Page 62 of Their Promise

I danced and sang along to all of the songs, having the most fun I’d had in years, and was truly happy without a hint of the darkness swirling within me.

“Yes, that all really happened,” Kayden said during a quiet part of one of my favorite songs, answering me finally, and pinched me.

“Ouch,” I hissed at him, but immediately smiled again, turned, and kissed him hard on the lips. “Thank you, Kayden.”

He leaned over and rubbed his cheek along mine. “Anything for you, Lily.”

Chapter

Sixteen

Mom hovered over my shoulder as I continued fixing the spreadsheet she had destroyed the formulas for.

“You should really save these to the cloud so you have versions to allow you to restore a previous one to avoid this.” I'd learned my lesson while at college after losing a ten-page essay and having to restart from scratch. I would never make that mistake again. I now anally hit save while working on important documents. This one included.

“I usually do, but the internet was down when I started it so I couldn't upload to the server.”

“Well, lucky for you, I did several courses on electronic spreadsheets, including learning advanced coding.” And as nerdy as that made me sound, I loved creating and editing spreadsheets. “Now after you enter the value here, when you hit enter, it will auto update on the other three tabs.”

“You mean I don't have to enter it three separate times?” she asked, eyes wide.

I leaned back in the chair and nodded while smiling at her. “Exactly.”

She threw her arms around me. “You are amazing! I'm so lucky you're my daughter. This will save me so much time!”

Laughing at her excitement, I patted her back. “I'm glad I could help.” When I'd come into her office and found her sniffling, I had feared something awful had happened.

Riddick walked in with a binder in his hands. “How's it going?”

“She not only fixed it, but improved it!” Mom shouted.

Ge smiled proudly at me. “Wonderful! I know that spreadsheet has been annoying you the last month.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and handed her the binder. “Quarterly report for the mana stone store. There's something interesting on it.”

I double saved the spreadsheet to her desktop as well as the cloud, then got out of her chair so she could sit and review the report.

My eyes widened when I looked over her shoulder at the report. “A one hundred percent increase in sales? Why are so many people buying mana stones suddenly?”

“It increases as the demon portals increase,” she explained. “People stocking up as a defense.” Her brows furrowed as she looked at other pages of the report. “Who is the buyer that keeps purchasing the large quantities?”

“What?” Riddick asked.

I pointed to the row she mentioned where one person had purchased twenty mana stones once a week the entire quarter. “That’s really suspicious. What could you possibly need that many for and that frequently?”

“You could power wards large enough for the city for a year with that,” Mom whispered. “But not even this city has wards.”

“I’ll ask them for more information on the buyer,” Riddick said and pulled out his phone to send a message.

“What are the dates of pickup?” I asked. “Maybe a stakeout would be better.”

“You sound like Caleb,” Mom muttered.

“And what’s wrong with her sounding like me? Her father and king?” Dad asked as he walked inside. He wore a dark blue suit with a white shirt and matching blue tie.

“Whoa, you look like a businessman,” I said. Dad preferred jeans to slacks.

“Had a TV interview today,” he explained as he loosened his tie.

“There’s a suspicious purchaser of the mana stones. Lily wants to do a stakeout.”

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