Page 19 of They Break Beauty

The first one had just a single box of tissues in the top drawer. But then I opened the door beneath and pulled up short as I took in a bright purple dildo and a bullet vibrator.

Good for her.

I moved to the other one and opened the bottom door.

A safe greeted me. Getting to the good stuff now.

I crouched down and studied it.

The familiarity of it couldn’t be denied.

It was one of my father’s next-gen products. Well, his corporation’s creation, Knightsridge Engineering. He used a couple of them in his own home.

As such, I knew well how it worked.

The passcode changed daily and it was randomized and sent to the user’s phone.

Considering I had access to said user’s phone, it was child’s play to determine it.

I pulled my real phone from my pants pocket and fired it up, accessing what I needed to, and it didn’t take me more than a few moments to acquire the code.

I punched it into the safe and, sure enough, a high-pitched beep sounded, along with a mechanical whirring as the door clicked definitively, then sprung open.

Smiling to myself, I opened it all the way then peered inside to see two shelves.

On the bottom one was her passport, thick wads of cash, and a burner. Emergency items should she need to leave in a hurry. So she was still concerned about that then. All these years later. Beside it, nestled in the corner was a Glock 26. Yeah, definitely still concerned.

I focused on the top shelf and found a fuzzy rainbow-colored unicorn journal.

I frowned. In a safe? That was a bit much.

But as I pulled out my pocket knife and used it to open the gold padlock attached, then started rifling through it, it became clear it was much more than a journal or a regular set of diary entries.

It was research.

So she didn’t just use her highly accomplished coding skills to create apps. She’d been using them in a similar way to that which I did. Illicitly. She’d been conducting her own investigation that mirrored mine.

She’d been trying to find the same people I had.

But then she’d abruptly stopped.

Why?

It didn’t say.

I flipped through, trying to determine why.

Nothing. No reason given.

A couple of photos slipped out and I caught them, taking them in.

A growl rumbled in my throat before I could check myself as I studied the first one. It was a photo of Tommy Dixon, also known as Hawk in Brianna’s previous circles. He used to be one of her father’s top enforcers. And there he was in the photo sitting astride his Harley and grinning at the camera, well fucking beaming at it—beaming at her.

I looked at the other photo, which was far worse. It was clear she was holding the camera as the two of them snuggled together and Tommy kissed her cheek.

These weren’t the first I’d seen of them, evidence of the illicit affair they’d had for a couple of years. There were more on her phone and of a much more compromising nature. But having them here in my hands and seeing them again and kept in her book of secrets… it had my gut twisting.

I slotted them back in the page they’d fallen from.

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