Page 85 of Protecting his Secrets

“Malachi, any luck on your sources,” Brett said suddenly.

Malachi nodded. “I’ll email you a list of those that have come to me or that I’ve found in the last few months. There’s actually not as many recently.”

“Were you using Tarrant Milton as a source?” Brett asked, while studying the screen.

“Yes. He’d happily email me his theories about who should be the rightful king and whatever. It was fantastical at times, but it made for good stories.” He winced. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. We’ve known for long enough that you weren’t writing for yourself.”

Nick blinked. “Just how long did you know?”

Brett managed a small smile. “Long enough to realise you were blinded by your attraction.” He shook his head. “Almost a year.”

Malachi gasped. “That long?”

“You weren’t doing anything harmful that others weren’t doing, so it didn’t matter. And you were counteracting your words on the other side. It made no difference to us. We would’ve made it our business had something come of it, but we weren’t concerned.”

“I can’t believe that.” Malachi covered his mouth. “I thought I’d managed to keep them separate.”

“You did. It was only Felix who managed to link them, so thank him.”

Felix flushed. “I was trying to figure out why Nick was so obsessed with you, and the string I followed went a lot deeper than I expected.” He shrugged.

“Well, you’re not the only one who knows now,” Dominic said, pointing at the laptop he was using. He spun it around.

REPORTER REVEALED AS A SHEEP!

It has recently come to our attention that a reporter at this very paper has been a sheep in wolf’s clothing. While we believed Malachi Sanders to be on our side of the story when it came to the unnecessary role of the royal family, it turns out he is one of them.

Malachi, also known as Kai Ruffers, has been sabotaging our paper for far too long, and it’s time to bring that shadiness to light.

Now everyone knows not to believe a word he says, we can get back to telling the truth about how things should be, and what the royal family is doing to ruin and corrupt our country.

By Adelaide Thompson, Windsor Chronicle.

“Well, I suppose it could’ve been worse,” Malachi said, rubbing his face. “I shouldn’t be surprised they took her on.”

Nick took his hand. “You’ll have people flocking to your other name now.”

“Maybe not for the right reasons, though.”

“They’ll soon tire of it.”

His words were pointless because he knew, as well as Malachi did, that people could be tenacious. But he wanted to get that look off Malachi’s face.

“Felix, can you work on getting a program to work through the parameters we’re looking at for our guy? Use all the info we’ve been through today, especially Nick’s break down and cross reference it with Malachi’s list. I’m not sure what use it will be, but give it a try.”

“Yes, boss.” Felix headed to his desk, where several monitors were set up, and started tapping away at the keyboard, already entrenched in his cyber world.

“Brett, did we ever get any more information about Tarrant and how or why he died?” Malachi asked.

“He was poisoned. His water had been tampered with. He went back to the cell after the interrogation, and they found him a couple of hours later.” He shook his head. “As for why, there’s only speculation that it was because he held information about whoever is behind this. Especially as he was the one to attack you here. He had to know more than he was telling.”

“As much as I didn’t agree with the guy, I still feel bad he died,” Malachi said. “Sometimes, I don’t think enough people stand up for what they believe in, but it is a double-edged sword.”

“The program is still running, but I have a couple of people who’ve already popped up,” Felix said. “Robert Duncan and,” he stared at Darius, “Ian Jacobs.”

Darius nodded, firming his lips. “Yeah, that’s him. How did I fall for it?”

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