“No, not really. He told me that there’ssomethinggoing on, but he’s not in a place to say anything yet.”
“And you think he was talking about Damon?” Jace presses.
“Not sure. It could have been about anything, but he said it while we were discussing me watching Damon, so it might be connected. I can’t be sure without more context.” I peer at my cousin for a few beats. “Why, what are you thinking?”
“I found something when I was analyzing those blackmail files Jordan and the boys told us about,” he says, his tone distracted as he types something.
“What is it?”
“This.” He taps a key, and what looks like an email pops up on one of his screens.
I lean forward and try to read the message, but it’s in some sort of code that’s a mix of letters and numbers and makes zerosense. It’s from the Kings’ secure server, I can tell that much, but there’s no sender or receiver on it.
“What am I looking at?” I ask, not seeing what Jace did.
“Here.” Using his cursor, he highlights a single word, or at least what looks like a word based on how the characters are grouped together, in the message: b14k3.
“Yeah, still not seeing it,” I tell him. “You’re going to have to explain it to me like I’m five.”
“That says Blake in leetspeak. Or at least a version of leetspeak.”
“Huh?” I ask dumbly.
“Hacker speech,” he clarifies. “I remember it showed up in some of the emails I’ve looked at, and always when they’re talking about their contacts for keeping the blackmail scheme going. I thought it was a first name, but it could be a last name.”
Is this what put Damon on Jordan’s radar, and the Eden thing was just what brought me into it? Or maybe this whole thing really is about Eden and Jordan has no idea what Damon’s actual last name is or that it could be connected to something bigger than just his obsession with his stepsister.
“And let me just double-check this…” Jace mutters, typing furiously on his keyboard.
The images on the middle screen are changing so fast I can’t follow them or even begin to see what he’s looking at, so I just stay quiet and let him do his thing.
“Yup,” he says grimly and sits back in his chair. “Damon’s not in the files.”
“He isn’t?” I ask, glancing between Jace and his computer screens.
He shakes his head. “That doesn’t necessarily mean anything since only a handful of Keepers actually have their own files, and it’s basically just the current leadership and their team, andfour juniors who seem to have gotten on the King’s radar, but it doesn’t exactly look good for him, either.”
“Yeah,” I agree, my thoughts ping-ponging around in my head as I process everything I learned since walking into the kitchen at the main house. Jordan told me that Carter is already looking into Damon, and there’s no way Carter hasn’t found Damon’s dual birth certificates, so that means the leadership team already knows about Damon’s original last name.
The real question is whether Carter has or will connect the name Blake in the emails to Damon. That seems far less likely unless Carter does a specific search for the name or he somehow connects to dots like Jace did purely by memory, but it’s definitely not impossible.
“Thank fuck for your brain,” I tell my cousin. “You’ve combed through how many terabytes of data, and you remembered a random name that showed up a handful of times?”
Jace grins. “Go on and say it. I’m a genius, and you’d be lost without me.”
“You’re a genius, and I’d be lost without you,” I repeat good-naturedly. He isn’t wrong on either point.
“I’ll dig into the files when I finish my deep dive on Damon and see if I can find anything that will tell us if he and Blake are the same person. Or if he’s connected to the blackmail scheme at all.” He glances at me. “Do you have a timeline for when Jordan wants his report? I’ve got a shit ton of stuff on my plate right now, so if you want a thorough check, it’ll take time.”
“Like how long are you ballparking?”
“A week or more for a proper deep dive on Damon, depending on what I find and how deep I have to dig. And probably another week or two before I’ll know for sure if he and Blake are the same person.” He offers me a rueful smile. “Jax has me sweeping the dark web for some deepfakes, and Axel is breathing down my neck and demanding near daily reports onwhat I’m finding in the files. Plus, Carter has me looking into some stuff for him too, so my time and resources are limited right now.”
“That’s fine,” I tell him. “Jordan just asked me to report on what I see him doing around campus, so all of this”—I wave at his computer screens—"is just bonus content. And if it’s easier, just let me know everything you find at the same time.”
“Will do,” Jace says, his expression serious as he studies me for a few beats. “I’m assuming you want me to keep all this hush-hush?”
I nod. “You can tell the others if it comes up, but let’s wait until we find anything concrete before bringing Carter or the leadership into it.”
