, again and again.

Silas’s frustration continues to grow sharper, despite our efforts. Sometimes it feels like he’s starting to doubt whether this will lead us anywhere, but there are too many vague threads for it to simply be a coincidence.

Even with all my certainty, I can’t bring myself to tell him what I think more than I already have. His feelings toward me still fluctuate enough to remind me how fragile this all is, and I feel like I’m one contradicting comment away from pushing him too far.

If I’m too much of myself, he might finally decide he’s done.

These thoughts plague my head while we work silently in his study. Silas is at his desk while I sit on the couch, reviewing some of the information Ben decrypted and sent over this morning regarding some offshore accounts. The afternoon sun pours through the windows, bathing the room in warm light.

Silas’s phone starts to vibrate on the edge of his desk. He looks at the screen, slides open the call, and places it on speaker.

“Yes?”

“I’m at the satellite office,” Davey begins, skipping any greeting. “I need Elena to make sure your laptop is secure before I email you.”

Unease immediately curls in my chest and down to my stomach.

Silas’s expression gives nothing away, but his movements are rigid as he stands from his seat in a silent invitation. I set my laptop down, my feet suddenly heavier than before. Once settled in his chair, I pull the laptop towards me and try to will away the slight tremble in my fingers.

“Corey figured out a way to automate the decryption process that bypasses the security triggers embedded in the files.” Davey’s voice sounds strangled. Silas’s eyebrows furrow.

“Instead of unlocking each layer one at a time like we have been, he was able to make every decrypted key feed directly into the next layer,” I murmur, though my mind is racing through the usual checklist. VPN, endpoint security, and firewalls.

Everything seems to move in slow motion.

“So you’re making progress?” Silas asks.

“More in the past few hours than we have in a month,” Davey confirms, but there’s no satisfaction in his statement. “You need to see what we’ve found so far.”

My fingers fumble on the keyboard. Silas doesn’t bother to ask anymore questions—Davey clearly wants him to see what he’s seeing .

Only when I’ve thoroughly reviewed all his settings and completed a full antivirus scan do I finally step back, giving Silas the space to take over, but he doesn’t sit. Instead, he shoves the chair aside and leans over the desk, bracing his fingers curling to the edge.

“She’s done,” he mutters.

I hesitate before settling my hand gently on his shoulder blade, my thumb tracing slow circles over the fabric of his shirt.

"Silas. This… this is worse than I ever imagined,” Davey says.

A chill shoots through me, my hand stilling as Silas stiffens. I’ve never heard Davey sound so broken.

The laptop pings. Silas doesn’t hesitate as he clicks through his applications to open the email, bulk-downloading the documents. Multiple files flood the screen. He doesn’t pause to read any until every last one is in front of him.

I finally let my gaze drop to scan the topmost document. My stomach knots as my eyes land on the title.

Cognitive Stability and Compliance: Phase III Trials of Experimental Antipsychotics

Blinking at the words, I try to process what they mean. Silas clicks faster, the force of his finger harder with every tap of the mousepad. He’s moving too quickly to absorb it all, but he doesn’t stop.

The muscles beneath my hand coil tighter and tighter. I want to ask him what he’s seeing, but I’m at a loss for words.

As if sensing it, Davey clears his throat. “Your father—he—” His words falter, choking on themselves. “He’s been conducting illegal medical trials on vulnerable populations.”

The air leaves my lungs in a rush, and my hand drops from Silas’s back.

“Since the late nineties, Silas,” Davey breathes, almost like he can’t believe the words himself. “The Deming facility is where it started. He moved the operation to Sierra Blanca right after Shaw left. ”

Davey swallows so hard that we hear it through the speaker. “Shaw’s digital footprint is all over these files, too.”

Silas is frozen.

“There are still thousands of files to go through,” Davey admits. “But this—there’s no way around this. Experiments on the incarcerated. The undocumented.” His voice cracks. “The impoverished.”

My pulse thunders in my ears, drowning out everything.

I’ve uncovered all kinds of things over the years. Some of it was outright deranged. Violent coups disguised as business acquisitions, money laundering schemes so intricate they took months to untangle. At other times, it was something as mundane as a tax evasion scandal.

It was always hard to imagine what was actually in these files.

Some days, my mind drifted to something out of a dystopian film—some horrifying, larger-than-life government conspiracy.

Other times, I thought smaller. William hiding payments to an illegitimate child, maybe.

Some quiet, shameful secret buried in redacted documents and offshore accounts.

Silas is gripping the edge of the desk like it’s the only thing keeping him upright.

Even that might not be enough. His knuckles are white, the tendons in his hands straining.

Under his glasses, his eyes shine, locked on the last document he clicked on.

I don’t even bother looking at it. I don’t need to.

I’ve seen Silas in so many states in the short time I’ve known him.

I’ve seen him burn with anger so consuming it feels like standing too close to a wildfire.

I’ve seen him controlled, shutting down every emotion until nothing but logic remained.

I’ve seen him vulnerable, in the quiet moments where his guard slips and lets me see the parts of himself he hides. But I’ve never seen him like this.

Because nothing has ever been this impossible to process.

My mind whirls.

How did William get them to comply? Was it force, or a false promise? How long were they held at Sierra Blanca, forced to endure whatever his sham of a research team pumped into their bodies? What happened when the medicines made them sick?

What happened when they died?

Did they have families waiting for them? Were those families told the truth? Or were they left to wonder, to grieve someone who disappeared into the system, never knowing what happened?

Did they get the funerals they deserved? Or were they discarded and erased as if they never even existed?

The questions keep coming, and this time, we have no answers.

There’s no strategy, no power move, no clever manipulation that will undo decades of atrocities. This isn’t a broken deal, or an honest misstep. Nothing Silas can salvage, bend to his will, or force into something manageable.

This is beyond me.

Beyond him.

Beyond everything.