Chapter 37 #2
"Adrian?" Aurora's voice cuts through my spiraling thoughts. "What are you looking at?"
I force my expression neutral, quickly switching screens to pull up my calendar instead of the threatening message.
"Just figuring out what date I'm going to take you on next," I lie smoothly, showing her the calendar with various starred dates. "This was fun, but I need to take you somewhere we can really enjoy ourselves. Proper dinner, maybe dancing, no work involved."
The deflection works.
Aurora's eyes light up with excitement that makes guilt twist in my chest for lying.
"I'd love that," she says genuinely. "Though this was fun too. Getting to see how your mind works, learning about the technical side from someone who actually understands it at a deep level."
"No, I insist." I set the phone face-down on the table, pulling Aurora into my lap before she can protest.
She squeaks in surprise but doesn't resist, settling against me with the kind of trust that makes the protective fury roaring through my veins intensify.
I wrap my arms around her waist, burying my face in her neck and breathing deeply.
Her scent grounds me—smoke and vanilla mixing with my amber until we're creating something uniquely pack.
My Alpha instincts demand I protect her, keep her safe from the threats that are escalating beyond my ability to fully control.
"Adrian?" Her voice is soft, concerned. "You okay?"
"Yeah, tesoro." I press a kiss to her neck, just below her jaw. "Just needed to ground myself for a moment. Feeling overwhelmed by how perfect you are."
It's not entirely a lie.
She is perfect, and I am overwhelmed—just not for the romantic reasons I'm implying.
Aurora smirks, turning in my lap to face me properly.
"You're such a smooth talker."
"Only with you."
She leans in, and I meet her halfway. The kiss starts soft—gentle exploration, tender affection, the kind of intimacy that speaks to genuine connection rather than just physical attraction.
But it heats quickly.
Aurora's hands thread through my hair, pulling me closer while she shifts in my lap to straddle me properly. My hands slide up her back, one settling between her shoulder blades while the other cups the back of her head.
The kiss deepens, tongues meeting and exploring, her taste mixing with the espresso we've been drinking. She makes a small sound—somewhere between contentment and arousal—that goes straight to my cock.
I'm hard within seconds, my body responding to her proximity and scent and the way she's pressed against me in this semi-public booth.
"Cazzo," I breathe against her lips. "You're going to kill me, bellissima."
"Pretty sure that's not how CPR works," she teases, but her voice is breathy and her pupils are dilated.
I'm about to suggest we find somewhere more private when someone clears their throat.
We break apart to find the barista standing at our booth, holding a fresh carafe of espresso and trying very hard not to smile.
"Refills?" she asks, voice carefully neutral. "Or should I come back later?"
Aurora practically launches herself off my lap, her face turning bright red in a blush that's absolutely adorable.
"No! We're good! Thank you!"
The barista pours the refills with professional efficiency, her lips twitching with suppressed amusement, before leaving us alone again.
Aurora refuses to meet my eyes, the blush spreading down her neck in ways that make me want to trace its path with my tongue.
"We should probably get back to work," she mutters, deliberately focusing on the screens instead of me. "Before Luca tries to make us suffer with more laps or some unnecessary nonsense."
I chuckle, letting her have the deflection even though my body is protesting the interrupted moment.
"Agreed. Though for the record, I'm very much looking forward to continuing that kiss somewhere more private."
"Adrian!"
"What? I'm just being honest about my intentions, tesoro."
She huffs, but she's smiling as we gather our things and prepare to leave.
I make sure to grab my phone, the threatening message still burning in my mind even as I maintain the facade of casual date aftermath.
Back at Thorne Racing HQ, I head straight for the secure tech lab that Elias and I have been using for our investigation.
Elias is already there, hunched over multiple screens displaying code and data visualizations that would be incomprehensible to most people.
"Got something," I say without preamble, pulling out my phone and forwarding him the text and images.
His expression darkens as he reviews them, green eyes going hard behind his round spectacles.
"They're escalating," he says quietly. "From sabotage to direct threats. And they have photos from the kidnapping, which means either they were involved directly or they have access to whoever was."
"I'm adding the number to our tracking spider," I say, already pulling up the sophisticated monitoring system we've been building.
The spider is beautiful in its complexity—a web of algorithms designed to track digital footprints across multiple platforms, correlating data points that seem unrelated to identify patterns and sources.
It's technically illegal in about seventeen different ways, but fuck legality when Aurora's safety is at stake.
I input the unknown number, setting parameters for aggressive tracking—social media cross-referencing, financial transaction monitoring, geolocation tracking if the phone connects to any network we have access to.
"What did Aurora say about suspects?" Elias asks, watching my work with the appreciation of someone who understands exactly what I'm doing.
"She thinks we're focusing too much on the obvious targets," I reply, fingers flying across the keyboard. "Says it has to be someone we least expect. Someone trusted, or someone who seems irrelevant to racing politics."
The words echo in my mind as I work, reshaping how I'm approaching the investigation.
Someone we least expect.
Not Richard, whose history makes him an obvious suspect. Not Dante, whose antagonism is too visible to be truly dangerous. Not even Marco, whose financial troubles make him a convenient scapegoat.
Someone else.
Someone hiding in plain sight, using our focus on obvious threats as cover while they systematically dismantle Aurora's career and safety.
"I need to expand the surveillance," I mutter, opening new windows and adding targets I'd previously dismissed as unlikely.
Junior engineers who seem too eager to help. Sponsors who inserted themselves into our operations with convenient timing. Media figures who've been unusually sympathetic while subtly undermining Aurora's credibility.
FIA officials with access to technical systems who've never given us reason to doubt their loyalty.
The list grows longer as I consider possibilities that seemed paranoid hours ago but now feel disturbingly plausible.
"This is going to get ugly," Elias observes, watching my screen fill with surveillance targets and tracking protocols. "If we're wrong about any of these people, we could destroy innocent careers."
"And if we're right," I counter, "we stop whoever's trying to hurt Aurora before they succeed."
The choice isn't difficult. I'll burn every bridge, ruin every relationship, compromise every ethical standard I have if that's what it takes to keep my Omega safe.
Elias nods slowly, apparently coming to the same conclusion. "I'll set up additional monitoring on communications. If any of these targets coordinate with each other or with unknown parties, we'll know."
We work in focused silence, building a digital war machine designed to expose secrets and track threats. Hours pass without notice, the tech lab's artificial lighting making time irrelevant.
My phone buzzes periodically with updates—Cale checking on the date, Luca demanding I return for evening training, Aurora sending a sweet text thanking me for the afternoon.
I respond to each appropriately, maintaining the facade that everything is normal while my mind churns through possibilities and my fingers execute code that could land me in prison if anyone with authority discovered it.
Aurora was right.
It has to be someone we least expect.
Someone who's been with us all along, watching and waiting and planning while we focused on external threats.
Who knows our routines, our security protocols, our weaknesses.
Close enough to hurt us from the inside.
And I'm going to find them, no matter what it takes or what lines I have to cross.
The tracking spider goes live at 11:47 PM, its algorithms spreading through networks and databases with invisible efficiency.
Now we wait.