Chapter 24 #2
If someone was trying to hack them right now, in real time, that meant it wasn’t Lucio. Right? He was sitting right here, defending their systems. He couldn’t be the hacker if he was fighting the hack.
Unless this was staged.
Unless he had set this up to prove his loyalty, to make himself look like the hero who saved their systems from an attack he had orchestrated.
I didn’t know. I knew nothing about coding or hacking or any of this tech stuff. For all I knew, he could be typing absolute gibberish and no one would be able to tell the difference.
Shit.
After a few tense minutes, the screen flickered back to normal. Lucio let out a breath and leaned back in his chair.
“Got them,” he said. “Blocked the intrusion. Our systems are secure.”
“Could you trace where it came from?” Knox asked.
Lucio shook his head, frustration evident in his expression. “They bounced through too many servers. I got close, but they disconnected before I could pinpoint the location.” He rubbed his eyes. “They’re good. Really good. But I’ll keep working on it.”
Knox nodded. “Good work, Lucio. Thank you.”
Lucio smiled humbly. “Just doing my job, Alpha.”
The meeting wrapped up after that, everyone assigned different tasks.
Ryder was coordinating with his guards. Noah was handling internal communications.
Hunt was running background checks on everyone who had access to their systems. And Lucio was going to keep monitoring for any future intrusion attempts.
Knox stood, lifting me off his lap and setting me on my feet. He took my hand and we started walking toward the door.
That’s when the twins burst into the room.
“MOMMY! DADDY!”
Two small bodies launched themselves at us with the force of miniature cannonballs. Knox caught Rowan while I caught Thea, and then we exchanged, passing children back and forth in a practiced dance of parenthood.
“We were SO BORED,” Thea announced dramatically. “Grandma Serena made us practice our letters and it was TERRIBLE.”
“Learning is terrible?” I raised an eyebrow at her.
“Yes! Letters are boring!”
Rowan, ever the more serious twin, just hugged Knox’s neck and buried his face in his father’s shoulder. Knox’s expression softened as he held his son, one hand coming up to stroke his dark hair.
Thea, meanwhile, had spotted Ryder.
Her gray eyes went wide with wonder. She wiggled out of my arms and walked right up to the Alpha of Moonfang, tilting her head back to stare up at him.
“You’re very tall,” she observed.
Ryder looked down at her. “I am.”
“And very pretty.”
A choked laugh came from Jasmine, who had entered the room behind the twins. Ryder’s face turned slightly pink.
“Thank you?”
“Can you turn into a pony?” Thea asked hopefully. “Because you’re so pretty, I think you should be a pony. A sparkly one. With wings.”
Knox made an offended sound. “Excuse me? You don’t think I’m pretty?”
Thea turned to look at him, considering. “You’re okay, Daddy. But he’s REALLY pretty.”
“I am wounded,” Knox said flatly. “Deeply wounded. My own daughter, choosing another man over me.”
“It’s okay, Daddy. You can be my second favorite pretty person.”
“Wow. The disrespect.”
The adults were laughing now, even Ryder cracking a smile despite his obvious discomfort with being called pretty and compared to a sparkly winged pony.
Jasmine was practically doubled over, tears of mirth in her eyes.
Noah was grinning broadly. Hunt was filming the whole thing on his phone, probably to use as blackmail later.
While everyone was distracted by Thea’s antics, I let my gaze drift to Lucio.
For a split second, the polite mask dropped.
He was looking at the twins with cold, flat irritation and barely concealed disdain. His jaw was tight. His eyes were hard. There was no warmth in his expression, no amusement at the cute children causing chaos.
Then he saw me watching him.
The warm smile snapped back into place instantly, so fast it was almost jarring. He gave me a little nod, a friendly acknowledgment, as if nothing had happened.
But I had seen it. That flash of something ugly beneath the polished surface.
I left the room with a knot in my stomach.
Knox was still carrying Rowan, Thea dancing around his legs as we walked down the hallway. Hunt fell into step beside me, his phone finally put away.
“You okay?” he asked quietly. “You look tense.”
I glanced back toward the conference room, making sure we were out of earshot.
“Lucio is hiding something,” I said.
Hunt raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know exactly. Just... the way he looks at things.
The way his eyes track papers he shouldn’t be reading.
The way his fingers twitch when someone mentions patrol routes.
” I shook my head. “And just now, when the twins came in. He looked at them with... nothing. Cold. Annoyed. And then he saw me watching and put his friendly face back on.”
Hunt was quiet for a moment, considering my words.
“Lina, you’ve been through a lot. You’re stressed. It’s natural to be suspicious of everyone right now.”
“I’m not paranoid.”
“I didn’t say you were.” He held up a hand. “Look, I get it. Trust your instincts. But we already checked his background. Thoroughly. He transferred from Shadowcrest Pack with a clean record. Jackson Bennett himself vouched for him.”
Jackson Bennett. Mira’s father. The alpha who had disgraced and disinherited her.
That didn’t make me feel better.
“Just... keep an eye on him,” I said. “Please. For me.”
Hunt studied my face for a long moment. Then he nodded.
“Okay. I’ll watch him. But don’t get too worked up about this, alright? We have enough to worry about without adding paranoia to the mix.”
I didn’t argue with him. There was no point. He thought I was stressed and jumping at shadows. Maybe he was right. Maybe I was seeing threats where there were none.
But I didn’t think so.
I trusted my gut. And my gut was screaming that Lucio was not what he seemed.