“Wait!”
Nico jolts. “What?”
“I saved some of the cases on a USB drive. Not the most recent ones—I hadn’t gotten around to it yet. But most of them.”
“Where’s the drive?”
“At my apartment. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before now. I have it in my desk. The top drawer. Shoot. How could I have forgotten?”
“Because you were hurt.” His hand comes to my shoulder. It’s warm. Comforting. Some of the anxiety rushing through me settles. “It hasn’t been that long, Soph. You had other things to deal with.”
“I need to get it. The drive. And maybe if I call about restoring the storage…”
“Sofia.” Nico turns me to face him. “Let me do this. I can send someone to your apartment. And I’ll work on restoring the files. Once we have them, we’ll work together to search through them. Okay?”
But I always do things on my own.
“You don’t have?—”
“I want to, Soph. Let me do this for you, at least.”
The stubborn part of me wants to insist on doing it myself.
But Nico can do things I can’t. He can hack into the cloud storage servers to see if there’s anything left to retrieve. He can send one of his very capable employees to my apartment to look for the USB drive. On my own, it’ll take longer. It’ll be more dangerous.
“Okay,” I agree with a sigh. “If you could help, I’d appreciate it.”
“Of course.” He gives my good shoulder a small squeeze. “I’ll absolutely help. As soon as I’m done cooking, I’ll send Houdini over to your apartment.”
I blink at him. “Houdini?”
Nico chuckles. “His nickname. Houdini’s real name is Val. Short for Valentin. He was on my Delta team. And he’s the best at lock picking out of all of us.”
“Oh. I guess that makes sense. With the nickname and all.”
“It does. Now.” He steps back, his hand drifting down my arm as he moves away. “How about we eat breakfast? Then I’ll make some calls before the doctor arrives. And you can take a look at the puzzles I bought. Let me know if I got ones that are hard enough.”
He makes it all seem so simple.
It reminds me of something else Nico used to do. Whenever I was stressed out—over a test, over college applications, the increasing hours for my part-time job—he’d pull me into his arms and reassure me,“It’s going to be okay, Soph. You’re not dealing with this alone. I’ve got your back. We’ll work it out together.”
I know I’m still supposed to be mad at him.
And accepting his help doesn’t mean I forgive him.
But I want to. And I missed him, even after everything.
Chapter Twelve
NICO
“Thisis where your office is?”
Sofia stares out the window at the Fox & Falcon headquarters, her eyes wide with surprise. Her gaze sweeps across the sleek silver doors at the entrance, secured behind a heavy-duty security fence that reaches from one side of the building to the other. The fence is topped with unbreakable security cameras and motion sensors, and the only way to get past it is by way of intercom or the biometric keypad at the gate.
A silver sign just above the double doors boasts the Fox & Falcon logo; the name engraved in simple text with a fox and falcon flanking it. To either side of the doors are windows protected by black metal guards, each one specially designed to include a fox and falcon at the center. All the exterior windows have the same guards on them, all the way up to the sixth floor, which some people might consider overkill, but I think is just smart.
When Jester first saw the guards going up, he ribbed me about it. “What, do you think someone’s going to scale the front of the building to break in?”
