“These are thehackers. If you can call them that,” Sylvan mumbles. “Accessing their emails was embarrassingly easy. That’s how I found who hired them.”
He flicks back to the original mugshot.
“I could have stopped there. What I’d gathered in their emails was enough evidence for arrest on charges of blackmail, stalking, threats, hacking.” His eyes sweep to Revea’s, and his tone drops. “But I didn’t.”
The next slide contains the four hackers again, but this time, underneath each image is a list.
“I found every bad thing they ever did. Petty things at first.” He reads some from the screen. “Parking fines, phishing emails, scams.”
Another slide appears, filled with more writing.
“Then… worse things. Other victims they’ve blackmailed. Often for money, but not always…” Sylvan stops, his jaw tightening. “Every victim was a woman or an omega. These hackers are a pack and part of an Alphasphere group. A forum where alphas discuss traditional roles for omegas.”
He pauses, scanning the information lining the screen.
“For alphas with such strong convictions, it’s interesting that none of them attach their real identities to those opinions.” He tilts his head slightly. “Until I leaked them.”
I huff a laugh. Syl is always so casual about his skills; he’s not even seen Revea’s awestruck expression.
Then he continues. “The alpha who attacked your employee, Edward Pembroke. He comes from old money, generational wealth, and his crimes run just as deep.” Sylvan scowls as he reads, “Countless assault charges—all dropped, buried. Then there’s the fraud.”
Bank account screenshots appear.
“Using investment loans to fund other projects, claiming bankruptcy, the list goes on. This isn’t the first time he’s hired this group of amateur hackers. Normally, it’s to scare and threaten people into investing. But this time, it was ego…”
Sylvan pauses, fists clenched, eyes darting over the bed cover like he’s picturing something—
“I still think we should kill them,” he says.
None of us saw that coming.
“Sylvan,”Kaiden snaps over the bond. “Stop—”
“Kill them?” Revea turns to look directly at Sylvan. “No, Sylvan. That’s—”
“I read all the emails. Every single one. Ones about others… ones about you.” His gaze darkens as it sweeps over her. “About what they’d do even if you sent the money, how they’d—”
She reaches for his hand, stopping his words. “Sylvan. I’m sorry you had to read all that. But I’m fine, thanks to you.” She smiles. “No need to talk about something extreme like killing—”
“We’ve done it before.”
“You’ve…” She pauses. “You’vekilledpeople before?”
“Joder—Kaiden, do something!”I growl through the bond, trying to remain composed.
“During active warfare,” Kaiden tries to cover, but when Revea cocks her brow as she looks at him, he relents, “And on very rare occasions… for particular jobs.”
Her eyes widen.
“Only when extremely necessary. A last resort,” he adds.
“Revea, I swear we’re not fucking maniacs,” I murmur against her hair, shocked she hasn’t moved away from me yet. “The people we’ve killed. They were the worst, evilest fuckers you could imagine. Omega traffickers with so much leverage the court couldn’t touch them without being blackmailed themselves. They wouldn’t have stopped if we didn’t stop them.”
“Laws aren’t for powerful people,” Val ends.
She’s silent, and we sit in it.
Dread bubbles through the bond because we’ve just admitted we’re fucking murderers. Revea’s probably considering her quickest escape route, she’ll never want to see us—
