Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Ken
Twenty minutes later, Ken stood there, stunned, attempting to process what he’d just learned. He returned Trent’s letter and slumped back, leaning against the desk.
“So now what do we do?” Ken asked. “Have you told Dewi and Gillian?”
Trent shook his head. “No one here besides us knows. We agreed we’d rather wait as long as possible to tell Dewi. As for the ‘what do we do’ part, we need to open the safe.” He pointed to the bookcase directly behind Peyton’s desk.
Ken moved out of the way so Trent could circle the desk. Ken knew the safe was back there, and Peyton had shown him how to access it because it had a biometric lock keyed only to certain people’s fingerprints.
Including Ken’s.
Everyone currently standing in the office, as well as Gillian and Dewi, could open it.
Trent popped the secret latch and swung the bookcase out of the way. He opened the safe, rifling through large manila envelopes until he stopped and withdrew one, turning and showing it to the other men. On the outside, in Peyton’s handwriting, it was dated the day before Peyton flew out.
Trent closed the safe, returned the bookcase to its usual position, and the men gathered around as he slid a finger under the sealed flap and opened it.
Inside were three sheets of paper and two envelopes, one a small manila envelope containing something that bulged slightly, and a plain letter envelope with Ken’s name.
Trent handed it to him and started reading through the papers.
The envelope felt like it was empty until Ken realized there was an index card inside. Opening it, he shook the card out. On it was printed one word in Peyton’s handwriting.
Hestia
Ken staggered, bracing his hand on the desk as a dizzying amount of information suddenly appeared in his brain.
No, not appeared—slammed.
Like he stepped out from behind a protective wall in a hurricane, and the winds blasted him and knocked him on his ass.
He was vaguely aware of the men talking to him, Duncan even draping a steadying arm around him, but Ken shook them off.
Reaching over, he snatched the small manila envelope from the desk where it had landed and ripped it open, dumping the contents.
One of the nuggets of new information he suddenly held was the imperative to find a certain item in this envelope among several more letter-sized envelopes, and one small padded mailer, also with Ken’s name on it.
Which was exactly what he was looking for. He grabbed it and ripped it open, finding a thumb drive inside.
The other men fell silent as Ken opened his laptop and slotted the thumb drive.
It was password-protected. He hesitated for only a breath, tapping in the number Peyton made him memorize months earlier.
He knew that inside the files were mountains of information about other packs—including non-wolf shifters—contact info, details that whoever ended up being the next Pack Alpha would need to deal with them.
Also valuable government contacts, not just in the US but all over the world.
Some of those contacts were shifters and some humans who were connected to shifters either by blood or marriage or pack membership.
And…so much more.
But what Ken needed was the top-level file that, based on the time-date stamp, had been added the evening before Peyton left.
It was a document titled KENS-EYES-ONLY-READ-FIRST.
Ken, this note is for your eyes only. Delete after reading.
In addition to the data on this thumb drive, there is knowledge you now possess that must be passed on to the next Pack Alpha, whether they’re permanent or temporary.
But only if the next Pack Alpha is someone besides yourself, and only if they are a member of our inner circle.
If my successor is not you or one of ours, you must forget the information immediately.
Therefore, if my successor is a shifter of our inner circle and they’re not a Prime, you must immediately go to a trusted Prime and give them the envelope marked JANUS.
It may ONLY be opened by that Prime. If my successor is from our inner circle and also a Prime, give it to them.
You’ll know when. Take that envelope right now, and until that happens, keep it on your person and do NOT open it.
He paused, searching his brain and, sure enough…
His stomach rolled at some of the things he now knew.
Many of them disturbingly dark things.
Historical and contemporary knowledge.
Nuke-the-earth-and-salt-the-ground kind of knowledge in case their pack’s survival was ever threatened in a way they couldn’t defend through conventional legal methods… Or with automatic weapons fire and woodchippers.
Fail-safes and deadman prompts. Poison pills.
Information that was not on this drive. It existed only in his head.
His, and Peyton’s.
He reached over, found the small envelope, slid it into his back pocket, and then continued reading while struggling not to throw up.
Peyton had to be joking, right? Him the Pack Alpha? No way.
I’m sorry to put you in this position, but whatever happened must have gone down too fast for me to name a successor.
The reason you must forget the information afterward—if you aren’t the Pack Alpha—is certainly obvious to you now.
Besides the nature of the information, it puts you, Dewi, and the baby at risk if anyone besides the Pack Alpha knows.
Trent consciously knows some of it, and unconsciously knows more, but earlier knowledge that likely isn’t as up-to-date as yours.
You hold the most recent info, some of which I related to you the evening I left, although you didn’t remember it at the time.
If this is a temporary situation and I return, I’ll apologize and permanently wipe the information for you and from whoever else might also know.
If it’s not a temporary situation, then Trent will have yet another envelope to give to you, so you can give it to a trusted Prime.
Ken now knew exactly when the information transfer occurred—while talking to Peyton in this very office that evening.
The dizzying sensation had been Peyton using his Prime powers on him to…
well, download a lot of info from his brain into Ken’s, to put it simply.
A dizzying amount of info, some verbal and some pictures, memories, and much of it things that Ken instinctively knew had been passed from Charlie Bleacke to his son, much as they had been passed on to Ken—with a mental trigger that only kicked in under certain circumstances.
Ken shivered as he deleted the file, then opened another program to scramble the deleted data.
Could a savvy forensics computer tech recover it?
Possibly. But if things reached that stage, then they had far bigger problems to worry about than data retrieval.
Ken disconnected the thumb drive and tucked it in the same back pocket as the envelope. Peyton had to be joking about Ken being the next Pack Alpha. Or maybe he wrote the note so quickly he misspoke.
Right?
Overwhelmed didn’t begin to scratch the surface of how he felt in that moment. It wasn’t that Peyton had transferred this information to him—Ken gave him permission to do that as needed months earlier.
It was the sheer amount of info, and the content.
He turned to find the other men staring at him.
“The instructions were to read it and delete it. My eyes only.”
They all nodded. “We need to figure out how and when to tell Gillian and Dewi,” Trent said.
Something popped into Ken’s brain. “We have to tell Gillian now,” Ken said. “That’s one of my instructions. And then we tell Dewi. Immediately.”
Trent scowled. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” In fact, Peyton had particularly emphasized telling Gillian before Dewi. That was one of the imperatives included in the newest set of instructions in Ken’s brain.
Likely because Peyton knew Ken and the other men would need their full focus on keeping Dewi there, and not be distracted by revealing the news to Gillian.
“Gillian’s next door with Asia and Tam and the kids,” Trent said. It’ll look weird if we just pull her out of there.”
“No, it won’t.” Ken grabbed his phone and sent Gillian a quick text.
Have a work question to discuss with you in person. Privately. Pack business. Can you come back for a few?
After a moment, she replied.
I’ll be there in a minute.
“She’s coming,” he said. “Unfortunately, in this family, using ‘pack business’ as an excuse will always guarantee no-questions-asked privacy.”