I stood, slamming my fist onto the table. “Then prove me wrong, Ster! Show me I’m crazy and this is all fake.”
He crossed his arms in defiance. “Fine. But I don’t need to go into Maz’s office to do that. I can do it from here.”
I went stock still. “Say what?”
Sterling let out a deep breath. “The entire House of Rose is on a linked network. I helped Maz update it two years ago. Get your laptop.”
Holy freaking crap, I scrambled out of the room so fast I nearly tripped.
Grabbing my laptop off my bed, I bolted back to where Sterling and Liv were waiting for me. Handing Sterling the laptop, he popped it open and I used my thumbprint to unlock it.
“Watch this.” His fingers flew over the keyboard and there was a network of names that he was scrolling through. Zia’s computer, Vaz the Stag, Livvie, the entire hunter network was here.
I pointed a finger at him. “You don’t spy on my computer, do you?”
He shook his head. “I have better things to do, but Maz had me build this backdoor in case she ever needed it for security reasons.”
I raised an eyebrow and Liv looked at me suspiciously. “Security reasons?”
Sterling clicked on one calledThe Eagleand nodded. That must be the name of Maz’s computer. “Sometimes hunters leave the society, or they get married to humans, or they go with another house like the Thorns or the Ashes. In that case, she can wipe their mainframe from her desk the second she gets wind of them leaving so they don’t take trade secrets.”
I swallowed hard. I mean … I guess that seemed normal. We were a secret society after all. But it also meant Maz could spy on us and control information we received. The knot in my stomach grew as he pulled up a desktop identical to the one Maz had open the other day.
“There.” I pointed to the“Marks” folder.
Sterling opened it and there were hundreds—no thousands—of names of vampires we’d killed.
“What am I looking for?” he asked.
“I dunno, just start opening stuff,” I told him.
He opened one, Greggory Shores, and pulled up the bio.
Looks twenty-five, actually fifty-seven, wanted for murder, rape, and draining a feeder.
“Click on the evidence,” I urged him. There was a picture attached.
Liv went stock still and I reached out and grasped her hand. Sterling double-clicked the photo, and when it popped up both of them gasped.
“Sick bastard,” Sterling growled.
“He deserved to die,” Liv agreed.
I was frozen, mouth open in shock. It was the same picture of the redheaded girl Maz had shown me that proved Luka was guilty of rape and murder.
“Go to Luka Drake.” My voice cracked with emotion as the walls started to close in on me.
Liv must have noticed the change in my voice, because she looked up at me as my eyes filled with tears.
Sterling opened Luka’s file.
“Evidence photo,” I croaked.
He pulled it up and we all stared at the same redheaded girl, the same pose, the same wooded background.
“Wait, what?” Liv said.
“It’s a mistake,” Sterling said coolly, but I heard the unnerved tone in his voice.
