Page 37 of Ugly Truths
“Don’t talk to me like I’m a child,” Natalie fires back. “I’ve spent days in that basement talking to her about everything that happened. She’s been honest, and when she could, she provided proof that Davey was able to confirm.”
My sister takes half a step forward, pointing a finger at me. “You haven’t even taken the time to do that. So don’t tell me I’ve been manipulated when you haven’t even done the bare minimum.”
Elena still won’t look at me. One part of me is glad after the destruction she’s left in her wake, and the other part of me I hate can barely stand to watch her like this.
I start to turn back to Natalie, my mouth opening.
“Silas?”
I whip around to see Alice standing just outside the slightly ajar door, her expression a mix of concern and confusion. She crossed the threshold, her heels soft against the hardwood, passing Davey with a polite nod.
She moves to me without hesitation, her fingers slipping into mine as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. “I could hear you shouting from the car,” she says softly. “I wanted to make sure everything was okay.”
I glance down at our joined hands. Her thumb is already tracing slow, soothing circles against my skin.
My gaze moves instinctively to Natalie—her arms crossed, expression unreadable—then past her, to the couch behind where Elena is still seated.
The usual color in her cheeks is gone, leaving her pale beneath the soft light. Her eyes are glassy and bright, though her lashes flutter to blink the sheen away. She looks at Alice’s hand in mine, then Alice’s face, and finally herlap again. My chest burns.
Elena stands so carefully that there’s no sound. With hunched shoulders, she rounds the couch, slips through the cased opening, and takes all of the air in the room with her.
I swear I can feel the gravity shifting under my feet.
Alice waits a beat before speaking, her voice gentle and close. I hear her, but the words don’t register. I can’t look away from where Elena just was.
Natalie releases a long and tired exhale. “Silas, you need to go.”
I nod. Or maybe I don’t. My body is stuck, caught in the stillness Elena left behind.
Chapter 17
Elena
The intake vents on my laptop hum against the bare skin of my legs as I scroll through the shared notes Ben sent over. My new phone sits nearby on speaker, filling the silence with Corey and Ben’s voices. We’ve been on this call for the better part of an hour, discussing logistics and how I can support them in the upcoming weeks.
Natalie’s guest room is peaceful, with muted mauve walls and light streaming through the sheer curtains on the windows. It’s late morning now, and though I’d like the feel of the late summer humidity on my skin, I don’t want to waste the central air that my too-gracious host has running.
It’s crazy enough that I’m being allowed to stay in this room at all. I’m still shocked that Silas didn’t drag me out of her living room by my sweatshirt collar when Natalie brought me back here four nights ago.
I squeeze my eyes shut hard enough to see stars behind them, trying to wipe the memory of his disgust. I’m still not sure if it hurt more to experience his unfiltered hatred when I wasn’t expecting it or to have to witness the woman I saw in the tabloids claim him and his anger so effortlessly.
With a small head shake, I refocus on Corey’s words. “—and based on what we pulled from their cloud last time, I think it’s worth revisiting the program we used. With some modifications, it could work.” He pauses, likely scanning over notes on his screen. “From what Davey was able tosend over, I’m seeing a lot of the same encryption patterns. They’re just more layered and aggressive.”
There’s a beat before he adds, “On the bright side, even if Elena was able to get into that warehouse in June, I doubt she would’ve pulled anything meaningful in the small window she had. This is going to take some time to figure out.”
I almost want to snort at his attempt at a silver lining, but manage to hold my bitterness and tongue. At this point, I’m just grateful that Corey and Ben are even on this call with us.
Davey did eventually return to the holding room with my phone, and neither man was particularly pleased to hear from me when I called. Even after learning that their supposedly “difficult-to-trace” bank account had failed, they weren’t up for chatting until I explained the predicament Luis and I were in.
Corey stayed quiet before finally agreeing, muttering something about how Luis needs to be more picky about the company he keeps. Ben was more vocal about his frustrations and made it crystal clear that he’d help for Luis’s sake and not mine, naturally.
Since then, Luis and I have been given laptops and phones, all loaded with every monitoring system imaginable, so Davey can track our activity every second of the day. Under any other circumstances, I’d probably get a kick out of imagining someone listening in on these calls or watching me run my mouse across the screen for hours on end.
“I’ll be sure to bring that with me in case Davey decides to be stingy.” I have no idea what Ben's talking about, but I hum in agreement anyway.
Luis has barely spoken. That’s normal for him, especially on strategy calls like this. Still, I wish I could see his face, even for a second, to see what he might be thinking.
According to Natalie, he has been moved to an apartment that he’ll share with Corey and Ben when they arrive tomorrow. Silas’s team will be put on a rotation to monitor them around the clock. The three men will work on the server under the guise of being IT temps brought into assist with the server audits. With Davey’s team already being spread thin, it was surprisingly easy to get the “hires” approved.
