Chapter 12 #4
“Are there cameras behind the building?” I ask as Damon slides down the wall, like his body is deflating, and Eden hurries over to him.
“Yup.” Jace pauses the video and turns his attention to one of his other screens as he does his thing. A moment later, four frozen video feeds appear on it. “But these ones will give us a better view of what happened.”
“These aren’t on the same system?” I ask, studying the screen curiously.
The layout of the feeds is different, and there’s no visible time stamp on any of the videos. They’re also shooting in night vision mode, which the school cams don’t have.
“Nope,” he says, his attention fixed on the feeds as he fast forwards them to presumably get to the right time.
“There are school cams back there, but they’re older models and the video quality is shit.
These are part of the Keepers’ system, but since they don’t take their cybersecurity as seriously as they should, I have full access to their network. ”
“How long has that been a thing?”
“Only a few weeks. They fucked up their last security patch, and I found a way in before they fixed it.”
“Huh,” I say thoughtfully. That explains how Jordan had that video of Damon and Eden going into Romeo House.
The school security cams cover almost the entire campus, and the only exceptions are inside the dorms, The Crypt, and the frats.
The school’s camera coverage ends at the gates of the four frats, and everything within the perimeter is the frat’s responsibility to monitor.
The only way Jordan would have access to a video of them walking into the house together is if he had access to the Keepers’ system. At least this answers that question.
Jace slows the cameras down to normal speed as Damon steps out of a break in the trees. Absently, Jace picks up his butterfly knife and resumes spinning it around his fingers as we focus on the screen in front of us.
There are no lights behind the building, but the camera is shooting in night vision, so it’s easy to see that it’s Damon by his curly hair and the long jacket and all-black clothes he’s known for wearing.
We watch as he crosses behind the building, and the black-clad figure appears at the bottom of the frame of one of the cameras just as he reaches the edge of the building.
Jace stops the video and brings up a new camera feed, replacing one of the ones already on the screen. On it, we can see the guy walking along the edge of the woods toward where he attacked Damon, and Jace starts the paused videos again as the feeds sync up.
We watch as Damon’s attacker suddenly takes off at a run, and there’s no hesitation in his movements as he rushes at Damon, who doesn’t seem to realize he isn’t alone until his attacker is less than a dozen feet from him.
Damon tries to run, but his attacker is too fast, and he grabs Damon around the waist. It looks like he actually carries Damon for a few feet before slamming him into the side of the building.
The impact is hard, and I wince as I watch Damon bounce off the bricks before his attacker pins him with an arm across Damon’s throat and his bigger body pressing Damon into the wall.
He puts up a good struggle, but it isn’t until his attacker reaches for where he’s stashed his gun at the small of his back that Damon gets an opening.
He brings his knee up and smashes it into the guy’s thigh, only inches from his crotch.
His attacker seems surprised by the move, but he quickly recovers and throws Damon to the ground before he can get away.
A knot of anger settles in my stomach as the guy kicks Damon in the side, but it eases when Damon rolls away from his next kick, which was aimed at his head, and his attacker falls to the ground when his foot keeps going and he lands in an almost split.
Damon manages to get to his feet and run toward the front of the building, but his attacker recovers from his tumble and chases him down the dark alley.
Damon is favoring his side, and it’s obvious he’s dazed from being attacked out of the blue, so he’s not moving as fast as he probably could.
His attacker easily catches up to him and shoves him to the ground.
We watch as Damon lands on the ground, then kicks behind him, his foot connecting with his attacker’s thigh instead of his knee when he twists away from the impact at the last second.
Damon tries to kick him again, but the guy catches his leg with ease and wrenches it to the side, almost forcing Damon to fall over as he struggles to stay upright.
That explains what we saw from the other angle.
The rest of the video plays out exactly like the first video we watched, and Jace keeps the camera trained on whoever the fuck attacked Damon as he runs away after Eden interrupts him, switching between cameras as he goes.
The asshole runs to the edge of the woods and takes off back in the direction he came from, but we lose him when he stops in a blind spot between two cameras a few hundred yards away from where he attacked Damon and disappears, presumably into the woods since there’s nowhere else for him to go.
“I’ll try to track where he came from and where he ended up, but it could take a while,” Jace says as he starts spinning his knife again.
“The Serpents were doing some sort of event that night, and there were a shit ton of people going in and out of the woods around the same time all this went down.”
“Thanks,” I say distractedly as I let what I just saw percolate in my mind for a few beats.
“What are you thinking?” Jace asks, his knife glinting in the light from his desk lamp.
“That didn’t look random.”
“No, it didn’t,” he agrees and types something with his free hand.
The video of Eden and Damon starts again, and we watch it as Eden helps Damon to his feet and they slowly start walking toward Keeper House.
“And you’re right.” He stops the video and switches the blade to his nondominant hand. “I don’t care what Jordan thinks he saw. There’s no way your boy was doing anything with Eden that night. Not unless he’s into pain play and getting off when he’s clearly injured.”
A little tendril of heat snakes through my belly, but it’s chased away by a tendril of jealousy.
What the fuck?
Shaking off whatever the fuck that was, I drum my fingers against the arm of my chair. “Yeah,” I agree. “This is a giant nothing burger.”
“Hmmm,” Jace hums.
I glance at him, and the mask of concentration on his face and the calculating look in his eyes tell me he’s connecting some dots and figuring shit out.
I keep quiet and let him do his thing.
“Did Jordan say anything about Damon that didn’t have to do with Eden?” he asks slowly.
“No, not really. He told me that there’s something going on, but he’s not in a place to say anything yet.”
“And you think he was talking about Damon?” Jace presses.
“Not sure. It could have been about anything, but he said it while we were discussing me watching Damon, so it might be connected. I can’t be sure without more context.” I peer at my cousin for a few beats. “Why, what are you thinking?”
“I found something when I was analyzing those blackmail files Jordan and the boys told us about,” he says, his tone distracted as he types something.
“What is it?”
“This.” He taps a key, and what looks like an email pops up on one of his screens.
I lean forward and try to read the message, but it’s in some sort of code that’s a mix of letters and numbers and makes zero sense. It’s from the Kings’ secure server, I can tell that much, but there’s no sender or receiver on it.
“What am I looking at?” I ask, not seeing what Jace did.
“Here.” Using his cursor, he highlights a single word, or at least what looks like a word based on how the characters are grouped together, in the message: b14k3.
“Yeah, still not seeing it,” I tell him. “You’re going to have to explain it to me like I’m five.”
“That says Blake in leetspeak. Or at least a version of leetspeak.”
“Huh?” I ask dumbly.
“Hacker speech,” he clarifies. “I remember it showed up in some of the emails I’ve looked at, and always when they’re talking about their contacts for keeping the blackmail scheme going. I thought it was a first name, but it could be a last name.”
Is this what put Damon on Jordan’s radar, and the Eden thing was just what brought me into it? Or maybe this whole thing really is about Eden and Jordan has no idea what Damon’s actual last name is or that it could be connected to something bigger than just his obsession with his stepsister.
“And let me just double-check this…” Jace mutters, typing furiously on his keyboard.
The images on the middle screen are changing so fast I can’t follow them or even begin to see what he’s looking at, so I just stay quiet and let him do his thing.
“Yup,” he says grimly and sits back in his chair. “Damon’s not in the files.”
“He isn’t?” I ask, glancing between Jace and his computer screens.
He shakes his head. “That doesn’t necessarily mean anything since only a handful of Keepers actually have their own files, and it’s basically just the current leadership and their team, and four juniors who seem to have gotten on the King’s radar, but it doesn’t exactly look good for him, either.”
“Yeah,” I agree, my thoughts ping-ponging around in my head as I process everything I learned since walking into the kitchen at the main house.
Jordan told me that Carter is already looking into Damon, and there’s no way Carter hasn’t found Damon’s dual birth certificates, so that means the leadership team already knows about Damon’s original last name.
The real question is whether Carter has or will connect the name Blake in the emails to Damon. That seems far less likely unless Carter does a specific search for the name or he somehow connects to dots like Jace did purely by memory, but it’s definitely not impossible.
“Thank fuck for your brain,” I tell my cousin. “You’ve combed through how many terabytes of data, and you remembered a random name that showed up a handful of times?”
Jace grins. “Go on and say it. I’m a genius, and you’d be lost without me.”
“You’re a genius, and I’d be lost without you,” I repeat good-naturedly. He isn’t wrong on either point.
“I’ll dig into the files when I finish my deep dive on Damon and see if I can find anything that will tell us if he and Blake are the same person.
Or if he’s connected to the blackmail scheme at all.
” He glances at me. “Do you have a timeline for when Jordan wants his report? I’ve got a shit ton of stuff on my plate right now, so if you want a thorough check, it’ll take time. ”
“Like how long are you ballparking?”
“A week or more for a proper deep dive on Damon, depending on what I find and how deep I have to dig. And probably another week or two before I’ll know for sure if he and Blake are the same person.
” He offers me a rueful smile. “Jax has me sweeping the dark web for some deepfakes, and Axel is breathing down my neck and demanding near daily reports on what I’m finding in the files.
Plus, Carter has me looking into some stuff for him too, so my time and resources are limited right now. ”
“That’s fine,” I tell him. “Jordan just asked me to report on what I see him doing around campus, so all of this”—I wave at his computer screens—"is just bonus content. And if it’s easier, just let me know everything you find at the same time.”
“Will do,” Jace says, his expression serious as he studies me for a few beats. “I’m assuming you want me to keep all this hush-hush?”
I nod. “You can tell the others if it comes up, but let’s wait until we find anything concrete before bringing Carter or the leadership into it.”
“You got it.” Jace blows another bubble with his gum and pops it loudly. “What’s your plan going forward?”
“Looks like I’m going to be his shadow for a while,” I tell my cousin.
Jace shoots me a wry grin. “Careful you don’t get obsessed like my brother is with his mark.”
“Yeah, not something you need to worry about,” I say with a grin.
Something flickers in Jace’s eyes, but it’s gone before I can figure out what it is.
“Speaking of my brother.” Jace’s smile is full of mischief as he flicks his gaze to one of his computer screens. “He’ll be back in a few minutes, and you have the opportunity to do something hilarious.”
“Did you put a tracker on him again?” I ask, pretending to give him a stern look.
“I can neither confirm nor deny such an allegation,” Jace says primly.
I huff out a laugh. My cousins putting trackers on each other to see if the other notices it isn’t anything new. “When did you plant it?”
Jace grins. “Two days ago.”
I let out a low whistle and get to my feet. I can’t remember the last time Jax didn’t find a tracker within hours of it being planted. He really is distracted by this kid if it’s been two days.
“How much time do I have?” I ask, already wheeling Jax’s chair back over to his desk.
Jace glances at his screen again. “About a minute.”
“Let the games begin,” I say in a dramatic voice.
Jace laughs maniacally and fixes his attention on his computer while I hurry over to the door so I can hide behind it.
My cousins and I have a running thing where we try to jump scare and ambush each other. We mostly do it for shits and giggles, but it’s also a way to keep our reflexes sharp.
Pressing myself against the wall, I wait for Jax to open the door and shove everything I learned about Damon and what happened to the back of my mind.
I’ll have time to analyze it all later. Right now, I have a cousin to ambush and bragging rights to secure.