Darkness Falls (The Darkness Duet #2)

Chapter 24

Kyler

I 'm watching TV on the couch, and I hear the front door open and close. Before I can get up, I see Seb and Callie walking hand and hand straight toward the steps, and it confuses the fuck out of me. I stand up and run to watch them march directly up to his room.

She looks upset, but they seem to be working on their shit, so I'll try my best to keep my distance and let them work out whatever little tiff they are having. I'm a bit surprised that she went with him to drop Natasha off, considering she was keeping her distance.

I need to distract myself from Callie being up in a room by herself with Mr. Grumpy, so I click off the TV and head to our office. I can focus my attention on a better task. It's also a bit comforting to know I can pull up the house feeds from in there.

I step inside and flip open the laptop to log into the feeds. I can't believe I'm pulling a Barrett to keep an eye on her, but I want to make sure she's okay. If that asshole makes her upset, I'll barge right in and grab her to take her out of that mess.

I peek at the footage to see her sitting on the edge of his bed by herself. I flip over to the camera in his bathroom to see him filling up the tub. The camera angle in here excludes the toilet because we all have to have a small sense of privacy, but the tub and shower are fully on display. I swap back to the screen with Callie on it as I pull open the desk drawer to grab Gabriel’s notebook.

We've been so caught up in Callie over the last few days that we haven't had a chance to dive into this thing and figure out what the contents actually mean. I flip through pages full of first and last names, but none of them stand out to me.

I grab my phone to search a few of them, but there doesn't seem to be any sort of correlation between any of these people noted, aside from being in the same notebook. Most of them are high-up government officials or hold some sort of standing position in society. Part of me is starting to wonder if Gabriel has these people noted in here because he has some kind of blackmail on them. There has to be some way these names fit into his master plan.

Growing frustrated, I turn to the very last page to reveal something entirely different. There is a set of numbers that, at first glance, don’t seem like anything, but when I look at them again, I realize they are latitude and longitude numbers. I go to type them into the computer but see Seb come back into his room to bring Callie to the bathroom. I follow the cameras and watch as he undresses her and pulls a toy out of her. Interesting.

I open a new tab and decide to give them a little bit of privacy. She seems okay, and that's all I'm worried about. I quickly type in the coordinates, and it loads some random spot in the middle of the woods in northern Tennessee. I try to zoom in, but I'm not able to see anything except for trees. I'll have to have Barrett look into it further.

It's like the bastard has a sixth sense because just as I'm thinking of him, he makes his grand entrance into the office. "Can I help you?" I ask before he even has a chance to take a seat.

His eyes immediately move to the computer screen next to me, and he raises a brow. "You know I get an alert now when someone logs into the house feeds."

Fuck.

"Didn't you give me shit for watching those?" he asks with a smug grin. "Something about it being an invasion of privacy?"

"Fuck off. They came into the house, and she looked upset. I wanted to make sure she was okay."

I click over to the feeds again to close out of them, but the sight of her face makes me pause. She seems so relaxed and happy. I don't know what the hell happened between them, but she feels so comfortable with him all of a sudden.

"They look perfectly content to me," he tells me, and I scowl at him.

"Drop it. I was just making sure she was okay."

His hands go up in defense. "Hey, don't be embarrassed because you got caught."

"Seriously, drop it." I look over at him, annoyed.

He chuckles. "No judgment here. I would watch her all day if it were up to me. She's fucking perfect."

I can't disagree with him there, but I don't want to talk about it anymore. We need to refocus on the task at hand so that we can help Callie get her revenge and finally be done with all this bullshit once and for all.

"Was there something you needed?" I say, keeping my tone flat.

"I mostly came in to give you shit about the feeds, but I was also curious why you were in here." He folds his arms across his chest. This room and the security room in the pool house are the only places on the property without a camera monitoring them.

"I'm trying to figure out this notebook that Callie grabbed. Did you see this weird set of coordinates in the back? It pulls up a random location a few hours north of Rogue's compound."

"That's definitely something I'm going to have to do a deep dive on. If Gabriel wrote it in there, it must be important."

"Maybe there's some kind of old building that's not showing on the maps. You know some of the more secluded areas don't always have the most up-to-date search results."

"That's possible. Maybe he's hiding something important there." Barrett types something into his phone, and I see him zooming into the screen. He switches between a few apps before looking up at me. "I'll need to use my equipment in the security room, but I'll get it figured out."

The door to the office swings open, and Seb walks in. He crosses his arms and eyes us cautiously. "Since when do you have meetings without me?"

"Why is everyone so fucking annoying today? You were busy with Callie, so I came in here to kill some time and be productive." I gesture to the notebook and then point over to Barrett. "That one came in and started bothering me. This isn't a meeting."

"You never told me to leave," Barrett says with a shrug.

Another body appears in the doorway. It's my wanderer wearing a fluffy robe. She sees me and runs over, planting her sweet ass right onto my lap.

"Hey, beautiful," I say, leaning down to give her a quick kiss on the lips.

"What's everyone doing in here?" she questions.

"Did you have a nice bath, princess?" Barrett asks with a dumbass grin. This fucker.

She points her finger to chastise him as she spits out, "You have to stop watching me every second of every day."

He laughs and shakes his head. "It wasn't me this time. That was all Ky. I just happened to catch him in the act."

I should have known that little shit would rat me out. Her head turns, and she locks eyes with me. "You were watching me?"

"I told assface over there that I just wanted to make sure you were okay. You and Seb were acting weird when you came home. You were holding hands."

"Wait, you didn't tell me they were holding hands," Barrett interrupts. "So, you're holding hands with our girl now?" He directs over to Seb.

"Would the two of you knock it off?" Callie says. "I'll hold whoever's hand I want to."

"Nothing wrong with holding hands. I'm just happy to see the ice king over there is finally letting you thaw out his black heart," Barrett jokes, and I have to try my best to resist laughing. Seb clearly looks annoyed by this entire exchange, and that makes it so much better.

"What's going on between me and Callie is none of your business. I don't put my nose in your relationships with her," Seb says, frustrated with how this conversation turned on him.

"Well, there it is. That's the only thing we wanted to know. Last we knew, there was no relationship between the two of you," Barrett says.

"How's the hate sex? Did he put a collar on you or chain you up?" I ask Callie, and she slaps my chest.

"Would you stop it? Seb and I are figuring things out. That's all you need to know. Also, I would prefer it if you would all stop watching me all the time when I'm in the house. There are some moments that need to be kept private."

"I swear I was just making sure he wasn't being an asshole to you," I say.

Barrett smiles. "No promises."

"Great. Now that we are all up to speed on the status of our girl and me, do you want to update us on what you found in there?" Seb asks while pointing at the notebook.

"It's a list of names, but I wasn’t able to find anything linking them together," I say as I flip it back to the beginning. "Callie, do you recognize any of these?"

She leans in to look through the first page before flipping it to another and shakes her head. "They’re mostly members of Rogue, but there are a lot I don’t recognize."

"There was also a set of coordinates," I say as I click back to the tabs with the search pulled up. "Does this place look familiar to you?"

"Not really. It's just a bunch of trees," she says, and I'm a bit disappointed. I was hoping she could give us some insight. It makes sense that she doesn't know. Gabriel made sure she always knew as little as possible.

"I'll investigate everything tonight. With any luck, we will have more information on both the names and the location fairly quickly," Barrett says, smiling at Callie.

She nods and looks over to Seb. "I believe I was promised chicken pot pie."

He holds out his hand to her, and she hops out of my lap. "Let's go cook you some food."

She leaves the room with Seb, causing Barrett and me to look at each other in utter disbelief. Let's hope Seb keeps his shit together and doesn't upset her again because I would hate to have to beat my own brother's ass.