Page 99 of Monsters Wear Crowns
“You should be.” He said it so softly, so deadly, and yet his hand rose, brushing a lock of hair from my face with surprising gentleness. “You keep pushing,” he said, his voice rough. “And one day, you’re going to see what happens when I finally break.”
“Maybe I’m witnessing it right now,” I whispered.
His eyes searched mine, something raw flickering there. But before either of us could say another word, his phone rang. He didn’t answer it. Didn’t even look at it. He just stood there, his handstill lingering by my face.
It kept ringing.
“Rafe,” I whispered.
With a ragged breath, he pulled back, and the moment shattered. He turned away, yanking the phone from his pocket. “What?” he snapped.
I watched his back as his shoulders went rigid. And when he turned back to me, his face was ice.
“We need to move.”
“What happened?”
“He got to Sinclair Solutions.”
***
We reached Sinclair Solutions just before midnight. The building loomed ahead like a glass-and-steel fortress, but my stomach was twisted with dread. The lights were still on in the upper floors. Laura’s car was parked out front. Too many cars were.
Something was wrong.
“Don’t stray,” Rafe ordered as we approached the entrance.
“Don’t,” I snapped, my nerves fraying. “Don’thandleme right now.”
He didn’t respond, but his hand stayed at the small of my back, a steady pressure I wasn’t sure I wanted or needed. We stepped inside, and the tension hit me like a physical force. My security was on edge, and there were more men than there should’ve been. Rafe’s men. They weren’t subtle. They never were.
Laura was waiting by the elevators, her face set in a tight mask. Relief flashed across her features when she saw me, but it was quickly replaced by anger. “Took you long enough,” she said, her eyes flicking to Rafe. “He’s been busy.”
My pulse spiked. “What happened?”
“Follow me.”
We rode the elevator in silence. My mind spun throughworst-case scenarios. A data breach? An attack? Another client lost?
But when the doors opened to my office floor, I realized it was so much worse. The walls were covered in what looked to be, what Ihopedto be, red paint. Dripping letters sprawled across the glass partitions, spelling out a single word:
DEATH.
Laura’s voice was low. “They got in.”
My vision tunneled. “How?”
“We don’t know yet. But they didn’t take anything, not digitally, anyway. This was a message.”
I walked forward slowly, my heels echoing too loudly in the silence. The word blurred as I stared at it, my heart thudding against my ribs.
“Staff?” I asked, concerned for everyone who helped make Sinclair Solutions what it was.
“Our people are safe,” she assured. “I put the place on lockdown once Stella notified me of suspicious activity.”
“Stella?” Rafe raised a dark brow.
“Our AI assistant,” I answered swiftly. “She informs us of any and all activity on our servers and the building.” I chewed my lip, my mind spinning in circles.
