Page 48 of Lying Lainey

Having spent much of my life investigating people since I needed to delve into their lives and learn all that I could for jobs, on occasion, I would find a connection or mention to another person I didn’t need to know anything about, yet they fascinated me so I’d do some research. Sometimes I used what I learned to build the characters that I played, pulling bits and pieces from other people’s stories.

Why base anything off the life you know when you could create a whole new identity out of the magic of someone else’s? Did she have enough partners to fill the bedrooms, or were some of them for their children? What kind of life had this Omega led? Is she the reason they have a solarium? These were the things I could use in building the next persona because the best lie was always founded in truth.

Thinking about moving on and the job I was supposed to start a week from now made my heart ache. Just how attached had I become to these men? Why did they make me question my choice to live life on my own terms? Surely, it wasn’t just that we were scent-paired. That was simply a tool to pair Alphas and Omegas who had the best chance of producing children.

Shaking my head, I splashed my face with the bath water, trying to end this downward mental spiral. All I needed to do was use this opportunity at their home to get rid of the code. Removing it from the office computers would be the easy part since there was a central data bank. Here at home, who knew how he stored things or where? Was he the type to put things on a backup hard drive or maybe a USB flash drive? I had to be sure I’d gotten every single copy or the Syndicate would be all over my ass.

Once I was done with destroying the code at Enigma, would they send me over to Cyclone to destroy it there? No, wait, they wanted me to ensure that Kerian wouldn’t ever work on the code again, even if it meant I had to kill him. Yeah, well, that wasn’t going to fucking happen. There had to be some other way I could convince him to leave the code alone, and I would find it.

Thinking of the Syndicate took away some of the joy of my bath, so I submerged myself under the water for a few seconds and cleared my mind. Today I was going to enjoy the illusion of being their Omega. All I wanted was to have that experience with them before it all shattered when they found out what I was doing. Popping back up out of the water, I took a deep breath, purged myself of all the worry, stuffed it into a drawer, and locked it away.

There would be time to face the music, but now wasn’t it.

twenty

Halstead

Sam droned on and on about the changes to my schedule, making me regret calling to check in on things. I’d called him late that first night and told him there was a personal emergency and that we would be out next week. There was no telling how long Lainey’s heat was going to last. Now that it was over, it meant we got three more days with her, not having to worry about going back to work, which was priceless.

“Sam,” I cut in. “I really was just calling to make sure the building didn’t catch on fire, and you were still in one piece.”

“Oh…” Sam commented. “So you’re really not coming back to work until next week?”

“That’s correct. We’ve managed to deal with the pressing issue, but we decided it would be nice to enjoy the break. Come to think of it, I can’t remember the last time we took that much time off,” I mused aloud.

“You certainly deserve it, sir. I’m just impressed you’re following through, is all. Oh yes, I meant to ask you, Ms. Collins hasn’t been in either, but I didn’t have any contact information for her,” Sam shared.

A smirk grew on my lips. “That’s all right, I’ve been in contact with her. She’ll be coming back to work next week as well. Being so new, I didn’t think it would be worth her time to be there when I’m not. Kind of hard to assist someone when they’re not present, don’t you think?”

“Of course, I just didn’t want her to be out of the loop. One last thing…” Sam said, his voice betraying that I wasn’t going to be a fan of what he was going to tell me. “Mr. Watts has been relentless in trying to get ahold of Mr. Lewis. He calls the office at least four times a day, and I keep telling him that he’s out for the week. Then he demands Mr. Lewis’ private number, but I’m not allowed to give that to him… right?”

“Absolutely, you’re not allowed to give that out… we’re a security company, for Christ’s sake. You just keep doing what you’re doing, and I’ll deal with the bastard,” I grumbled. “Anything else I should be aware of?”

“Let’s see… no, no, already covered that, ah yes… the Department of Defense called… well, kind of. The woman said she was General Horn’s personal assistant and would like to schedule a call between the two of you. Seems they want to smooth things over from the last interaction,” Sam informed me.

“I’ll bet they do,” I muttered, rubbing my forehead, trying to decide if I could make that wait until next week or if I needed to deal with it sooner. “Call her back, see what his schedule looks like. Take down three options, then send them to me, and I’ll decide what I want to do then.”

“Certainly, I’ll get you that information right away,” Sam assured me then hung up.

“Good thing I didn’t need to tell you anything else.” I chuckled, tossing my phone on the bed.

Pulling open my dresser drawer, I grabbed a T-shirt and pulled it on. While I loved my suits, those were for business, and this was leisure time, so T-shirt and jeans it was. Looking down, I realized what shirt I was wearing and groaned. It was one Quintin had gotten me for my last birthday, reading, I’m not old, I’m vintage. Asshole knew I wouldn’t make him return it since I was a lover of collecting vintage items. The library upstairs was full of rare old books, and the second garage was where I kept my babies. Maybe I should take Lainey out there since she seemed to appreciate vintage as well.

Dressed, I glanced at my phone, debating if I was going to take that with me or leave it, but I decided to take it. I’d asked Sam to get back to me about the general’s schedule, so I should be a good boss and have an answer for him. Shoving it in my back pocket, I ambled my way downstairs into the kitchen. Quintin was sitting at the small corner breakfast table with a newspaper and tea—his morning ritual.

“The world still going to hell?” I asked, grabbing a mug for my cup o’ joe.

Quintin might not ever drink coffee, but he was always kind enough to make some in the morning if Ruth hadn’t gotten to it yet. Since we hadn’t informed her that the heat was over, I knew Quin had made this.

Bending down the top half of the paper, Quintin looked at me with an amused expression. “Really, must we start the day with the same question every single time?”

“Aah… but our day has long since started, so this time it is different,” I pointed out while sitting across from him. “See, we’ve already been awake, gotten our Omega settled in the bath, showered, and dressed. I mean, it’s practically noon, and we’re acting like it’s six in the morning.”

Realizing I would be intruding on his reading, he folded up the newspaper and set it aside. “This is true. The day is a rather unusual one, but I have to say I am enjoying the change of pace.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” I shared, taking a sip of my coffee. “It is freeing not to have to worry about what’s going on back at Enigma. Thanks to you pushing me, we’ve made great strides to put people in place so none of the day-to-day dealings are dependent on us.”

“Since you’re agreeing with me now, I won’t bring up how hard that was to achieve,” Quintin commented as he lifted his teacup to his lips, trying to hide the smile I knew was there.