Chapter 83

“Alright,” Adeline sighed in defeat. She practically threw herself down onto one of the couches and let out a long sigh. “We’ve literally checked everywhere—and still no disk.”

I allowed myself to collapse into one of the chairs across from her. My head fell back while trying to reevaluate the situation.

She and I had pretty much checked every room, as discreetly as possible, for that damn disk Lorenzo was keeping from me. We checked the bedrooms, the study, the library, both of the drawing rooms and the back courtyard.

Nothing.

I felt defeated. Embarrassed. And insanely crazy.

It should have been enough for me to accept that perhaps Lorenzo was telling me the truth and Cruz had been trying to fill my head with nonsense the entire time. But it wasn’t. There was still that irritable feeling that was pulling me to keep on looking.

I knew I should’ve let it go, but there was an ongoing feeling in the back of my mind that I was right.

“If there was truly nothing going on, that still doesn’t explain why Lorenzo kept pushing me away,” I concluded.

‘Well, there is one place we still haven’t checked,’ my wolf prompted.

Lorenzo’s private office...

“There’s no way I could possibly go in there,” I told myself. “At least, not with Adeline still here.”

It wasn't as though that place was ever locked up. I just never felt right about walking in and snooping around Lorenzo’s private work office. It was a line I wasn’t willing to cross so easily.

And there was certainly no way that I was going to let Adeline walk through that room.

Luckily, she turned her head to glance down at her phone. She checked the time and sat up.

“Oh, geez,” she muttered. “I gotta start heading out if I’m going to make my shift tonight.”

As much as I hated to see her go, I was partially grateful for not having to come up with an excuse for needing to check Lorenzo’s office on my own.

“Thanks for coming over to at least spend the day,” I told her.

Adeline pulled me into a tight hug. “Hey, don’t worry too much about the disk,” she said. “But make sure that you and Lorenzo find the time to sit down and really talk to each other.”

I nodded my head and offered a small smile. I’ll admit, my lack of communication with Lorenzo had come off as a bit immature at times. However, it wasn’t as though he was putting too much of an effort to make things better either.

I found myself in a no-win situation. And it was my wolf that was suffering the most through all of it. Aside from the lack of emotional connection, I’d been enduring, the physical aspect of our relationship had but dissolved.

I could feel the ache in my chest grow every time I ignored him or pushed him away. My wolf craved to be around him and was constantly upset, making me feel even weaker.

Once Adeline was gone, I sheepishly made my way toward Lorenzo’s office. I kept my gaze sharp and alert, making sure that no one else was watching me slide through the door.

I immediately moved to his desk, scanning the minimal contents that littered the top. Nothing but a few meaningless static reports and some random scribbles of numbers and notes. He’d obviously taken his laptop on his business trip and all the other drawers held nothing but file folders.

However, there was one drawer that happened to be locked. I found it odd yet completely suspicious. I quickly took one of the paper clips off of a random file and started to work at the lock on the drawer.

Click...Click!

I slowly pulled the drawer open and felt my heart drop into my stomach. Sitting there at the bottom was a dark-cased disk. With a shaky hand, I reached into the drawer to pick up and closed the drawer. My heart rate was growing frantic as I calmly left the office and went straight to study.

I locked the door behind me. My heart began pounding in my chest as I opened up the laptop and slid the disk into the side dock.

All the blood felt like it was rushing to my head. Suddenly, I began to hear what sounded like a group of men having a conversation.

Most of the voices came out muffled. But there was one in particular that I was able to recognize almost instantly. I let out a sharp gasp when I heard the distinctive voice of my father through the speakers.

“Dad?” I whispered.

I tried to listen as best as I could while trying to keep my erratic breathing under control. But it was no use. Each time I heard my father’s voice, it felt like a steel punch to the gut.

“You should have just minded your own business and left well enough alone, Mr. Wright.”

“...You know that was never a possible option...”

“You won’t get away with this.”

“Really? We’ve been getting away with it for well over a hundred years. And it’s not going to stop now.”

“Just you wait, Sterling...Once that dirty list of yours hits the media—Blue Moon will cease to exist.”

“Not if you're dead first.”

It was like the world had stopped spinning—time froze in place. A searing pain tore through me that nearly knocked me out of the chair.

Hot tears were streaming down my face uncontrollably, my throat was strained and on the verge of closing up. It became too difficult to breathe and I sobbed brokenly into my hands. My ears were filled with the awful sounds of my dad’s final breaths and dying gasps.

“AHHHH!! DAD!! NO!!” I cried out. “Oh, God...Why?”

My head was spinning. My thoughts were distorted and all I kept hearing were awful words and sounds from the other men in the audio. It was too much for me to have noticed the sudden banging on the other side of the door.

“Eleanor! Eleanor! ELEANOR!!” Lorenzo shouted out.