After taking several deep breaths to calm herself, Aisling returned to the kitchen. Carl and Mateo were still outside with the girls. She smelled something and stopped in the kitchen, where she spied the bagel sitting in the toaster, its cycle finished.
After a moment, she walked over, pulled one of the halves out of the toaster, took a huge bite from it, then returned it to the toaster, bit side down.
Hesitating only a moment, she did it to the other one, too.
Then she found the package of bagels and hid them in the back of the pantry cabinet, where they wouldn’t easily be found.
Yes, it was petty.
But if it kept the men at arms’ length so they didn’t catch on to her secret…
Then it was worth it.
Besides, she had a bunch of siblings and was fluent in petty.
Chapter Fifteen
Ken
Two days later, the pack gathered at the meeting hall for the recognition ceremony for the babies. It wasn’t just for Lyssa, Maisie, Tahlia, Adair, and Malina. Seventeen other babies who’d been born in the past year, and three children who’d been adopted, were also recognized and celebrated. Hamish flew out so he could attend the recognition ceremony and spend time with Tamsin and her baby, and meet his newly adopted pack.
Ken spent the past few days trying to relax as much as possible when he wasn’t working outside of Dewi’s view, although that wasn’t easy.
The relaxing, or sneaking in work outside of Dewi’s presence.
They were receiving a treasure trove of data from the software he’d installed on the cartel’s computers, as well as from Miranda Segura’s personal laptop. She’d finally logged into her corporate account with it. That gave Ken exactly what he needed to infiltrate the company’s server so he could create a permanent backdoor access. His software was downloading financial and other information from their servers at a slow enough rate not to trigger any alarms on their end, disguised as daily reports, and he was scrubbing certain details from it before sending it to one of the pack’s accountants to scour.
With Gillian taking time off, Ken had shifted the bulk of this responsibility to his own shoulders. For safety, they were limiting who had access to—and knowledge of—the data mining operation. Keeping people siloed was an additional layer of security.
They still didn’t have a firm date for their return to Florida. Ken certainly wasn’t pushing the issue, and he suspected Peyton was guilting Dewi into staying longer so the siblings could spend time together.
Ken didn’t have cooking duties that evening because Peyton ordered catering for a large, backyard barbecue for the family. And had made sure there was plenty of smoked salmon for Ken.
All afternoon, as Ken’s unease grew, he wondered if it was the fact that he really didn’t want to return to Florida yet or his stress over the ongoing work he was doing, or…
Something else.
Those suspicions kicked into overdrive when Peyton held back after most everyone went home following dinner. Then he tapped Ken on the shoulder and tipped his head toward his home office.
Resigned, Ken followed Peyton, closing the door behind him. Normally, Ken enjoyed being in here. Peyton and Gillian were voracious readers, and the walls of his home office were lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves holding thousands of books ranging in topics from modern fiction to a huge section about Greek, Roman, Celtic, and other mythologies. That wasn’t even counting all the thousands of books filling various shelves throughout the rest of the house. When the door wasn’t closed, Peyton had an open-door policy of allowing family to walk in and access the bookshelves.
Peyton didn’t speak aloud, holding a hand out to Ken, who finally took it.
“I’m heading to Europe for several days,” Peyton silently told him through his Prime powers. “We have a solid lead.”
“About Faegan?”
“Him, and possibly other…stuff.”
Ken’s stomach clenched. “You can’t tell me more?”
“Unfortunately, no. I don’t want Dewi or Gillian knowing any of that right now, either. All I want them to know is it has to do with Faegan.”
“Why?”
Peyton arched an eyebrow. “I believe you’ve met my baby sister. When have you ever known her not to want to be in the center of action? If she knows details, she’ll demand to be included.”
“Why do you have to go?”
