Page 67 of Into the Fire: After
“Wainwright was very thorough,” he said as he bent and opened one of the lower cabinet doors. Haphazard stacks ofpapers and books and files and who the fuck knew what else were crammed into the space. Heston, though, sorted through it like it was a perfectly orderly file cabinet. “Between my unexpected escort off the premises and the court orders to surrender files, I didn’t leave that place with so much as a sticky note.”
I clenched my jaw, waiting as he pulled out an accordion file and opened it, sorting through. He continued on.
“And the NDAs? There’s not any wiggle room or loophole the size of a needle head. The noncompetes were brutal.”
With a smallaha!of success, Heston pulled out an old, worn notebook and set the box aside. He returned to the table and slid the notebook toward me. Old as shit, a dingy brown color with a stretched out elastic band holding it closed—or, well, trying to.
I was afraid to touch it. The same way my bones hummed when Heston examined me, this book emanated…vitality.
Am I talking to a damn warlock?
“The one thing they never explicitly ordered me to hand over.”
When he didn’t elaborate, I frowned and sat up straighter. Forced myself to pick it up and pull the band back. The worn binding practically threw itself open.
Sudoku. An entire book of twenty-year-old Sudoku. I thumbed through the pages. Every single puzzle was completely filled out. Except—
Holy shit.
“Bertram and I were a good pair early on,” Heston continued as he resumed his former pose. “He had the money. I wanted to play mad scientist. When his true ambitions were unmasked, I realized I may need to preserve and protect the work. From him.”
I listened as I scanned over the pages of gibberish. Every page was completed, all right. Every square filled in. But the numbers weren’t part of the puzzle. Some pages were equations, writtenout box by box. Others were filled with ones and zeroes—notes written in fucking binary. Legends and keys scrawled in margins that, on a perusal, could just be the notes of a particularly bad Sudoku player.
Heart pounding, I looked up at him. “So what’s in here?”
Heston cocked his head. “Everything.”
Twenty-eight
Brea
Heflittedaroundtheapartment, all giddy energy and smiles. Joy, unmitigated and overwhelming, shone from his eyes. His smile engulfed his whole face, and his scent filled the apartment like a three-wick candle.
Honestly, he was downright adorable.
Not usually the adjustive used to describeCaine Arceneaux.
The whole pack was home, spread over couches in the living room after dinner—which he’d missed. Business meeting, Lin had told us. Only we were learning differently now.
“Five years’ worth of Sudoku books,” Caine continued, unable to even stand in one place. “Every time he made notes in the official lab logs or what fucking ever, he’d go home and recreate them in code in those books. Dates, formulas, results.Names.”
Lin sat in the leather armchair, a frown across his face. “You lied to me?”
“Noo.”A small shadow crossed the brightness of his face. “Itookthose meetings. And by the way, I should get a bonus for not knocking the everlivingshitout of the Jefferson. Fucking prick.”
Ah, there you are, old friend.
“I just…I wanted the chance to gauge the man, maybe suss out if he could help us. And, holy fuck, can he.”
Taryn sat cross-legged on the floor in front of Brooks on the couch, who absentmindedly twisted her hair into…not really braids, but it seemed to soothe them both.
She looked to our head alpha, some of her hair slipping out of Brooks’ hands. “Would it?”
Lin sighed. “Gail will be the one to determine that.” He lifted his eyes to Caine’s, squeezing and releasing his fist as the thoughts churned in his head. “I’ll see she gets the copies you brought tomorrow.”
“You’re not really mad, babe?” Brooks asked as he combed through Taryn's hair, undoing his creation and starting over. “This is a good thing!”
Lin’s hackles rose. I scooted forward on the loveseat I occupied alone. “It’s not about mad or not mad right now.” I rarely pushed out my alpha pheromones intentionally, but I did so now, hoping the notes of calm and peace would infect my increasingly agitated packmates. “All our emotions are close to the surface right now. It’s good we’re all actually home tonight.” I reached out, grabbing Lin’s tic’ing hand and holding it between mine. “I think we all need the closeness.”
