Page 67 of Speechless
I laughed and pushed him away, finally retrieving the banana I’d been aiming for. “I’ll probably leave a bit earlier today, anyway. I need to go to that warehouse park on the east side.”
Theo looked up from his computer. “Why?”
My instinct was to brush it off because it was fine, and I needed to be careful around this story. But we were also doing complete honesty.
“I’m working on a story that’s kind of intense. A source gave me a flash drive that’s encrypted, and I tried to crack it, but I’m not a hacker. Ocean’s Alphas have a hacker who works with them. He just moved here from Albion, and his office is over there. I’m going to go see if he can undo the encryption.”
“What’s the address?”
“Why?”
Standing, Theo rounded the island and stood in front of me. “Because you’re my Omega, and even though I believe you are fully capable, I’d rather you not go to a warehouse park to meet a complete stranger alone. Let me go make sure he’s not a creep first.”
“I don’t think the DuPont Pack would work with someone who was a creep.”
“Probably not,” Logan said, “but Theo isn’t wrong. I don’t like the idea of you over there by yourself.”
Theo stared hard at me for a second. “Does this have anything to do with the theory you don’t want to say out loud yet?”
My eyes went wide, and I swallowed. “Yes.”
A long, slow breath. “You think this story might have something to do with your apartment being trashed?”
The kitchen went silent and still again.
“I have no proof of that, so I honestly don’t think so. The timing is too coincidental and too fast. But I can’t rule it out right now.”
“Address.”
The refusal was on the tip of my tongue, but I held it back. These were my Alphas. My scent matches. If Isolde or Ocean’s packs found out they were going to do something like this alone, they would absolutelyinsist on finding out more first. This was instinct and concern. Not control.
I pulled up the email from Aiden on my phone and texted the address to Theo. “Even if he’s a creep, I still need him,” I said. “I need the flash drive unlocked.”
“I can take it for you.”
“That I can’t do,” I said. “Because of what might be on it, I can’t have anyone doing anything to it without me there. Kind of like a chain of evidence.” I held out a hand, “and I’m not talking about you. I trust you. But, like you said, we don’t know the hacker. I want to be in the room while he’s working on it.”
Theo made a face. “That’s fair. I don’t like it, but I understand it.”
“Thank you. In that case, I’ll come straight home. And I still might leave early.”
“Please do.” Theo kissed me, and I was pretty sure I was going to die from the overwhelm of all of them. I didn’t know how my friends did this. And I wasn’t even bonded to them.
Holy shit, Ocean and Isoldedidn’t know yet.
“Can I tell my friends? About the scent match?”
“Absolutely. I’d tell everyone I know if we weren’t keeping it quiet from Mama Hart for a while,” Brooks said.
“Okay.” If I didn’t leave now, I was never going to.
“Have a good day.”
Bastian caught me at the door. “Trinity.”
“Yeah.”
“Is that flash drive safe?”
