“What happened?” My tone is firm and filled with strength which surprises me given how rattled I am.
“It was a setup, they knew we were flying out this morning. Adrian and Marko didn’t make it. Damon is hanging on by a thread. She only got Alex because Desire threatened to kill the five of us if he didn’t go with her. Plus, all our men are trapped in Chicago .”
“Why are they trapped?” I ask.
Omen sighs and runs a hand through his hair clearly agitated. “We don’t know who is leaking the intel, we can’t risk moving them or going after Desire until we figure that out.” I gnaw on my bottom lip as I mull over her words. Omen and Carnage stand there watching me as I try and work it all out, the shouting from the other’s in the living room becomes white noise.
“I’m just going to point out that you just went and became my sister’s sole focus,” Carnage says.
“Why?” I push.
“You just declared Alex as your boyfriend and I quote, you told her to tell him thatyou love him too. Alex has never said those words to anyone before.”
I narrow my eyes at the bastard. “Well he said them to me this morning.”
He nods. “I don’t doubt it. I could tell from the second I saw him with you that he had fallen.” His declaration has warmth filling me but I tamper that shit down and latch back onto my anger. I need to focus and all thinking about Alex will do is cloud my mind with worry, and I can’t have that shit happening.
“She knew I was here alone,” I mutter and start to think of all the possibilities.
“Yeah, she saw all of us?—”
I cut Omen off before he can finish. “No. She knew that all the guards were gone. How would she know that? No one in Chicago would know that either, would they?” Both of them mull over my words for a moment before they both shake their heads. I keep wracking my brain for a minute until it hits me. “It’s not a someone!” I shout as I barge past them and head for the living room.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Carnage snaps. I ignore him as I move around the guys who are… yeah, that is so gross! Halo is stitching Damon’s chest closed. I grab my laptop then head back to the kitchen. I hold it out to Omen who just looks from it to me with a frown.
“No one snitched, she knows everything because of me,” I admit bitterly.
Omen’s eyes darken. “What the hell does that mean?” he growls.
“I sent an email to Vivian last night after Alex told me he was leaving me here alone.” Omen just stares at me confused. When Carnage growls I turn to him.
“Her laptop is bugged!” he snaps.
Omen shakes his head. “No, Halo checked it and?—”
“You idiot, it’s a fucking iMac, you can download apps on that thing. Did he check every fucking one?” At Carnage’s outburst, Omen reels back and stares at the laptop like it might leap out of my hands and bite him. I roll my eyes and throw it as hard as I can to the ground. It cracks and bounces but I’m not done. I stomp on it a couple of times before Carnage shoves me backward, picks up the broken thing and then dumps it in the sink and runs water over it. I pull my work phone out of my pocket and toss it to him. He dumps it in the sink as well.
“That phone was linked to the laptop, the only one I have left is the burner Alex gave me to call him,” I tell them.
“Damon is patched. He’s gonna be down for a few days but he’ll survive,” Halo says as he comes to stand beside Omen. “And to answer your question, no I didn’t check the apps. Alex didn’t want me to go through her things.”
My heart constricts hearing that. “How did she put a bug or whatever in my laptop?” I ask him.
He smacks his lips together and tilts his head side to side. “She would have had to have had the laptop with her to download the app. The firewall I put in place can’t be hacked so it would have had to have happened?—”
“Months ago,” I utter. Halo purses his lips. “Desire wasn’t the one who bugged my laptop,” I confess.
“You know who did it, don’t you?” Carnage hedges.
I nod. “The only person who had access to my laptop months ago was my brother. I think Nexus was the one who bugged it. I think that’s how he knew which club I would be at because my phone and laptop are linked.” Now that I’ve said it aloud, it makes sense and I fucking hate that it does, because it means from the start of all of this he used me!
“Everyone, give me your phones. I’m going to run a deep clean on all of them to make sure.” Halo turns to focus on me directly. “Do you have any more of those burner phones?”
I shake my head. “I tossed them all when I got back here and made my decision to trust Alex.” He smiles sadly and nods.
“I hate to say it but you chose right. He would never use you, Tate. You can trust him.” I hear the truth in his words but I already knew that. Alex has proven to be overbearing and controlling but he’s always had valid reasons. Like kidnapping me. He just wanted to be closer to me. In the start I thought he was crazy and out of his ever loving mind, but now that I know him, I know he only did it because he cared about me. If he didn’t take me, I would have still been living my life blissfully unaware that my brother was a lying, scheming piece of shit!
“Fix the phones, sort Damon out, then we need to formulate a plan and get our asses to Chicago pronto.” All five of them swing their gazes at me in shock. “What?”