Chapter 8 Evie
The reflection of me stared back from the mirror hanging on the wall of my bedroom, the gold frame standing out against my dark green walls. I wasn’t trying to look particularly hot tonight. I had things to do, but I didn’t want to look dull, either.
My taste in fashion usually went for flair and awe.
I liked to be noticed when I walked into a room, but tonight I needed to blend in.
I opted for jeans, boots, a cute oversize T-shirt, and a black hoodie, ready to throw on if I needed.
My knife, as always, was still strapped on my leg over my jeans.
Maybe this night would be what Aiden needed to see I wasn’t always an over-the-top psycho girl. Then again, we were going downtown so I could break into an old office building to learn more about my parents’ lives before their deaths, to know what led up to their violent deaths.
That wasn’t exactly the chill, cool-girl thing to do on a Friday night.
Then again, my usual Friday night of locking my door and secretly bingeing rom-coms wasn’t exactly cool, either—but I figured it was better to cry at scripted heartbreak and love than risk slipping up and doing it in real life, in front of actual people.
I stepped out of my room, coming face-to-face with Aiden.
Jeans, black T-shirt. The kind of simple uniform that shouldn’t be criminal but somehow was when it pulled that tight over his arms.
The thing about Aiden—he was big.
Everywhere.
Tall, muscled, and carrying enough presence to suffocate a room without saying a word. Alone in the hallway with him, it felt worse—like there wasn’t enough air left for me.
He looked down over his nose, dark blond hair still damp from the shower, almost long enough that I knew he’d be heading for a cut soon.
He messed with the ring on his lip, his restless habit making my stomach twist with worry he would back out tonight.
I wasn’t sure what I would do if he did—beg him to go or leave alone.
I didn’t really need him there for anything, but breaking into a dark, creepy, abandoned office building wasn’t exactly something I wanted to do alone.
“Not quite your normal Friday outfit. No shiny little dress to destroy lives? What else would be fun enough to waste your night on?” he asked.
“Going to Valeport. There’s a building downtown I need to check out.”
“For what? Something for us?”
“Not everything revolves around you. I have things going on in my personal life that I need to take care of.”
“Like what?” he snapped, heading down the hallway after me. “Stalking another ex-boyfriend?”
“Something like that. Are you ready?”
He nodded and led the way out, holding the garage door like he always did before heading for his bike. I slung my backpack on, grabbed my helmet, and slid on behind him. He didn’t say a word, he never had to. After this many rides, we knew the routine by heart.
I tapped on his arm as we turned toward Valeport, holding up my phone so he could see the directions. I should have put them into his phone, but I didn’t want him to ask any questions before we arrived.
“We turn left here,” I said, pointing down an older, run-down road.
“You going to tell me where we are going yet?”
“It’s more of a need-to-know thing.”
“Considering I’m driving there, pretty sure I need to know.”
“It’s only an old building, nothing important.”
We finally pulled off, and I struggled to not let my eyes well up with tears.
My parents had been here, standing in this exact spot again and again as they walked inside this place.
I wish I knew why. I wish I could call them and ask, or step into their warm home and yell out.
I wished I didn’t even need to worry about this, but instead, I would dig and dig until I had all the answers I wanted.
“This is the place?” he asked.
“This is it,” I said, pulling out my laptop and heading over to the side door. I could see there was a code keypad on it, and the little blue light was lit up, so I knew it was working.
“Do you have the code, or are we breaking and entering?”
“I’m not breaking anything. I’m politely going around their security system until it lets me in.”
“Evie,” he warned, watching me set up my laptop.
“Suddenly an upstanding citizen?” I asked.
“I’m suddenly wondering how I let you drag me out into the middle of the city at night to break into an unknown building for an unknown reason.”
“Because I have a photo of you jumping me that you don’t want anyone to see.
” I clicked through the networks, trying to see if there were any hidden ones connected to the security system.
I went through the steps, boosting the sliver of a signal from the Wi-Fi connected to the security system, and waiting for the screen to flood with encrypted data.
I entered my commands in the decryption tool.
I knew this type of firmware and already knew how to find the vulnerabilities in it.
I held my breath as the computer worked, my fingers tapping against my leg.
“The clothes, the minimal annoying comments, the anxiety. You need to tell me what’s going on now,” he said.
“How do you know I’m anxious?”
“Because your jaw ticks and you start double-checking everything. You checked everything in your bag multiple times before getting on and I see you double-checking things on the screen. You do it when you’re anxious.”
“No, I don’t.” I didn’t recall even checking my bag once, let alone multiple times, but I knew he was right about my anxious habits.
“Can you tell me what we’re doing here?”
I watched the program load as it tried to unlock the security system’s interface. “If I tell you what I’m doing, you can use it against me, and then my blackmail could potentially be useless.”
“Your blackmail will be useless soon, anyway. You said you want two favors. This is one.”
“I never said what the second one would be.”
“Doesn’t matter. Once it’s done, it’s done.”
I grinned as the computer gave a small ding, showing the program worked. I hit through a few more steps, until the keypad flashed green, the bolt clicking loud.
“Sure, keep telling yourself that,” I said, slipping inside.
The building swallowed us in darkness, the stale air thick and unmoving.
There was no light in the main lobby, only the faint smell of dust and neglect.
Aiden stepped in beside me, and the soft click of his phone’s flashlight brought the room into harsh view.
Shadows danced along the walls, revealing broken furniture and discarded papers littering the floor.
“Looks like it hasn’t seen life in years,” he mumbled, kicking at a stray stack of papers.
“I don’t think it has, which could be good for us,” I replied, stepping cautiously over a cracked tile as I swept the light from my phone around the room. The beam caught on what looked like the remnants of an old reception desk, its surface covered in faded papers and crumbling business cards.
I moved toward it, my pulse quickening as I sorted through the scattered documents. Most were too faded to read, their ink smeared or their edges singed as though someone had tried to burn them.
“What exactly are you looking for?” Aiden asked, his voice close behind me.
“Anything that could tell me what my parents were doing here,” I said, flipping through the papers, pulling out ones with any sign of a company name on it. My fingers brushed over something solid, and I pulled out a laminated ID card. My breath caught.
The card bore the name of a company I vaguely recognized—one I had seen scrawled in my dad’s old notes we found from his office. I handed it to Aiden, who held it under the flashlight’s beam, studying it.
He handed the card back, and I slipped it into my pocket.
“What about it? And your parents? What are you digging into about your parents?”
“Nothing important that concerns you.”
“It concerns me enough, since I have to be here with you. Is this place connected to them?”
“Maybe,” I murmured, my mind racing.
Something like a low growl rose from him, the sound making a shiver run down my spine until his next words killed that feeling.
“Does Rook know you are doing this?”
“No,” I huffed. “And he doesn’t need to. He’s moved on. He got his closure with our parents, there is no reason to bring it all back up for him.”
He seemed to think it over but finally agreed.
“For once, you are actually thinking something through? Shocking. How did you know this place connected to them? Have you been here?” His voice was sharp, but his posture was anything but relaxed.
Shoulders broad and tense beneath the black T-shirt, jaw flexing like he was biting back more words, every bit the wall I could never quite get past.
“No. And they had never mentioned it, but this place has come up in a few things I’ve found—some old records. I wanted to know why.”
“Need to know why for what? We know who killed them, we took care of him. What else is there?”
“My parents were people before Cameron. They were good, hardworking people and while we were alone a lot, I know they cared about Rook and me.”
“And I could agree with all of that. But it doesn’t explain what you are doing.”
“I want to know who they were, Aiden. I want to know what led to Cameron putting a literal hit out on them and having their home burn down with all of us inside. And I want to know how good people like my parents were working with someone like Cameron in the first place.”
“You know why. They thought Cameron was a business partner and that went bad.”
I pulled out the small piece of paper I kept tucked against my phone. The paper I had found hidden in the small bag of my mother’s things Rook had given me. Aiden took it from me, looking it over.
They say no one leaves. We didn’t ask to come.
But now we have to stay. For her.
“I found it in my mom’s things. I tried to ignore it, but the further I dig the more it feels like there was more to it. What do they mean, for her? Do they mean me?”
“It could have been written by your father. For her, could be your mother.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s my mom’s handwriting, but it could be. Either way, doesn’t it seem like an important thing to know?”
“Do you have any other information yet?” he asked, not answering my question, and somehow that made me even more sure of what I was doing.
He wasn’t scolding me, he was already digging deeper, and once Aiden dug into something, he was sticking it out until he found the answers he wanted.
It was one of the biggest things we had in common—neither of us would be giving up once we set our mind to something.
“No, this place is the first actual clue I found about what they were doing before their death.”
He stepped forward, his body so close to mine I could lean in and press against him, but I didn’t. “Just don’t dig so deep you get yourself into trouble. And if you think you’re about to, you better fucking call me.”
“I don’t know. You might count that as your other favor and think you’re off the hook for the blackmail.”
“Evie,” he said, the sound of my name sinking low, pulling something tight inside me.
“Fine. I can agree to that.”
“Then come on. We have a lot more ground to cover.”
We moved farther into the building, our footsteps echoing down a long, dim corridor. The walls were lined with doors, some ajar, others tightly shut. Each one making me worry I would miss a piece of the puzzle.
I pushed open one of the doors, and it creaked in protest. Inside, the room was empty except for one desk covered in dusty files. There were too many of them to go through now, but I grabbed a stray piece of paper, scanning for a company name. I flipped through more, checking each page.
Finally, I saw a name I didn’t recognize stamped on the page: Veritas.
“What is Veritas?” I whispered, showing the paper to Aiden. “Or who?”
He frowned, squinting at the sheet. “I don’t know. I’ve never heard of it.”
“Then I better keep this one, too.”
I folded up the paper and tucked it into my pocket, moving to the next office space.
We continued through the building, every room as desolate as the last, littered with fragments hinting at a bigger story just out of reach. I wanted to tear the place apart, search every crevice until I found answers—but I knew better than to think it would be that easy.
As we made our way back to the lobby, the faint sound of something—a distant hum—caught my attention. I froze, holding up my hand to stop Aiden. He stopped at my back, heat rolling off him. When I turned, he reached out to steady me, his face inches from mine.
For one breath, I stayed frozen, taking in the closeness until he cocked his head, listening.
We both knew all too well the sound of a motorcycle.
“Someone’s coming?” I asked.
“Sounds like it. Come on. Let’s go before we find out who.”
We stepped out, not saying a word to each other as the cool night air rushed over us. Another loud rumble of a bike made us both stop again.
“Did you tell any of the pack we were coming here?” I asked, not recognizing the sound of this bike.
“No. I didn’t know what the hell we were doing, so I wasn’t going to tell anyone about it.”
The words almost made me wish I took more advantage of one entire night alone with him.
The bike roared down the dead street, aiming right toward us. Aiden moved, pushing me behind him until I couldn’t see anything.
His body tensed, and I could feel his heartbeat hammering through his back as he shielded me. The bike crept closer, its headlights glaring, casting long shadows on the empty street.
“Stay behind me,” he murmured, barely audible over the growl of the engine.
“So you get killed first? Normally I would agree but—”
I could feel the huff of air leave him, but I couldn’t tell if he would be smiling or scowling.
My hand skimmed up his back and wrapped into the leather of his jacket. I peeked around his arm. The figure on the bike lifted a gloved hand, pointing it directly at us, and a chill ran down my spine.
We’d been caught.
And they weren’t letting us go anywhere.