Page 78 of Knot for Me
I open the door. “Hey,” I say to Cory.
“Hey. Here’s your new phone. I added the important numbers for you.”
Eyeing the device, I frown. “How did you know which numbers were important?”
“I used your text messages. I didn’t read them,” he says quickly. “Just got their names and went to your address book for their numbers.”
“Where’s my phone?” I ask, reaching out to take the new one. It’s an upgraded model with a soft, light-grey case. Simple and sleek.
“I’m keeping it in case someone tries to call or harass you again. No one besides us has your new number unless you give it to them. You’ll find our numbers in the address book too.”
“Okay. Thanks.” I pocket the device.
He rubs the back of his neck. “I, uh, I need to let the security company in here to replace the cameras.”
“Cameras?”
Grimacing, he nods and points to a spot on the ceiling. I turn and study the air vent. I don’t see a camera but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one.
“You guys have been spying on me?” Outrage flares through me. It seems today is an angry day.
“We only watched you once when you first arrived. I turned off the feed from this room after that.”
“How can I trust that?” I clench my hands and put them on my hips. I can’t believe they’ve been watching me. I thought I had a little bit of privacy, but they’ve been keeping tabs on me all along. That means they’ve seen me change. Bastards.
“Come on,” he says, turning and walking down the hall.
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
He sighs and shakes his head. “I’m going to show you how you can trust what I’ve said. Do you want reassurance or not?” He doesn’t stop walking, but when he turns to head down the stairs, his gaze pins me in place.
“Fine.” I huff and shut my door, stomping after him. “I will castrate all of you if you’ve been creeping on me.”
“Omega tempers,” he mutters. “We haven’t beencreepingon you.”
I press my lips together to keep from arguing with him. We get to the first floor and he leads me past the library and into an office filled with monitors. The feeds switch every few seconds to show a new angle of each room in the mansion. There are some guys moving around in the living room and library, installing whatever system Cory has upgraded to.
“Sit.” He bends over next to the chair and navigates to a control screen.
I take the seat and stare at the data. “I don’t understand this.”
“I know. I’m going to show you. This column here”—he traces his finger in front of the screen—“is how the rooms are identified. The bedrooms are all listed as BR1 through BR9. The second floor is BR1–4. The rest are on the third floor.” He points out the other identifiers.
“Okay.”
“This column here shows the feed run time. The feeds are off on all occupied bedrooms. You can tell because there’s no run time.”
“Well, of course it’s turned off now. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t on before today.”
He nods. “I thought you might think that. Here’s the historical reporting.” He clicks on the historical log tab in the program. “Same report but it shows you the last date of an active feed in the second column, when the feed was shut off, and active minutes of recording time. Let’s go to this month.”
I lean forward and scan the screen. B4 was active the day I arrived, and it was shut off the next day. The total recording time is fourteen hours.
“You can probably modify the programming,” I mumble, searching for another reason not to like these alphas.
“I wish I were smart enough. This is all proprietary coding, and I don’t have access to it. Even if I did, I’d have to learn the language.” He looks at me, mismatched eyes imploring me to believe him. “I’m not lying to you.”
The ridiculous thing is I do believe him. And I hate it. If they had violated my privacy, I could cling to that as a reason to hate them. Another reason to keep my distance. Cory’s proving that I can trust them.
