The Girl Who Dared to Endure (The Girl Who Dared #6)

I nodded at Maddox, and we resumed our walk over. “CEO Monroe,” I said loudly, putting a note of disapproval in my voice. “Knight Commander Worthington. How is the investigation going?”

Quess took a quick step away from Sadie, and I was surprised to see a flush forming in his cheeks. I gave him an internal nod of respect for taking his role that far, and then returned my focus to Sadie.

She, however, was considerably less embarrassed, given the displeased curl of her lips. “You’re back,” she said haughtily. “I’m surprised you even bothered to show.”

I kept my face expressionless but was grateful to see that she hadn’t remembered the first time she arrived—when I’d been here to greet her. “My apologies,” I replied, keeping my voice as empty as possible to tell her I wasn’t sorry at all. “I was dealing with a potential undoc situation.” It wasn’t technically a lie, which was why I probably shouldn’t have said it, but it was worth it to watch her eyes narrow into slits.

“I see,” she said primly. “Well, Knight Commander Worthington and I are still conducting our analysis.” Her tone was dismissive, and she even went so far as to turn her back to me, but stopped mid-motion when Quess cleared his throat and gave her an apologetic look.

“CEO Monroe… we finished the analysis, remember? Is that headache still bothering you? Or was the medicine I gave you too strong? I’m so terribly sorry…” He held out the pad, his eyes brimming with uncertainty, and I almost gagged at Sadie’s positively feline response.

“It’s fine, Sam,” she said soothingly, but there was a greasy undercurrent that made me sick. Enough was enough.

“Sam?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “You’re on a first-name basis with the Knight Commander I put in charge of maintaining our servers and computers?”

“Internal server police,” Quess corrected softly, and I speared him with a look so fierce that for a second, I thought his recoil was real. It wasn’t, of course, but even if it had been, I would’ve gone for it anyway.

“Care to correct me again, Worthington?” I growled menacingly, and he quickly shook his head.

“No, ma’am.”

Sadie tsked and took the pad out of Quess’s hand. “What a way you have with your people,” she remarked, condescension thick in her voice. “Especially with such a talented Knight. I’m quite surprised that our department hasn’t poached you yet, Sam.”

I raised an eyebrow at her as Quess somehow managed another flush—I was going to ask him about that later—but this was dragging on far too long already. “I’m sorry, are you questioning my ability to run my own department?”

“Always,” Sadie replied with another feline smile. “Anyway, it seems that Knight Commander Worthington is correct. We have finished, and the medication he gave me to combat a headache was fairly strong. I apologize for drifting off on you like that, Sam.”

Quess widened his eyes and shook his head. “Oh, no, ma’am. It’s not your fault; it’s mine. If you’d like, I could escort you to the Medica, so we can make sure you are all right.”

I could’ve killed him with a single look. The last thing we needed was for her to go to the Medica and get checked out. One look at her blood would definitely reveal the sedative and could even reveal Spero. I wasn’t sure if they’d be able to figure out what it was, but it wasn’t even worth the risk.

Not to mention, we needed Quess to upload Jasper and Rose. They were waiting. They had been waiting too long already. I didn’t want them to wait a second longer, and if Quess left, it would mean that we couldn’t upload them until Leo arrived.

But Quess seemed to have a better read on Sadie than I thought. “No,” she said, finality in her voice. “I’m truly sorry, but I just don’t have the time. I’m already behind on my schedule, and I’m sure I’ll be fine. That nap seems to already have me feeling as good as new.”

Maddox growled as Sadie winked at Quess, and I tensed, wondering if Sadie would notice.

She didn’t, however, and bent over to pick up her bag, tucking her pad into it. “Champion,” she said curtly.

“Hold up,” I said before she could even take her first step. “What was the problem with my room?”

“It seems to have been a random glitch,” she announced. “I’m sure you won’t understand the details, but suffice it to say I have fixed it, and it shouldn’t happen again.”

I gave her a doubtful look. “Could this affect the other councilors’ quarters?”

She shook her head, her face annoyed. “It was a random error,” she repeated slowly, and I resisted the urge to smack her. “My report will be sent to you shortly.”

I gave her a bright and vacuous smile in response. “Thank you ever so much for your help,” I told her lightly. “And I hope that you can catch up on your schedule. Lieutenant Kerrin?”

Maddox nodded, echoing my empty, yet chipper, smile, and began leading Sadie away toward the elevator. I started walking toward where Maddox had set the hard drives before they were even on board, but as soon as the door shut between us, I was racing toward them.

“Call Leo!” I ordered Quess as I picked up the veritable tower of plastic boxes. “Get him and Alex down here.” I checked my watch and saw with great relief that we still had two minutes left.

But that didn’t mean we were out of the woods. We still had Baldy to deal with, fallout to worry about, and two AIs to break apart.





5





I was watching the status bar showing the upload status for Jasper and Rose when Alex and Leo entered, holding Baldy mostly aloft between them. His legs dragged across the floor, and the two men eventually put him down halfway between us and the terminal. I patted Quess’s shoulder as he continued to work on the download and then moved to meet them.

I gave Leo an encouraging smile as he passed but slowed to a stop in front of my brother, summoning up some courage. He was mad at me—had every right to be, really—and I owed him an apology. All he’d wanted was to be a part of the investigation I was conducting against the people who had killed our mother, and I had cut him out. It hadn’t been entirely intentional on my part, but that didn’t change the fact that I had hurt him.

“Alex, I am truly sorry about not including you in everything,” I said softly. “I promise that from here on out—”

“Never mind all that,” he said excitedly, a hand cutting through the air between us to emphasize the statement. “We finally have a legacy, Liana! We can find out what happened to our mom and what they are doing to Scipio!”

I glanced at Baldy over my brother’s shoulder and then looked back to him, taken aback by his sudden change of tune. Hours ago, he’d been ready to tear me a new one. Now he was practically sparkling at the idea of having answers within reach at last. The rapid shift in his behavior confused me, but maybe Leo had talked to him, or it had hit Alex that there was a way forward with all of this insanity.

Either way, I was all for it. I longed for answers, too—hell, it was the reason I had chosen not to kill Baldy in the first place—but that didn’t mean he was going to speak to us. If anything, he was probably going to keep quiet about what he knew and bide his time until he could make some sort of escape, or signal someone for help.

But we had another way, and I needed to let my brother know about it so he didn’t waste his time with Baldy. “Alex, we have better than that,” I said excitedly, touching his arm. “We stole all of Sadie’s files from her computer. I’m pretty sure that the answers we need are there. Let’s tie Baldy up, do some research, and see if we can’t figure out who, exactly, is to blame for our mom’s death.”

My brother frowned at me. “That’ll be hours,” he said, taking a slow step back. “We have this guy. We should question him now.”

I sighed. “Alex, he’s not going to tell us anything, but we might not need him to!”