The Havoc We Wreak (The Four 3)

“Cade. I need to talk to you.” Weston leaned over, his voice low. He slid his phone over to me, and I stared at the screen.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: FW: Agenda

Joseph

Please see note re meeting. You are expected to attend.

-------

ORIGINAL MESSAGE

From: [email protected]

To: unknown recipients

Subject: Agenda

Dear All

Payments made as agreed. Moving ahead with the final stage of the plan. The contract is due to be signed in 11 days. Proceed as agreed, and prepare to meet in 10 days to discuss any last-minute arrangements: Alstone Castle 9pm.

CC

Talk about a fucking breakthrough. This could be the chance we needed.

I slid the phone in front of Winter. “Read this,” I murmured in her ear, before turning my attention to my brother. “Where did you get this?”

“Ever since you told me about James’ involvement, I’ve been working on getting into the Hydes’ emails. I hadn’t had any luck getting into his dad’s, but Joseph uses his university email for everything, from what I can tell. It was easy enough to get into the uni email system, especially since I got a job.”

“A job? What do you need a job for?”

“It’s to add to my skills. I’m doing a couple of afternoons doing IT support here, and just like that, I now have clearance to access everyone here without even having to hack.” He gave me a smug smile.

“I’m impressed. Good thinking.” I grinned at him. “This is great. Anything else?” I leaned even closer, mouthing the words so Winter didn’t hear them. Did you check Granville’s?

He nodded. “He’s clean. Everything there’s uni-related. This is the other stuff I have from Joseph—he must’ve deleted most of the emails, but the few I’ve found give us more of an insight.” He took his phone from Winter, who had frozen on my lap.

She turned her body as he took the phone, lining up her mouth with my ear and sitting sideways on me. “We need to do something. This could be our chance.”

I nodded. There was only one fucking chance, and we had to take it. A thought suddenly occurred to me, and I opened my messaging app to the chat thread between me, my dad, and my brother. “Look at the date on that message. The deal between the De Witts and Alstone Holdings is due to be signed the day after this meeting Christine’s having.”

“Oh, fuck,” she breathed. “This must be what my mother meant in the email when she mentioned a contract being signed. We have to be there.”

“I know. We’ll cause a distraction. I want everyone prepared. You need to train.”

“Ooh, like ninja skills?” She kicked her leg out in front of her, accidentally kicking Weston’s chair, and he gave her a dirty look while I laughed.

“Yeah, just like that, baby.”

“I don’t know what we’re going to do, but we need to plan everything. It’s time we put the rest of this puzzle together so we can get all the evidence and take it to your dad.”

“Here.” Weston interrupted our conversation again, handing Winter his phone. “These are the other emails. Just evidence that he was keeping tabs on you, Winter. Forwarding stuff to your mother.”

She scrolled through, her face darkening. “I can’t believe he actually sent these photos to my mother.” There were only a few emails, but attached to each were pictures of my girl around the campus, taken without her knowledge. He’d also sent her details on Winter’s assignment grades, the fucker.