Selene held the thumb drive like it was a live grenade. Her fingers tightened around it, heat rushing up her neck in waves of confusion, suspicion, dread. The note still fluttered in her other hand, as damning as the surveillance photo. “Watch this. Then decide if you still want him.”
She looked up.
Darius hadn’t moved. His breath rose and fell in a slow, careful rhythm, but his stormy, dark eyes were fixed on the note like it had reopened an old wound. He looked… afraid.
“Darius,” she said, voice low, “what the f**k is on this?”
He didn’t answer.
The silence between them stretched thin, too thin. It was a silence packed with history, secrets, the kind of things that exploded when pressed too hard. She didn’t wait. She turned and stalked toward the den, slid the drive into her laptop,
