42. Leo
LEO
It was always fun to celebrate the kids’ birthdays — especially one as big as Caleb’s eighteenth. My mind struggled to think of him being an adult already. I’d only been around for the last few years, but I’d watched the kid grow up so much in that time.
All of us had, really.
Now that winter had passed, though, I was grateful for the warm days that followed.
After the excursion, it seemed like all of us were ready to nestle in at home.
Dom still had to make occasional trips into the office — showing face, keeping a pulse on Issac — but other than that, we were pretty locked in.
A risk was worth it now and again, but it always made us a bit more antsy about getting caught.
There was too much on the line for that. Kiera was on the line, now.
Being stuck at home had its advantages; it gave me time to dig in on my research again. But perhaps there was such a thing as too much time.
I’d thought that coming at the problem with fresh eyes might help. But just a few days, and my eyes were already bloodshot again. My head spun every time I picked up my laptop, and it didn’t stop well until after I’d gone to sleep.
If it were anyone else, I’d have told them to take a break — doctor’s orders. And as much as I hated listening to my own advice, I figured it was better to take it from myself before it came rolling off of Kiera’s bratty little lips.
The Ducati could use some maintenance anyway.
Out in the carriage house, I had her jacked up on two stands to hold her in place while I scrubbed the grit out of the chain and wheel well.
Could probably use a chain adjustment while I was at it — I knew Spencer would have told me not to overthink it, but the slack back there was driving me crazy.
But just as I stood to go grab calipers and the adjuster, Kiera appeared in the doorway looking like heaven in a pair of black Daisy Dukes — as if just thinking of her insolent attitude was enough to summon her.
“How’s it going in here, Major?” She smirked as she strode across the shop, leaning against a tool cabinet just out of my sight.
“Good,” I stood to face her, my chest humming when she smiled up at me. It was a struggle to lift my gaze from the cropped white wife pleaser hugging her chest, but those vibrant green eyes of hers were just as lethal a trap. “Need something, Princess?”
“Nope,” she shook her head with a smirk. “Just thought I’d take a walk and try to enjoy the warm air. Couldn’t help the allure of visiting my sexy mechanic once I realized you were in here.”
“Mmmm, call me sexy again,” I growled, scooping her up and setting her down on top of a long wooden workbench.
“Leo!” She laughed, slapping my shoulder. “I’m not supposed to be a distraction!”
“You’re always a distraction,” I purred, drinking up the excitement that twinkled in her eyes. “But a distraction’s not always a bad thing…”
“I have a feeling the Ducati would disagree,” she raised her eyebrow. “Go finish up before she starts to get jealous.”
I groaned playfully, pushing off the counter and grabbing my tools. “Never thought I’d see the day you turned down the chance at motorcycle sex.”
“Can’t have motorcycle sex if you don’t take care of that thing,” she shrugged.
I adjusted my work station so that I could keep an eye on her. She was stunning up on that workbench — her heap of red curls framed her shoulders and neck beautifully. All I wanted to do was push that hair aside and sink my teeth into her.
But as she kicked her feet and fiddled with a wrench she’d pulled down from the peg board, I started to suspect that Kiera had something else on her mind.
“What are you thinking about?” And before she could say nothing, I pointed a finger at her. “You promised to be honest.”
She bit her lip. “I don’t want to bring down your mood.”
“You never bring down my mood, baby. Tell me. I’m all ears.”
With a sigh, she set the wrench down. “I guess I was just wondering how your research is going. But then I came in here and it seemed like maybe you were taking a break, and—”
“Break from my screen,” I corrected. “But I’m always happy to talk to you.”
Even if the futility of my search makes me want to puke.
As I cranked the chain back into alignment, I shook my head. “Unfortunately, I still don’t have much to report. Their records are clean as a whistle. Which should be reassuring, but really is just kind of terrifying? I don’t know…”
The pit in my stomach had become a constant companion ever since our flight out to Washington. I wouldn’t be able to stop my mind from wondering until I found something definitive.
But the fact of the matter was that I wasn’t looking in the right place. If there was something to find in the old contracts or on their social media, I would have found it by now.
My options were to give up the search or to find a new tree to bark up. And I certainly wasn’t quitting — that old picture of my parents and Isaac was way too cryptic to be meaningless.
“It is terrifying.” Kiera shuddered, “Thinking about how many people were involved in something so disturbing… I can’t wrap my head around how it’s possible: how there could be so many people, and yet not a word of it has leaked to the outside world?”
“Isaac probably killed off anyone who tried to tell,” I scoffed. And though I’d meant it as a joke, the words rang eerily true.
After all, that was how Viv had ended up in Washington, and she was his wife. Hell, he’d killed his own best friend to keep his secrets — what was the odd whistleblower in comparison to that?
“I’m sorry,” I rubbed my neck. “I didn’t mean it like th—”
“It’s okay, it’s true.” Kiera shrugged. “Is it weird that that’s less upsetting to me than the idea that my dad killed himself?”
“No,” I shook my head. “I think that makes a lot of sense. Knowing he went out with purpose.”
I was glad that Viv had been able to offer Kiera that comfort. Honestly, Viv had been able to provide us with so much while we were in Washington. There was the paperwork, of course, putting Kiera on track to reclaim her shares.
But there was an emotional aspect, too, as well as a logistical one. Talking to her over those few weeks had taught me so much about our opponents: the lengths they were willing to go to, the way that they thought.
And as my mind travelled back to Washington, a memory pulled, at my thoughts like a splinter tugging a loose thread.
I turned to Kiera, brows furrowed. “Didn’t Viv say something about… bones? Monsters?”
Kiera laughed as I struggled for the words. “She called the assholes at Zeus a bunch of dinosaurs. ‘Skeletons with skeletons in their closets.’”
“Right,” I nodded. “I just can’t help thinking… they’ve been at this for decades. Clearly their public internet records are scrubbed clean, but is it possible that there’s something older? Something they wouldn’t have thought to have their tech goons scrub clean?”
“Something they thought was private?”
“Yeah…”
Kiera pursed her lips, peering up at the ceiling as it might give her the answer. Then, like a sign from the heavens, her phone pinged in her pocket. As she glanced down at it, her eyes widened. “Emails!”
“From who?” I furrowed my brow, but she shook her head as she hoped down from the workbench.
“No, not mine. Theirs.” She was pacing now, her feet struggling to keep pace with her mind.
“Zeus goes back to the early internet days. Everyone thought everything was private back then. I bet Isaac said all sorts of crazy shit in his emails — and if I know one thing about that arrogant fuck, it’s that he loves to keep a trophy around.
He probably has a backlog of evidence piled up in his inbox.
And if your parents were involved in anything, I’d bet there are emails proving it. ”
My jaw dropped. In a matter of seconds, she’d cracked open the puzzle my subconscious had been poking at for weeks. I shook my head, scooping her up in my arms. “Kiera Tierney, the woman you are…”
Adrenaline coursed through my veins. I could kiss her.
I might kiss her.
But before our lips could touch, one of the carriage house doors clattered as Dom ‘accidentally’ brushed past it. “Don’t mind me. Just using the carriage house for its intended purpose.”
She skulked over toward her bike, pulling it off of its stand and getting ready to ride out to God knows where — the Zeus offices, probably.
And as she swung her leg over the bike, letting the engine rumble fill the garage, I realized that was exactly where I needed her.
“Hold up,” I called out, setting Kiera down and hustling across the garage. “I need a favor.”