letting him mete out his own punishment for his sister allowed him to see the more compromising side of The Circle, and thus lessened the chances of him betraying the Ankh in the future.
Eden guessed Cyrus was onto something with that but she would never fully trust the Scotsman.
He knew too much about her for someone who looked at her as if he wanted to kill her.
“Princeps,” the older Neith stopped before Cyrus with an air of authority. Eden sat up straighter as recognition dawned. Cyrus had introduced him when she’d first moved in. His name was Terrence Vincent and he was Cyrus’ Head of Security. “We have news.” When his eyes flickered towards her, Eden’s heart picked up a little. At their return to Weston, Cyrus had begun investigating a leak. There had to be a leak. Someone had told Teagan where to find her and the only people who knew where they’d gone, lived and worked under Cyrus’ roof.
Sliding from his stool with cold rigidity, Cyrus glared at Terrence. “Who?” was all he demanded.
Nodding back at the young man behind him, Terrence replied, “Jack here discovered our rat. We had two men go on vacation at the same time. Roger Pike and Dwight Carey. Jack had already questioned Carey when he discovered him in the Control Room alone when he wasn’t supposed to be so I let him investigate Jack while I investigated Pike and everyone else. Tell him what you found, Jack.”
Jack cleared his throat, stepping forward to speak with Cyrus. Eden was surprised when he began speaking. His eyes flitted back between her and her guardian, actually including her in the conversation, like she mattered. None of the Neith in Weston had done that so far. She studied him as he spoke, surprised by how confident he was for someone so young. He couldn’t possibly be any older than twenty one. “I went to Carey’s apartment and after tearing the place apart I found an address and meet time. The address was an old Warehouse in South Boston. We found Dwight’s body. He bled out from a knife wound to the heart but he’d also had his soul sucked out of him.”
“Teagan.” Cyrus nodded, his eyes hard.
His own eyes grim, Jack nodded back. “We assume so, Princeps. Leaving the body so carelessly would suggest-”
“That it was Teagan,” Eden interrupted, drawing the young Neith’s eyes back to her. “My cousin never really cared about consequences. And a knife in the heart… just his style.” The Neith held her eyes for a brief moment, their darkness from across the room filled with unfathomable expression that made Eden squirm a little. Finally he broke his gaze away to turn his attention back to Cyrus. “We’ve investigated everyone else, Princeps, but it appears Carey worked alone.”
“Thank you,” Cyrus replied. “You did a good job.” He turned to Terrence. “I need to know if any of my men are unhappy, have personal problems, etc. I don’t care how intrusive it is I need to know that our enemies cannot bribe my people using any personal difficulties as leverage. Understood.” Terrance gave a sharp jerk of his head. “Perfectly.”
As they left, Eden felt something inside her crumble a little. Great. Now all the Neith in Cyrus’
compound were going to hate her. As if having a boyfriend whose father hated her living under the same roof with her wasn’t bad enough.
***
Word had reached her that Noah was actually out of bed and the waiting around to see him was just making all the craziness she had gone through after the Teagan thing even worse. She needed to see him. She needed reassurance.
Feeling a little giddy and nervous at the prospect of meeting with him after everything, Eden decided not to take the elevator to the third floor where he and his family had rooms. Instead she took the long way around, her headphones jammed in her ear so she wouldn’t have to listen to the eerie silence of the monstrosity of the house. She skipped up the back servant stairs so she wouldn’t bump into Alain, singing along with Metric.
“Can you hear my heart beating like a hammer? Beeeeaatting like a hammeeer – whoa!” she stumbled at the top of the staircase, finding herself face to face with Jack. This close she could see his dark eyes were actually blue and the face he was struggling to keep expressionless was a nice one. A very nice one. He brushed a strand of silky