Page 83 of The Hate We Breathe
“Alexio.” Nolan’s deep baritone sounds right by my head before I even know he’s in the room with me. “Take a breath,” he orders.
“You want me to take a fucking breath?” I whirl on him in my chair and stand. He might be our de facto leader, but I’m fuckingtaller and broader than him. “This motherfucker isthreatening her.”
“Goddamn, hush!” Gio says from the doorway as he peers out of it and down the hall, in the direction of the bedroom. “Do you want to wake her up?”
Nolan glances back at him. “We’re going to have to tell her about this,” he states. “But…” He turns back to me. “I’d rather we have a plan in place before we do.”
“I need information,” I snap. “I need to know what’s on this fucking drive.”
He nods and then points to the chair. I glare at him, but slowly lower myself down into the seat once more. “That’s fine,” he tells me.
“Then, why?—”
“If you’d shut up for two seconds, I’ll tell you why,” he interrupts. My mouth snaps shut, but my jaw aches from how tightly I’m gritting my teeth. My hands curl into fists. He arches a brow as if waiting for me to take a swing. I don’t, and I don’t know who is more surprised—him or me.
“I expect you to check out the flash drive,” Nolan begins. “But you need to be smart about it—double-check it for viruses, make sure no one is using this to get into your system. We can’t run the risk if someone has figured out what you do.”
What I…Fuck.His meaning slams into my skull. The 5C0RP10N. Of course.How could I be so fucking blinded?He’s right. I blow out a breath.
“Better?” Nolan asks.
Without looking at him, I spin my chair back to the desk and the monitors anchored around and above it. “Yeah.” Not by much, but enough that I find the scanning system and have it lock onto the flash drive plugged into the machines.
The guys are quiet as Gio steps the rest of the way into the already small room and quietly closes the door behind him. Iignore them as I run the tests needed to clear the flash drive and ensure that no one has planted any malware that’ll fuck my shit up.
Less than fifteen excruciating minutes later, it’s done and I load the files from the card, right-clicking and dragging the mouse over each name and then forcing them all open at the same time. A split second later, little boxes begin popping up across the monitors.
“Motherfucker…”
Photos. Dozens of photos. All of them ofher.
Juliet laughing. Juliet standing in front of the apartment fire. Juliet at The Dionysus Lounge. Juliet sitting on the bleachers as she likely watches us at football practice.
A still from what appears to be a security camera is next, revealing a slightly younger version of Juliet standing in a glimmering gown in a hallway of doors as Morpheus fucking Calloway puts his hands on her.
The walls of my chest constrict, fury blackening everything. Still, there are more—some of them clips and screenshots of videos.
Julietsleeping.Julietwith Gio.Her face twisted in pleasure, her head thrown back on his shoulder as he forces both his fingers and hers into her pretty pussy. I remember that night—that fucking video. Desire scratches at my insides before I remember that someone else has seen this, someone has violated the sanctity of the silent agreement that no one else owns Juliet Donovan but us.
I want to smash my fist through the monitor.
Gio is the first to speak, his voice hoarse with shock. “There’s so… many.”
Too many for this fucker to have started recently. No, I know this kind of obsession. Iamthis kind of obsession. Whoeversent the note and flash drive has been planning this for a while. Months, at least, possibly even years.
“How the fuck could they think that this changes anything?” Gio mutters the question as he shoves his hand back into his hair, raking it away from his face.
“There must be something else on here,” I say.
“Or maybe they think this is enough proof that Juliet is a whore,” Nolan says, tone flat and cold. “There might be more videos of Lex and me with her too.”
A sickness churns in my gut as a horrific thought occurs to me. “No…” I lean forward and start typing. One by one, several of the windows disappear. Whoever did this knew what happened between Juliet and Morpheus, but would they have…
My heart stops. My fingers go still, hovering over the keys. The silence in the room is so loud that it screams in my ears, a loud rushing sound as if I’m falling underwater.
The image that appears on the monitor is Juliet in that same glimmering gown, her body slack, turning her head back and forth as she groans—sounding drunk. The room narrows down to a single pinpoint of light that is the screen.
The camera moves closer, shaking. Then, suddenly it turns, as if whoever is holding it is pressing the lens to their chest. Voices echo out through the speakers.
