“Alessio?” King asked.
“I’m copying everything on his computer to take back with me and creating a hidden gate, which will leave it open for me to access at the office.”
King nodded his approval. “And the ‘untraceable’ company front for the storage unit?”
“I’ll work on it.”
“And while you’ve got the rest of us busy with your orders, maybe you could work on looking up what ‘honesty and transparency’ means.” Theo hadn’t taken his eyes off King the entire time, and with his eyes practically slits and his arms crossed, I wondered if I should position myself in front of him. We didn’t need to watch another murder go down in this room. “Perhaps even remove the knife in my back while you’re at it.”
King slowly turned his head in Theo’s direction. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
King took in a deep breath and released it before answering. “You may not understand it, but I did what I had to do. What I’ll always do. You don’t have to agree with my methods, but I protect what’s mine?—”
“Bullshit,” Theo said, pushing past me before I could stop him. He moved in close to King, glaring daggers at him. “Youdared to callmedisloyal when you kept this from us for years? What else are you hiding, huh?”
When King didn’t say anything right away, only crossed his arms, Theo started forward. Lachlan stepped in and pushed him back.
When Theo brushed his hand aside, Lachlan looked at me. “Shep? You gonna say something?”
“No, I think Theo’s about covered it.”
A smug smile curled Theo’s lips while Lachlan’s brows shot up.
Guess he didn’t expect me to take Theo’s side in all this, but fuck that. He was right, and King needed to own up to what he’d done.
But when Benoit’s voice crackled through our earpieces, I knew that wouldn’t be happening tonight. “You almost done up there, or do I need to dose this guy with more sleep juice?”
“We’re wrapping it up,” King boomed before any of us could answer.
“Now you speak.” Theo shook his head, glaring at King. Then he headed back to where I stood, knocking into Lachlan’s shoulder hard as he passed.
Alessio unplugged the hard drive he’d been copying the computer files from while Theo, Lucien, and I grabbed the remaining files.
Step one, complete. We’d actually found our first clues into this fucker, and it’d been more than a crumb this time.
As we filed out, I turned back around to look inside, my eyes catching again on the rope and chair, and felt bile rise in my throat.
How differently this could’ve turned out. I didn’t feel confident we ever would’ve found Theo if they’d managed to take him this far.
Lucien slammed the door to the unit shut, and I hoped like hell I could banish the visual of what I’d just seen from my mind.
But for now, I just wanted to get as far away from it as I could.
13
SHEP
“YOU KNOW WHAT pisses me off the most?” Theo said as he stormed out of the private elevator that led into my loft.
I’d known this moment was coming, that he’d eventually erupt. He’d been fuming the entire way home, festering in his anger, disappointment, and complete shock at what we’d uncovered back at the storage unit.
“I could take a guess?—”
“It washim,” he shouted. “This entire fucking fiasco is all because of him.”
Him, of course, being King. SomethingIwas still trying to wrap my brain around.
