114

114

CELESTE

My phone rang as I stood in the pack house, my mind going to the plans I had made.

I had only been waiting for her, her input was the last and most useful.

The letter from Loras was prepared and ready to be delivered. The letter from Bradley was still not written, not yet.

I picked it up, her voice filling the phone.

“I've gotten it, ma'am, I've sent it along to be delivered to you. You should receive it in a few hours" she said, straight to the point and as I wanted it.

“Good job, continue with the plan," I said.

"Yes, ma'am,” she responded.

I ended the call after that.

The house had been empty for a while, and I hadn't seen Damon for a while, not after he had gone out the night before.

I wondered where he could have gone, but waved it away; I had more to deal with than his tantrums.

His beta, Xander, hadn't been around today, which was strange but expected.

I looked around, making sure that I was alone, before sneaking into Damon's office.

He had left it open, which meant he had been in a rush for sure. He wouldn't leave his office open normally.

I wanted to check his emails, messages even more. I wanted to find out what that secret that he owed somebody for was.

My curiosity hadn't been laid to rest since I had read those messages.

I shut the door behind me, quietly. I could only hope he wouldn't choose now to come back.

His laptop lay on the table, the monitor had been left open but switched off. Tapping the keys, they turned back on.

I went immediately to his emails, scrolling down further than I had the last time.

I remembered the sender, so I looked it up first, but only two messages came up for it. The first one I had read and one a few days after that.

“Until my orders come in, make no moves, I know you are in a rush, but this is much bigger than just getting a girl back," it read.

Nothing vital here, just everything underneath the surface, as usual.

I exited and scrolled further down. I wasn't sure what I would find, what would even be said. The likelihood that I would find this secret typed out in an email was low but there wasn't anything else I could do.

This was the only way, or the most sure of them anyway.

I scrolled further, and there were no strange emails from strange accounts, not even four months before this.

I almost gave up when I saw one, Unc123 was the sender. It must be important.

When I opened it, the email was short. “The code is 2134. Search in the link in this attached folder, keep everything hidden”

I looked at the date, six years ago. That was so far back and hardly any communication in between that time.

I could feel time running out, Damon would be back soon, or someone else. I needed to be out of here soon.

So quickly I forwarded the email myself, when I was settled I would read and satisfy my curiosity.

When I had finished, I made sure to delete any traces of my presence here before leaving everything as I had met.

I shut the door silently behind me, looking around to make sure I was alone before I headed to my room.

I was eager to read what I had found, what needed to be hidden so secretly.

I sat down on my chair opening my email to see that it had arrived from Damon.

I opened the link, the one he had given me a code for.

My browser showed me three files. One named Trash, the second named Details, and the last one was called Notes.

I decided to open the details first, which seemed to be the more important one.

“Let's see" I muttered to myself.

I tapped it, and nothing happened. I tapped it again, two times to make sure. It opened to a set of random numbers and letters joined together. It looked a lot like a malfunction.

“What the fuck" I exited and tried it again, it showed the same thing.

What was happening here? Why was it scrambled like this?

I decided to ask the expert's opinion. I forwarded the email to her, adding a caption “Urgent" it read.

I decided to call her, but she might not have been on her phone at the moment.

“Hello" her voice was deep with sleep.

“I need you to check your email. What does that mean?" I asked.

“What?" She muttered confused.

“Check," I said, ending the call.

I waited impatiently, pacing the room. I knew she would get to it immediately; I trusted her that much.

I didn't have to wait too long for her to respond with a text.

“It's encrypted, all three files. It'll take some time to hack into all of them" I read out loud.

I didn't know how long but I was becoming too impatient.

“I'm coming over" I sent back.

Maybe I wasn't just going over because of this but I wanted to.

I walked to the car, I would drive to my other pack house, get the parcel before I went to her hotel. I would stay there and do some work beside her.

It would ease my anxiety.

Soon I had reached the pack house, so I parked my car. Just as I had expected Loras wasn't in. I wasn't sure if Mom had been serious about him being more serious when it came to working after meeting Roseline, because to me it seemed exactly the opposite.

I shrugged it off, I would deal with Loras sometime soon. He would be far more serious by the time I was done with her.

I headed to Mom's room, and the parcel would have been delivered to her.

I knocked on the door to her room, waiting.

“Who is there?" She called out in question.

“It's my mom," I answered. Leave it to Mom to make sure she knew who was at her door.

The door opened soon, “Your parcel arrived" she said as I walked in.

I nodded, “I'm trying to speed it up, I'm tired of waiting," I said.

She handed the papers to me. “Good, before he gets it out. He's been more dedicated to his work but who knows when it'll slip out"

I agreed with her, I had the exact same thoughts. After all, I had gotten my intellect from her.

“I've got to go now,” I told her and turned to leave.

"Remind Damon, there'll be a meeting tomorrow,” she said.

I nodded, I hadn't forgotten, another financial list off. I wasn't going to be there, and I seriously doubted Damon would either; he had developed a carelessness. Not caring about consequences or anything of the sort.

I wondered if it was just his slack attitude or if he was too confident that everything would be going his way from now on. Either way, he would eventually regret it.

I drove off to the hotel, reaching there in fifteen minutes. The buzz of seeing Harper soon lit me up. I couldn't help but feel excited and I didn't know why.

I took a key from the receptionist just as I had done before, but this time Harper had informed them beforehand, so I didn't need to make any threats.

I was at the door of her room, and I knocked to alert her of my coming in.

There was no reply, but I walked in anyway; she knew I was coming.

I saw her laptop open on her table, it displayed a set of numbers and letters I couldn't understand like the file.

The door to the bathroom opened as I settled down in the chair next to her.

“That was fast," she said, moving to the chair next to me.

I shrugged, “not exactly"

She gave me a look over, taking in what I had worn. The dress that I might have chosen just for her.

“You look good," she said. I noticed the look over again, her iris darkening slightly at me.

A blush tinted my cheeks at her words and the look in her eyes. I looked away.

“Any progress?" I asked.

“Not yet, but I'm getting close. It really was heavily encrypted, must be some national-level secret. In her words, she was serious, but her tone communicated it as a joke.

I let out a small laugh, maybe unnecessarily loud but I couldn't help the way she made me feel.

"While you're on that, I'll do some work,” I told her, turning to the parcel that had been sent.

She turned back to her laptop and began to decrypt, answering me with a hum.

The letter she had sent had been handwritten by Bradley himself, just as I needed.

I had several skills and copying handwriting was one of mine. Just like I had copied Loras', I would copy his.

Then I would send two letters to each of them, addressed from each other. Roseline would find her place in it and so would the war begin officially.

My pack wouldn't be too involved, I would only find a way to push Damon along with the help of Loras. If he acted just as I needed and used this trump card of his
If one of the three packs were left decimated, it wouldn't be any of mine.

The takeover would be easy from there.

The plan was simple and the plan would happen.