Page 34 of Citius

What the fuck.

I couldn’t reach for my tablet fast enough. Owen prompted way more search results than I was prepared for. He earned a master’s and a doctorate in bioengineering from the University of Northport. And authored a ton of papers—quite a few with Cal.

Perfectionist? Ha. Try genius.

Tabitha Redmond didn’t appoint thirty-six-year-old vice presidents without merit.

Wait.

Wyatt had a quirky but generous Aunt Tabby, who I’d always pictured living in a seaside cottage somewhere in Maine with her eccentric pack of lady loves and their six cats, smoking pot between hot yoga classes and volunteering at the soup kitchen.

Aunt Tabby wasTabithaRedmond, the legendary bioengineering barracuda whose products dominated the designation technology market.

It sure would have been nice if Wyatt had mentionedthatlittle detail.

A headline about the recent development issues with PheroPass caught my eye, and I clicked on the article. The header image showed a man with wire-rimmed glasses and knife-like features, wearing a crisp black suit, pointing to a mock-up of the sensor. He had the same wavy black hair as Wyatt.

The caption confirmed his identity, but I couldn’t believe it. This man couldn’t be Owen Redmond. He was too tall.

See? I was right. Owen was a Trojan horse of the first magnitude.

He’d come up with the original concept and prototypes for PheroPass. Had he been laughing at my earnest emails, pleading for more reporting functionality, knowing it was a losing battle—and never saying a word to me?

Did he know about the proposal Cal had tasked me with? Or had he told Cal to let the medical fellow handle it—since she couldn’t mind her own business, and the execs would veto everything anyway?

I didn’t want to doubt Cal’s seeming sincerity, the chivalrous temptation who supported my every move, but Owen was his long-time collaborator. They must have talked about me at least once.

Oh god. What if Cal and Owen were friends? Legit friends who actually enjoyed each other’s company. As if Owen being Wyatt’s brother wasn’t bad enough.

Shit. How was I supposed to keep a straight face around Cal on Monday? He was too good at reading me. Maybe I should keep avoiding him so that I wouldn’t say something disparaging about the Redmond infestation.

Why did it have to be Owen Redmond, of all the Owens in existence, who moved in next door?

And why—why—was he the central connection for the four men already pushing my boundaries?

It had taken me three months to quietly mourn the loss of Jacobi’s reliable, snarky refuge. I had to respect my best friend’s life choices, and neighbors were a fact of life—a tertiary presence I didn’t have to acknowledge. Kelsey would handle the niceties while I carried out my routine undisturbed. But today’s revelations ruined that plan.

My safe space had been compromised. Wyatt had access to my floor. He was living across the hall, in my best friend’s custom-built loft. And there was nothing I could do about it.

He could be standing outside my door right now, waiting to demand answers—to make me explain myself—but I couldn’t. It wasn’t possible. The memory of our final conversation was missing, like everything else from the first three months after my accident.

Gone. Just like Wyatt himself.

My skin felt too tight. Every blood vessel in my body was about to burst. Maybe I should document my symptoms just in case they were the precursor to spontaneous human combustion.

I snapped.

Locked inside my nest—the real one, hidden behind the panel door in the foyer of my suite—where no one could see or hear me, where itwas safe to detonate, I kicked over chairs and accent tables, ripped off the bedding, hurled framed photographs and glass objects at the upholstered walls, and shredded the faux pothos plants. I needed the destruction more than my next breath. Ranting and screaming all the while. My head pounded so violently it felt like it might split in two.

Until Cal’s text arrived.

Great job at the game today. You okay? You seemed a bit off. Don’t mean to pry, but I’m here if you need to talk.

Off. What an understatement. I was a mess, actively creating an even bigger mess out of what had once been a gorgeous room, the nest that was supposed to be my sanctuary.

What a futile overreaction. A colossal waste of energy. I didn’t have time for this. Not if I wanted to squeeze all the information from this week’s ultrasound course into my brain or finish my presentation for Redwing. Not if I didn’t want to fail.

Icould notfail.

---