Page 43 of Fated to the Enemy Alpha

Yeah, of course, eagle-eyed Em has spotted that it’s my bed he’s in.

“Yeah, the whole I’m-a-rogue-wolf thing only came up after,” I said, disappointment and vulnerability washing through me.

“Fuck, I’m sorry, Lina,” Matt said.

I shrugged. “That’s how I know he won’t speak out about us. We’ve got dirt on him. He won’t tell Magnus anything.”

“I’ve got news, too,” Emily announced. “I got some work in this morning—”

“Yeah, thanks for that,” Matt grumbled into his coffee cup, his voice laced with mock irritation. “Nothing like waking up to the sweet sound of keys clacking in one’s ears.”

As his words hung in the air, a flush crept up his neck, and I could see Emily’s cheeks turning a shade pinker. They exchanged a glance, a flicker of shared intimacy passing between them.

Oh my god!

My mouth fell open as it hit me that Stephen and I weren’t the only ones who had been bunking up together.

Emily quickly re-focused her attention on her computer, her fingers flying over the keyboard. As always, her computer was her safety blanket. Matt, on the other hand, struggled to maintain his nonchalance, his eyes darting to me and betraying a mix of embarrassment and happiness.

Their reactions spoke volumes, and it was clear: my two best friends had finally crossed that line into the intimacy they’d been dancing around forever.

“Don’t make a big thing of it, Lina,” Em said without looking away from the screen, the hint of discomfort thrumming through her tone.

But it was a big thing. My two best friends had finally gotten together, and I wanted to bounce off the walls in excitement despite how much my own heart was bruised by Stephen. But I refrained, knowing Emily would clamp up tighter than a clam if I pressed too hard. I’d have to rein in my excitement for the how and when until I could get the details from Matt later.

“Tell me what you’ve found,” I prompted Emily, diving back into the mission ahead.

She cleared her throat and swiveled around to her screens, bringing up text onto the big screens on the wall. “So, Magnus has been sending his men to scour Silvermoon territory,” she said. “For a while, I couldn’t pinpoint what he was after. Then, I intercepted a few emails that referenced a lockbox—reinforced with a strong metal, chromium. It’s supposed to be one of the toughest metals on Earth.”

“A box?” My heart quickened, and a flash of memory flickered in my mind. “It reminds me of a lockbox made out of Chromium.” My mom’s voice echoed through my mind. I saw her in Central Park, a coffee cup in hand, and her slim mouth turned down in a frown. A rush of recognition surged within me, igniting a flicker of hope. “I think my mom might have mentioned it once.”

“What did she say about it?” Matt asked, turning to me, anticipation lining his features.

“When? Where?” Emily asked, her voice eager, too, as she pressed for details.

I hesitated, feeling a small sliver of doubt creep in. It had been a fleeting memory, and the more I tried to place when it had been, the farther it seemed to get from me. “I don’t know.” The memory was hazy, like a dream lingering at the edge of my mind. “We were in Central Park, and I’m sure she mentioned a lockbox once, and maybe the word Chromium, but… maybe it’s just wishful thinking.”

“Maybe it’ll come back to you in time,” Matt offered kindly, anchoring me to the now and helping me push away the tide of uncertainty threatening to swamp me.

“That’s not all,” Emily said, her voice snapping my attention back as she clicked play on a video cast up on one of the big monitors on the wall.

The video played footage captured by one of our cameras angled into Magnus’s office in Blackthorn Villa. I hadn’t been able to bug more cameras at the Blackthorn Corporate office, given how closely Stephen had tailed me, but I had, while alone in the villa, bugged the network of cameras there.

Emily said, “You know how I said cool people and villains have doors behind their bookcases?”

On the screen, through Magnus’s open study door, a sliver of the wall behind his desk flickered across the screen, one where a bookcase stood ajar.

“But the footage came from one of the Blackthorn Corporation buildings,” I said.

That’s why our plan had been for me to infiltrate their head office, the one Magnus spent most of his time in and where I’d spent the last month searching for my mother.

Emily shook her head. “With the IP address, it looked like it was coming from a Blackthorn building. But their security team was using an elaborate VPN—virtual private network—” she added at my frown, “disguising their true location.”

“With the bugs you planted in the villa, not only have you found this secret room, but you’ve shown this footage is actually coming from Blackthorn Villa.”

My heart raced as Emily’s words sank in. This last month, while I’d been sleeping in that villa every night, there was a secret space below me.

Adrenaline coursed through my veins. Had we found where my mother was?

---