Page 53 of Curvy Quirky Omega

Liam’s smile was blinding – my very own sun god shining down on me like I was the sole reason for him to gift this world with light.

He kissed my nose and then laced his fingers through mine. “This is the lobby of the building Gideon and I refurbished. I chose the architect and he chose the materials. What do you think of it?”

I made a show of looking around as he pulled me toward the metal gates where all the employees had to scan their work ID.

“…it’s very fancy.”

“You don’t like it?” Liam scanned his ID and gave the security guards staring at us in shock a polite smile. “Is it the color or the design? Is there anything you want me to change?”

Why did I fully believe that he would change it immediately if I asked him to? “I like that you chose to have an atrium in the center,” I admitted. “I’ll have to see the rest of the building before I decide if you should change anything or not.”

Liam went over to the main elevators and hit the button to go down. “Let’s start at the bottom then and work our way up. I want to show you where the maintenance areas are first. It takes a lot to keep a building like this running smoothly, you know.”

He sounded ridiculous, like he really was trying to impress me with his fancy building, but there was a hint of genuine excitement in his voice that made it hard to wipe the smile off my face.

This was just another treasure he wanted to show me and I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to have him in my life again, even if he did come with a lot of baggage.

We had that in common, didn’t we?

Liam escorted me into the elevator and pulled out his phone, waiting until the doors closed before he spoke again. “Frankie and Cas should be in the security control room by now.”

I nodded my understanding but I was more preoccupied with how different it felt to be in an elevator now. There was no weird vertigo or flip in my stomach when the smooth machinery pulled us up. I’d been in an elevator with him before, but now he was my alpha.

Everyone talked about how a bond could be a miracle worker for a variety of issues but I had no idea it would settle my anxiety like this. I almost wanted to tell him to get out and see if it would feel any different if I rode the elevator back down by myself.

But we didn’t have time for that.

“The engineers manage all the heating, air conditioning, electricity, and plumbing on the level below this one,” Liam explained as the elevator doors opened. “It’s a bit too loud to roam around in there, but I can show you where we keep the servers. It’s where we store and secure all the Valor Enterprises information. You like computers, right?”

I nodded as he placed his hand on my lower back and guided me down the hall to the first door.

“It’s all clear,” Cas told us, his voice directly in my ear thanks to the Bluetooth earbud I was wearing. “There’s no one else in the server room right now.”

“Once we’re done with this, I’ll work on the security logs again,” Frankie said through the Bluetooth. “There has to be something to prove who came here to kill Gideon if none of the footage has been tampered with.”

I didn’t know what I’d do until three in the morning when the next data packet went out, but there had to be something. Maybe I could help the interns go through the mountains of footage we’d assigned them.

“Cameras in the server room are off,” Cas informed us, his deep voice right in my ear, making me shiver. “It’s all you now, Lucy. Just be careful. There are a lot of people from the IT department in the building, including the director.”

Liam pulled the door to the server room open for me and waved his hand, indicating I should go first.

I stared into the dark, cold room lit up with blue and purple light from row after row of servers.

This was it.

By this time tomorrow, I’d know exactly what was being sent and where.

CHAPTER 21

Lucy

I stepped into the server room and pulled out my phone, checking the numbers on the stacks as I walked down the center of the room while Liam silently followed after me, his footsteps barely more than a whisper.

On either side of me were rows and rows of servers. They looked to be well organized too. I opened the file Cas had sent me with the blueprints for the server room and checked the key before taking a right.

The authentication server was all the way in the back corner. I didn’t bother with the switches or the modems. Nothing I needed would be on there if the person stealing data was smart.

We’d see just how smart they really were when I finished planting my programs.

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