25. Sophie
Sophie
The pack house dining table seats twelve, but tonight there are only four of us, and the room feels smaller than it should.
I’ve set up halfway down the table—laptop open, the encrypted audio file loaded and ready on a separate device face-down beside my coffee cup.
Finn sits to my left, his chair angled toward me, sleeves rolled to his forearms. Ethan is across from him, glasses on, a notebook open in front of him, pen in hand, even though I have a feeling he’ll remember every word without writing any of them down.
And Max is at the head of the table.
He was already seated when I walked in. I felt him the moment I entered the house, as if my body remembered what it feels like to be near him. He was reading something on his phone, and when I came through the door he didn’t look up.
He hasn’t looked at me since.
I haven’t looked at him either. Mostly because I didn’t want to remember that the last time we were in a room together, he had me against a wall with his hands around my wrists and his mouth on mine, and I was kissing him back like I wanted to devour him.
I swallow and focus on the screen in front of me. Because we are ignoring it. Completely. As if we can bury it somewhere deep enough that neither of us has to look at it again.
But the room knows. Finn’s gaze keeps drifting between Max and me, a slight furrow between his brows, like he’s missing something and can’t figure out what.
Ethan is subtler—he hasn’t looked up from his notebook, but his pen hasn’t moved, and even though he’s staring at it, I know he’s listening to things that aren’t being said.
I pull up the file on my screen. The sooner I start, the sooner this is over.
“I’ve completed my assessment of Phoebe Brandt,” I say. My voice is level, stripped of anything that might betray the fact that my pulse is running about fifteen beats per minute faster than it should be, and not because of Phoebe. “I’m removing her from the suspect list.”
“On what basis?” Max asks.
His voice is curt, and he doesn’t even bother looking at me. Instead, he’s looking at some fixed point in the middle distance that apparently requires his full attention.
Fine. Two can play.
“Audio surveillance,” I say, matching his tone. “I put a transmitter on Phoebe’s desk. Forty-eight hours of audio.”
“You bugged her?” Ethan asks.
“Yeah, Sophie and I discussed it the other day.” Finn leans forward, his forearms on the table. “And, did you find anything?”
“I found the source of Phoebe’s debt. It’s not related to the leak, or to Synthera’s competitors, or to anyone with an interest in your research.”
“So what is it?” Ethan asks.
I pause, wondering how to say this to three alpha males sitting around a dining table at nine o’clock at night.
“Phoebe Brandt is using male escort services.”
The silence that follows tells me they weren’t expecting that.
Finn stares at me, his eyebrows climbing to a height I didn’t think anatomically possible.
Ethan blinks once, slowly.
Max’s phone lowers half an inch. It’s the most reaction I’ve gotten from him all evening.
“She’s booking escorts at premium rates, which is the source of the financial distress that flagged her in Declan’s initial screening.”
“Are you sure?” Finn’s voice is careful, as if he’s not sure the words meant what he thinks they meant. “Maybe you misheard her? Maybe it was—I don’t know, a personal trainer, or a—”
“I’m sure, Finn.”
“I’m having a hard time,” Ethan says slowly, “reconciling the Phoebe you’re describing with the Phoebe in our office.”
“What exactly did she say?” Max’s voice cuts through. He’s looking at me now, finally. His green eyes are sharp and focused, the man who needs facts before he’ll believe anything he’s told.
I hold his gaze for the first time since his office. Something sparks in the space between us—quick, electric, and I immediately shut it down, looking away.
I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this, but I knew I had no choice.
I’m sorry, Phoebe.
“Fine.” I look at Finn. “I haven’t deleted it yet. I thought you might want to hear it before I did.” I reach for the device. “Listen for yourselves.”
I tap play.
Phoebe’s voice fills the dining room. The shy, warm, slightly nervous and giggly Phoebe first. I let it run for ten seconds, enough for them to remember what Phoebe is usually like, establishing the baseline.
Then Marc-André’s call begins.
By the time the negotiation plays out—the panic in Phoebe’s voice, the resigned fine, the whispered request that makes Finn go slightly pink across the cheekbones—and Phoebe’s breathless, conspiratorial laugh fills the room and the call ends, Ethan has removed his glasses and is polishing them with a focus that suggests he’d rather be anywhere else, and Max is staring at the device so hard I think it might detonate.
Ethan clears his throat and says, “That’s... I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t hear it myself.”
“Maybe he’s her boyfriend,” Finn offers. “Maybe it’s just—I don’t know, a relationship and the financial stuff is just... shared expenses?”
“He’s a male escort, Finn,” I say flatly. “Because I knew the exact time of the call, Declan was able to trace the number. It links back to an agency that provides alpha companionship.” I pause. “He also managed to get into their client database. She’s a regular customer.”
Nobody asks how Declan got into the database.
“Regular,” Ethan repeats slowly. “How regular?”
“She’s spending approximately three to four thousand dollars a month on them, so I’d say pretty regular.”
Finn takes a long drink of water and says nothing.
Ethan leans forward, his elbows on the table, his expression thoughtful.
“We should—I mean, we could help her,” he says.
“If this is a compulsion, if she’s struggling financially because of it, there are things we can do as her employer.
We could adjust her benefits package. Offer counseling.
We have an entire wellness program that covers—” He pauses.
His pen taps against the notebook once, twice.
“We also have our own products. The suppressant protocols, the sensory management kits, the...”
He stops mid-sentence.
I watch the realization spread across his face. That slow, dawning awareness that he is sitting at a table with his two packmates and a woman they’ve hired, suggesting that they give their employee their own company’s sex toys to address her escort habit.
“The, uh.” He clears his throat. “The therapeutic devices. For managing...” He trails off. The pen taps faster. “You know what, never mind the products.”
Finn is biting the inside of his cheek so hard I can see the dimple, trying not to laugh and failing.
“I doubt the toys will be enough for her,” I say.
The words leave my mouth before I can stop them, and the room goes very quiet. Finn’s smile fades. Ethan’s hands go still on the pen. Max’s gaze shifts to me and holds.
I look away first and slip the device into my bag.
“In any case,” I say, and my voice is steady, which is a miracle, “Phoebe has been cleared. The debt is personal and has no connection to the leak.” I pull up the next file on my screen, forcing my eyes to focus on something that isn’t Max Cavill’s face.
“I’ll move to the research wing tomorrow.
We’ll need to find a way for me to work closely with Diana Quinn.
I’ll also need access to all her work emails and project files.
The more I have, the quicker we can find out if she’s involved. ”
“I’ll make sure you have access to everything you need,” Ethan says, clearly grateful for the subject change. “I’ll have you shadow her on the projects she’s managing. I’ll set it up so it looks like a natural part of the department onboarding.”
“Good.” I close the laptop and gather my things. Ethan is right behind me, walking me to the door.
I can feel Max’s eyes on me the way you feel sunlight through a window—a physical warmth on the side of my face, steady and unwavering.
Every instinct I have is telling me to glance back. Just once, for a fraction of a second. Just to know if he’s still watching, or if he’s already gone back to his phone, back to pretending, back to the version of tonight where nothing happened between us and nothing is happening now.
I don’t look back.
“See you tomorrow, Soph,” Ethan says at the door.
I step outside and get into my car.
My heart is hammering, and it has nothing to do with Phoebe or the investigation and everything to do with Max and the quiet, devastating certainty that whatever is happening between us did not end in his office.
And I have a feeling it hasn’t even started yet.