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His words hit hard, harder than I’d like to admit. I opened my mouth to rebuke him but I was interrupted by the chime of a computer system.
"We’ve got something," Lakewood declared, rushing over to the desktop where he and Pierce had been wrestling with the garbled data.
Beside me, Gavin cleared his throat, inserting himself into the conversation with his usual eagerness for conflict resolution. "Gents, we're in a tight spot here and fighting among ourselves isn't going to help."
I gave a terse nod and spun to face Lakewood again. The man was working meticulously, fingers flying over the keyboard as he tried to wrestle with the garbled data we had sourced from our impromptu heist.
"Atticus, I need you to see this," Lakewood called after a moment, beckoning me over. His face had lost all its earlier irritation, replaced by a look of grave concern.
I strode across my dark mahogany floor, the taste of my brother's words sour in my mouth. Micah was right. I had been too reckless when it came to Gwen. The thought of her in danger had blinded me to the consequences. Even though this time I hadn’t kept her in the dark. She still hadn’t called me back, which worried me. “What is it?” I asked as I reached Lakewood’s side.
He pointed at the screen. "This is what I could recover from the data," he said, his voice grim. A series of numbers and symbols were scrolling across the screen, interspersed with static and gibberish.
“What does it mean?”
“Nothing. It’s gibberish. We made a clone of the phone but something went wrong. And since the data capture was corrupted there’s nothing we can do. It’s a bust.”
I shook my head refusing to believe it.
"No, it can't be," I spoke through gritted teeth. The bitter taste of defeat was something I hadn't known for a long time. It wasn't one I liked. I didn’t lose. You only played if you played to win and we’d won today. There was no way I was accepting a loss.
"Look at the screen, Atticus," Lakewood stated, motioning towards the screen filled with incomprehensible data. "There's nothing there to salvage. We've hit a dead end."
"Then we'll just have to find another way," I stated decisively, refusing to give in. When it came to Gwen, giving up wasn't an option.
Looking around the room, my gaze settled on each face - Gavin with his wide-eyed worry, Pierce's grim determination, Micah's reluctant acceptance and Lakewood... who despite his outward display of annoyance, was just as invested as the rest of us.
“The problem is,” Lakewood continued. “We’ve tried once, another attempt could corrupt the data even more or worse wipe it. This is going to need Gwen to make adjustments. But now there’s a risk we won’t get anything.”
"We're not done here," I swore.
Micah sighed heavily, rubbing his temples as he often did when he was vexed. “Atticus, you can’t just keep charging ahead blindly. Like it or not, we’re going to need both Gwen and Morgan to pull this off. We failed.”
No. I had failed. Worse, I’d failed Gwen.
* * *
Gwen
I knew something was wrong the moment I stepped into my flat in the Faulkner Building. This had become our de facto home. And we made it feel cozy and just like ours. It was our little extension of the Winston Isles.
I found Atticus at the bar already with a drink in his hand and a glass of wine poured for me. I eyed his glass and cocked my head. "You tried a Vieux Carré?"
He frowned at the single ice cube and the amber liquid. "Yeah. I don't think I got it right though."
"Well, you should really leave these things to the experts,” I said with a wink. “ I saw your missed calls. We were out with the team building all day, but I hadn’t turned off my phone so it was dead until I got back to the office. You okay?”
He winced slightly and then placed his glass down, one hand on his hip while his fingers tapped along the glass.
"Atticus, what's wrong?" I could feel it. Something had happened, something he didn't want to tell me. Was it his mother? Worse, was it his father? Was it my father?
He sighed and lifted his gaze to mine. "Today at La Table Ronde we tried to get my father's phone and the data."
I furrowed my brows. "Wait, why? I thought we were doing it at the gala. When did things change?"
The tick in his jaw had my stomach knotting. "I found out today he’s investigating your whole family. Morgan especially. I didn't want you and Morgan involved, so we tried to do it without involving you."
My mouth went dry. "We? Who the hell is we?"
