“Come on. Let’s get this shit sorted. I can use my interrogation skills on Lena if necessary.” He gave me a disturbingly evil grin.
“Maybe save that for another time.” I shook my head at him, laughing, although I wasn’t completely sure if he was actually joking or not. Hard to tell with him, as always.
“I think Cassius and Winter are in the lounge. I’ll round up the others.”
I found Lena in the computer room with Weston, laptop open and headphones in, while he used his own laptop opposite her, rather than one of his giant monitors. Guess he didn’t want her to see anything he was doing on the screen. Trying to explain that he was essentially a hacker to anyone else, even Cassius’ sister, was a massive risk. We’d told Winter because…I wasn’t even sure why he’d told her, other than the fact she needed to know. And I think he’d trusted Winter from the beginning. She’d been completely open about what she’d been dealing with, investigating her dad, trusting us with that information, and in turn, he’d trusted her and knew she’d never rat him out to anyone. If only I could’ve been as trusting as him, maybe Winter and I wouldn’t have had so many fucking obstacles in our relationship.
Of course, all this meant Kinslee knew as well, since Winter hadn’t kept that shit from her, but Winter trusted her and that was good enough for me. Yeah, I had major problems with trust, but Winter’s instincts were spot on—normally at least.
“Zayde’s back,” I announced loudly, and both their heads shot up. They glanced across at each other and looked away immediately, Lena’s cheeks flushing. I narrowed my eyes, studying them both. I had my suspicions that West had a bit of a thing for Lena, but up until that point, I had no idea it was reciprocated. Not that it was surprising. Winter was the only woman that even remotely featured on my radar, so I rarely paid attention to anyone else.
“Gimme a minute, I’m just downloading the last of this file that you-know-who sent me,” West told me, signalling me with his eyes that he didn’t want to say anything in front of Lena.
“I’ll just save my work, then I’ll be there,” Lena spoke at the same time. I nodded at them both and left them to it, making my way back into the lounge where Winter and Cassius were deep in conversation, and Zayde was ignoring everyone, texting on his phone.
“You okay, mate?” I asked Zayde in a low voice, stopping by his chair.
“Yeah. All good,” he assured me, his icy eyes meeting mine, giving nothing away.
“Good.” I crossed over to the sofa and sat down, pulling my girlfriend onto my lap and burying my nose in her soft hair. “Miss me, baby?” I ran my hand down her arm, and she shivered.
“Always.”
“Have a word with your girlfriend.” Cassius was suddenly leaning forwards, his gaze fixed on mine. “Winter here thinks I’m winding her up. I told her that goats have rectangular pupils, and she refuses to believe me.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I blinked, the sudden change of pace giving me whiplash.
“Goats. You know, goats.”
“Yeah, I know what goats are,” I said dryly.
“Their eyes have rectangular pupils. It’s true, you can google it if you don’t believe me.”
“I’m not googling it because you’ll laugh at me for being gullible and falling for your joke,” Winter huffed.
“It’s not a joke, babe. Guaranteed.”
Whatever she was going to reply was lost as Weston and Lena walked in.
“I got the go-ahead to reveal a few key points about my reason for being down at the docks,” Lena announced.
Finally.
She sat back, cool and collected. “I was sent down to investigate. My boss had reason to believe that—”
Cassius interrupted her. “Your boss? You’re getting paid to do some dodgy shit? You’d better explain yourself right fucking now.”
“Cass, please.” She rolled her eyes, clearly not taking it seriously. Fuck, if that was Winter, I’d… Yeah, best not to think about that.
“I’m investigating an illegal dog-fighting thing. Look, I don’t know much myself, if that’s what you’re worried about. I only do the odd thing here and there. I get sent instructions from my boss, do it, then go. It’s something I’ve been looking into for a while. You know I can’t stand the thought of animals being mistreated. The other, unrelated reason I had for being at the Cavendish party that I mentioned earlier? Other than getting the ID? That was all to do with the dog fighting.”
“Lena,” Cassius groaned. “How did you even get into this shit?”
“That’s a story for another day,” she said firmly.
“Fuck. That dog fighting. I saw the video at the party,” Winter said, her voice soft and sad. She exchanged a look of understanding with Lena, both of them communicating without words. As I studied Lena, suddenly she didn’t seem like Cassius’ little sister anymore. She looked like a woman on a mission. Determined, focused. Like my girl.
Fucking great.