"Sir?" One of the tech team interrupts from the doorway. "I think you should see this."
I follow him to one of the laptops.
He pulls up an interior camera feed.
"This is from the hallway outside your office. Ten minutes before the delivery."
The footage shows Eden walking down the hallway.
Slowly, like she's exploring.
She pauses outside my office door, looks around, then pushes it open and goes inside.
"How long was she in there?" I ask, though I already know the answer.
"Approximately twelve minutes."
Twelve minutes in my office.
My office where I keep my files.
My research.
My plans.
My office where I left the Consortium invitation on my desk this morning because I was too distracted thinking about tonight to put it away.
Fuck.
"Check the desk," I say to Callum. "See if anything's been disturbed."
He leaves and returns within minutes, his expression grim.
"Door was slightly ajar when I checked. And there's a card on your desk—cream-colored, expensive stock. The Consortium invitation. Looks like it's been moved from where you usually keep things. It was pulled partially out of the envelope."
The Consortium invitation.
She found it.
Read about the spring gathering. The acquisition showcase. The talent demonstrations where purchased women perform their training for an audience of predators.
Understood exactly what I've been doing to her.
What I've been preparing her for.
The rage comes roaring back, hot and vicious.
She had no right.
No right to go through my things, to invade my privacy, to snoop through my personal papers, and make assumptions about my intentions.
But she wasn't wrong, was she?
That's what makes this so much worse.
She wasn't wrong.
I have been training her.
