Downpour (Alpha Love - A Paranormal Werewolf Shifter Romance Book 1) (22 page)

“So what does that mean? That they know everything that we’ve been looking at?” Sofie tries to keep the panic out of her voice. Just because they have the information about the mysterious disappearances in the local area, doesn’t give Luke any suggestion of the pack, of their secret.

“That’s exactly what it means my little chickadee. Let’s see if it’s just this laptop or if it’s everyone’s. Give me a sec.” He taps in some more information and lets out a low whistle. “Ho-ly shit.”

“What? What is it?” Sofie jumps up to look over Finn’s shoulder. She sees an email to Darwin from a law firm, telling him that they can’t continue to work for him if he doesn’t settle his bills with them. “What am I looking at?”

“I’ve accessed Darwin’s email account, his personal address,” Finn explains not so patiently.

“Well, this isn’t the first time you’ve done that.” Sofie looks at him sharply.

“Yeah but just for fun! Anyway, this is the first time I’ve seen that I’m not the only one looking.” Finn points to a red dot in the top right hand corner of the screen. “I’ve set it up so that when there’s access from an outside source that little light goes on.”

“Well, it’s on now. So, Shale is monitoring Darwin’s private emails along with everything else.” Sofie pulls her eyes away from the correspondence between him and his lawyers. It looks like things aren’t going well with his divorce. His wife is taking him to the cleaners for everything he has.

“You haven’t figured it out yet, have you?” Finn looks at her, smirking, clearly enjoying having the upper hand, as he always does when it comes to computers and tech.

“No, but I can see that you’re just dying to tell me.” Sofie rolls her eyes at how much he’s milking this.

“Don’t pout, it doesn’t suit you,” Finn instructs her, sounding like a grandmother. “This is Darwin’s
personal
computer. It doesn’t have anything to do with Shale.”

The enormity of what Finn is saying slowly dawns on her. “Holy shit,” she echoes Finn’s statement.

“My sentiments exactly. Big brother really is watching. But, I’ve always enjoyed the whole only child thing.” Finn is concentrating hard on whatever it is that he’s doing, his typing speed is off the charts, and he hums as he works.

Sofie knows better than to interrupt him when he’s clearly on a roll. She thinks about what Shale is doing or, more accurately, what Luke is doing.
He’s invading the private information of his employees. But for what? He doesn’t do anything for fun, there has to be a reason behind it.
Then, it hits her. “Leverage.” She says the word out loud, so appalled is she by what she’s thinking.

“Huh?” Finn looks at her from over the top of his thick-rimmed glasses.

“Leverage, that’s why Luke is spying on us. He’s trying to find out everything he can so not only is he one step ahead all the time, but he has the dark corners of our lives covered, too. I’ve always known he was an asshole, but this is on a whole other level.” Sofie shakes her head. “This is illegal. We can go to the cops with this.” The thought gives her a burst of energy, and she straightens up, like she’s ready to walk out the door now and find the nearest law official.

“Slow down there, Erin Brockovich. Now, I’m all for taking down ‘The Man,’ but how are we going to prove this? We can’t just turn up and say, ‘While we were hacking our boss’s computer, we noticed that someone else was hacking it too,’” Finn points out.

She knows that he’s right, but she hates it. “What can you do about it? Can you stop them from accessing our files, our phones, our...lives?”

“I can, but I won’t.” Finn shakes his head, and Sofie looks at him in disbelief. “If we stop them then whoever is sitting at the other end of that line will know that we’ve found them out. Then what happens?”

“Then, they erase what they’ve been doing and find another way to get the information they want.” Sofie supplies the answer without even having to think about it.

“But never fear, Sofie dear! Although I won’t close down their access, I can make them think that they’re still monitoring our tech, but all they’re getting is a feed of repeated information.” Finn looks at her and sees that he lost Sofie a few paces ago. “I’m going to set it up so there’s information going in and out of their server, so they still think they’re connected, but it’ll just be emails, messages, whatever, that I’ve created. They won’t see any of the real stuff that’s coming into or going out of our phones and laptops.”

Sofie holds Finns head between her hands and plants a loud kiss on his forehead. “Finnbarr, you are a genius.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” he grumbles although there’s a ghost of a smile on his lips.

“How long will it take?” Sofie looks between him and the laptop.

“I’ll have to go device-by-device so a little while. I guess I might’ve caught that bug you had yesterday.” He smiles conspiratorially at Sofie.

“Can you start with my cell?” Sofie hands over her phone. “There’s something that I need to do.”

Finn turns back to her, making it clear how serious he is about what he’s saying. “If you’re going to ask me to do this, then I need to know why.” He sees the conflict playing out on Sofie’s face. “Give me something, Sofe.”

“Finn, trust me when I tell you that I really can’t.” She wrings her hands, trying to make him understand. “You’re my best friend, and I wish that I could share this with you, that I could share it with anyone, but I can’t, not now at least. It’s not my secret to tell. But will you just believe me when I say that it’s important? That’s all I can say.” She shrugs, biting her bottom lip and hoping that it’ll be enough for Finn, for now at least. She’s under no illusions that he won’t ask her again and soon.

“Come back in a half hour, and it’ll be done.” Finn takes the cell from her and turns back to the computer.

“Thank you.” She says the words quietly to Finn’s back. She can tell from the set of his shoulders that he’s annoyed, angry at being left out of the loop, that she doesn’t trust him enough. She makes a promise to herself that one day she’ll tell him everything, and he can decide whether to believe her or not. One day, but not now. One thing at a time.

Finn was true to his word. Just like always, he came through for her. After he’d given her back her cell, now free from prying eyes, she’d had just enough time to send off a quick message to Ashton, telling him that the ecologist would be at the canyon today, that they needed to be ready.

With Finn out of action with his stomach bug, Sofie became the designated driver. Darwin bundles into the car, looking like he’d barely slept.

“You alright, boss?” She steals a look at him while she pretends she’s adjusting her seat.

“Fine, just a little tired.” Darwin passes a hand over his eyes, and Sofie sees that it’s shaking. He notices it too and his mood turns brusque. “Let’s go then, no point hanging around.”

“Aren’t we waiting for Franklin?” Sofie wonders if Darwin really is losing his shit over the divorce.

“He’s riding with Luke.” Darwin looks out of the window, away from Sofie as he says the words.

Sofie doesn’t respond, just turns the key in the ignition and heads out towards the canyon. It wasn’t unheard of that an employee would ride in Luke’s limo, that’s what she’d done just the day before. But after everything that had happened up to this point, Sofie was finding it harder and harder to give Luke the benefit of the doubt. If Franklin was riding with the CEO of the company, there was a reason for it.

When they get to the site, Franklin seems like anything but an experienced ecologist. He clearly isn’t someone who likes to get his hands dirty, and Sofie can’t help but wonder where Luke dug this guy up from.

“I can show you towards the woods, where I heard the howling?” Sofie suggests figuring that she can kill two birds with one stone, collect another rock sample and make sure that Franklin doesn’t miss the sighting that has been carefully orchestrated for him.

“Right, yes, that would make sense, wouldn’t it?” He looks at her making it clear that he’s waiting for her to tell him what he should be doing.

“Yes, I think that would be best.” Sofie looks at Darwin to see if he’s catching how incompetent the new scientist in their midst seems to be, but he’s looking up at the mountain, his eyes lost in thought.

“I’ll accompany you both.” Luke hangs up the cell call he’d been on since arriving at the site.

“Great!” Sofie tries to keep her smile from turning into a grimace. “Well, let’s do it.” She picks up her equipment and trudges towards the woods, praying that the pack have had enough time for one of them to make an appearance no matter how brief. If they don’t, then it’s game over.

***

Sofie heads to ‘Shots’, barely able to contain her grin despite being a little stung that Finn was ignoring her. She knew that he was in his room when she’d knocked, she could hear the video game playing, but he didn’t answer.
Wasn’t that what I’d done to him just the night before? Shut him out?
She’d asked Darwin if he wanted to go along with her, and he smiled vaguely, saying that he’d catch up. Sofie didn’t believe for a second that she’d see the older man that night, but right now, she’s just desperate to get there.

When she walks through the door, she instantly spots the group she’s looking for. Ashton, Gus, and Hector are talking easily and laughing, like all their worries are over. They were celebrating and that’s exactly what they should be doing. The plan was a success, Franklin and Luke had both seen the wolf in the distance. Sofie had wondered who it had been, it didn’t look like Gus in wolf form, but then she was new to all of this. With the sighting Franklin would be forced to advise that the area should be protected, which meant no drilling. It was inevitable; they’d saved the canyon and the pack along with it. As if Ashton can sense her thoughts, he turns around and smiles that devastating smile of his.

He walks over towards her, and Sofie gets that familiar feeling of everything coming to a stop around her. All she sees is Ashton slowly advancing towards her, anything outside of that is just a blur.

“You did it.” She barely breathes, as Ashton lifts her chin up so that their eyes meet. She feels herself falling into his baby blues.

“We did it,” Ashton corrects her, and Sofie tries not to think how much she likes the sound of that
we
. But Ashton’s mouth on hers stops her from thinking at all. Instead, she just feels, she feels the pressure of his lips, she tastes him on her tongue, and she’s dizzy with desire.

“Hey, this is a bar not your bedroom, Ash!” Lindsey’s voice carries across the bar, and Ashton looks over at her smiling. Sofie feels herself blush and rests her head against his chest to hide her embarrassment.

“Come on over, the guys were asking after you.” Ashton takes Sofie’s hand and leads her towards the table.

“The guys?” Sofie asks under her breath figuring that he’s stretching the truth a little, and she takes his silence as confirmation that Gus had most certainly not mentioned her. “Look, I don’t want to rub Gus’s face in this,” she gestures vaguely between herself and Ashton. “If it’s something he doesn’t know how to deal with yet, then maybe I should just leave you three to it. It’s a pack thing. I don’t belong here.” She hates the ring of truth that those words have.

“You belong with me, which means that you belong right there at that table. Now stop making excuses.” Ashton gives her a little playful slap on the behind, nodding her in the direction of his friends.

“Well, with an invitation like that, how could I refuse?” Sofie teases him over her shoulder. “Room for one more?” She nods at Hector and Gus, as she reaches their table.

“Always.” Hector smiles and kisses her warmly on the cheek before offering her his seat and grabbing another for himself.

Gus doesn’t reply but at least he doesn’t get up and leave, which is probably progress. Sofie and Hector chat easily, and she understands more and more why Lindsey is so smitten with him. Ashton takes hold of her hand underneath the table, squeezing it every now and again to signal that he’s with her, reassuring her that everything is going to be alright.

“Well isn’t this cozy?” Luke’s voice pierces through the conversation, and it’s like a hush falls over the entire bar, not just our table.

Sofie stands up but Ashton is still holding her hand, and he clearly has no intention of letting her go, a fact not missed by her boss. “Hi Luke, I thought you were headed back to DC already.” Sofie tries to sound as bright as she can; but, she can’t help but feel like seeing him there is a signal that all is not as well as it should be.

“I’m taking the jet back tomorrow. I figured that Darwin could use a night out.” Luke nods towards the bar where Darwin is ordering a drink and looking like he wishes he were anywhere but here.

“Great, well, I guess I’ll see you back at the office.” Sofie wonders if she sounds as manic to him as she does in her own head.

The expression on Luke’s face darkens. Sofie wants to smack herself, she should’ve known that he wouldn’t appreciate being fobbed off, especially not in front of an audience.

“Let me buy you a drink.” It sounds more like a threat than an invitation.

“She’s good. We’ve got her covered here.” Ashton pipes up from the seat next to me, not even looking at Luke.

Sofie knows that Ashton weighing in would be like a red rag to a bull for Luke. She manages to disengage her hand. “You don’t need to speak for me. I can handle myself.” She says the words under her breath, but clearly Gus and Hector have heard her as they exchange a look that seems to signal that they expect trouble. “Thanks Luke, that’d be nice.” She ignores the growl that comes out of Ashton as she steps away from him. Luke is the last person that she wants to spend any time with, but until she can figure out a way to disappear from his radar, she needs to at least be civil.

Luke smiles broadly, but he’s looking behind her, at Ashton. She feels like a toy that two different little boys want to play with, being pulled in opposite directions. But, it was always the toy that ended up being broken. She pushes the thought out of her head.

Sofie knows that she’s playing a dangerous game, keeping Luke on side without actually giving him what he wants. She reassures herself that she just needs to keep playing it for a little longer, until she figures out her long term game plan. She would have to go back to DC, that’s where her job and her life—such as it is—are. It occurs to her that she and Ashton haven’t talked at all about the future. They’ve been living moment-to-moment and that has meant jumping from one drama to another. Now that they have a chance to catch their breath, she’s almost on her way home.

“Is having a drink with me really that bad?” Luke looks at her with puppy dog eyes as he leans against the bar. There’s no mistaking the alcohol on his breath, you could smell it a mile away. Luke has started the party early it seems.

“No, sorry, I was miles away.” Sofie waves vaguely off in the distance. She looks past Luke and smiles. “Hi Darwin. Glad you made it.” Darwin gives her a look that tells her he’s not so sure he feels the same way.

“What’ll it be, darlin’?” Lindsey appears in front of them, looking curiously between Sofie and Luke.

“Champagne!” Luke barely registers Lindsey, instead staring openly at Sofie.

“No champagne, but we got pretty much everything else you can think of.” Lindsey signals behind her at all the liquor bottles lined up on the shelves like toy soldiers. She keeps looking at Luke. When he finally looks back at her, Lindsey’s eyes widen and she steps back, as if she’s seen something that she’s afraid of. And from what Sofie’s seen so far, Lindsey isn’t someone that scares easily.

“Of course there’s no champagne, not in a place like this.” Luke casts his eyes around at the bar distastefully. “Just get me whatever comes in a clean glass.” His sarcasm actually makes Sofie’s teeth hurt.

Lindsey doesn’t say anything; she doesn’t need to—her expression says it all. Sofie looks at her apologetically before she heads over to the other side of the bar.

“So, Sofie,” Luke turns to her and puts his hand on her shoulder, pressing it gently, “have you thought any more about the conversation we had in the limo?”

Sofie takes a deep breath, hoping that he hasn’t noticed the way that her hands started to shake as soon as he touched her. “With everything that’s been going on, the survey and the whole wolf thing, I guess I’ve been a little preoccupied.” Sofie turns towards the bar so that he’s forced to drop his hand from her arm.

“Preoccupied? Does that redneck hick over there have something to do with you being so...distracted?” Luke takes a step closer to her, and she doesn’t have any more room behind her. He has her between him and the wall. She looks past Luke towards Darwin, but it’s as if he’s completely oblivious to what’s going on around him. Luke brings his hand up to her cheek, caressing her lightly and making her skin crawl in the process. “If I didn’t know better, my Sofie, I might think that you were avoiding me.” There’s no mistaking his tone; he’s angry and not a little drunk.

Lindsey appears, sliding a glass over to Luke and walking away. “What the hell is this?” He points at the drink that she’s just presented to him.

“Water, sorry it was the only clean glass we had. Figured you’d had enough anyway.” Lindsey throws the comment over her shoulder, as she winks at Darwin who suddenly seems to be waking up. “You alright there, Sofe?” She looks over at her friend.

“Sure, fine, thanks.” Sofie hopes that she sounds more reassuring than she feels.

“So, Sofie...why don’t you tell me why I might be feeling like you’re trying to steer clear of me?” Luke keeps his back to Darwin, blocking his view and takes a hold of her wrist, pulling her towards him, tightening his grip.

Sofie had thought that he would never dare to do anything in front of so many people. She guesses that was something else that she’d misjudged. “Luke, you’re holding on a little tight there.” She nods towards the grip he has on her arm, but he doesn’t let go, if anything, he squeezes her a little tighter. “Luke, you’re hurting me. Let go of me!” She tries to twist away from him, but his hold on her isn’t getting any looser. If anything, he seems to be enjoying the fact that he’s harming her.

“I believe she asked you to let go of her.” Ashton’s voice is unmistakable, and Sofie doesn’t think that she’s ever been so happy to hear anyone’s voice ever.