Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 128413 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128413 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
“Good. I’ll take the drink now.” She picked it up. “Please bring the rest to my office.” Her politeness was natural, but it was also one of the rules of the Scott household. Shoshanna had been unfailingly polite to her staff.
“They are cogs in the machine,” her mother had told Auden on one of the infrequent occasions when she’d had charge of her minor child. “Cogs function better with a little grease, and the grease here is the appearance that I care for their psychological well-being—and it’s not a lie. If they are unwell, they can’t perform their duties.”
Shoshanna had never been a caricature of evil. That was what made her so dangerous. People respected her, trusted her, even believed she cared. The truth was that Shoshanna had cared only for herself.
Her staff and Auden had mattered to her in the same pragmatic way.
Cogs in the machine.
Once at her desk, she finished the drink before pulling up files on a number of business projects. Not simply as cover, but because information was power.
Both Henry and Shoshanna had drummed that into her.
When the staff member came in with the tray, Auden only acknowledged her with a nod. Another small act designed to make the entire household believe that she wasn’t only back, but that she was back as her mother’s daughter.
She completed the work she wanted to do in record time—even compared to her work before the brain damage. She seemed to know exactly where certain files were located, or how to retrieve documents she’d never before seen.
Including videos of her interacting with others in a way that should’ve been impossible with her brain injury. Complex, detailed interactions that couldn’t be faked with a nod here and there while Charisma did the talking.
Auden was the one doing the talking.
Parched, she grabbed the glass of water that had come on the tray, emptied it. Her lips remained dry in the aftermath, her heart pumping. Because…she shouldn’t be able to access this material. It was stored in a system that had been well above her security clearance when she’d been “normal”—she’d been too young then to have access to this depth of business information.
More than that…
Passwords.
A number of the documents she’d just pulled up had been password protected, and she’d breezed past the security as if it didn’t exist, her fingers typing in the necessary codes without hesitation.
Not only that, but when she checked some of the more obscure financial records, she saw that the last access had been by Shoshanna. Which meant these were documents even Charisma couldn’t access—she hadn’t been given the override by her mother before Shoshanna’s untimely death.
Her heart hitched.
There had to be an explanation. Perhaps she’d had other periods of lucidity while her mother was alive, and Shoshanna had decided to pass on the information. That must be it. Because what other possibility—
Chest tight, she touched the scar at her temple again.
What if her mother had done something else to her? She would’ve seen Auden as already damaged, so it would’ve been easy for her to justify. Whatever it was, Dr. Verhoeven had to know, as did Charisma.
That was when it hit her: the codes to the system, the thing that allowed Charisma to hold the reins.
Face hot, she pulled up the deceptively simple login page and stared.
Nothing. Her mind a blank.
She swiped out her arm, crashing her empty glass to the soft carpet. Her vision wavered, her brain hitching, a murmur inside her skull that rebuked her for the loss of control in a voice that wasn’t her own.
* * *
• • •
AN impatient and quietly angry Remi turned into the road that led to the Scott compound after nightfall. The past three days, as he waited for the contract to be finalized, had ground his patience down to the bone. All he could think of was Auden, so fierce and protective, trapped in a house that wasn’t a home while her brain misfired on her.
“You look like you want to murder someone,” Mliss murmured from the passenger seat. “Rein it in, Remi, or you’ll give away the game.”
He’d picked his COO up from her apartment along the way because RainFire couldn’t afford to sacrifice a vehicle, and there was no way he’d leave it in enemy territory for the duration.
“I have it,” he muttered, clenching his teeth even as his leopard settled in a quiet that was deadly. “Now?”
“It’ll do.”
“Remi Denier,” he told the guard on duty at the gate. “Here for Ms. Scott.”
The man—who’d also accompanied Auden to the mech facility—said, “You’re the only one cleared. I can call up about Ms. Phan.”
Good man, Remi thought. He’d made note of Mliss’s name and face despite having never interacted with her. “No, that’s fine. Mliss’s my ride.” Getting out, he waited until she was in the driver’s seat before he said, “Drive safe.”