The Havoc We Wreak - Becca Steele Page 0,7
the bitch Christine, and I didn’t want to infect you with my darkness, so I stepped back.”
Our eyes met, his determined. “I’ve got you back now. And yeah, we can credit Winter with a lot of that, but you’re the one who started to open up and let people in again. I don’t think you give yourself enough credit.”
I shifted in my seat, and he must’ve sensed my awkwardness because he stood. “Anyway, that was all I wanted to say to you. Now come and give your brother a hug before you go back to being an asshole again.”
“Fuck you,” I muttered, but stood, a smile tugging at the corners of my lips. He pulled me into a brief hug before stepping back towards the door.
“Enough of that emotional shit. Let’s get this sorted, then we can move on with our lives. I’m gonna go and see if Mercury’s sent me the Andromeda stuff. And you need to get hold of Z.”
I sat back down, relieved as fuck to change the subject. “Yeah, can’t get hold of him. You know how he is, though; he’ll appear when he’s ready.”
As Weston re-entered the house, I called after him, the unplanned words flying from my mouth. “Proud of you, too, West. I’m lucky to have you as my brother.”
He turned around, a huge grin on his face. “Yeah, and you’d better not forget it, either.”
I returned his grin with one of my own, shaking my head.
Today had been a fucking weird day.
“Z!” Stalking down the hallway, I saw him enter the front door, pulling the motorbike helmet from his head. “Where the fuck have you been? I’ve been trying to contact you for hours.”
“Around. I’ll talk to you later.” He took in my expression. “What’s happened now?”
“Lena happened.”
“Lena?” He raised a brow.
“Yeah. We ran into her down at the docks.”
“What the fuck?”
“My thoughts, too. No fucking idea what’s going on. My head’s spinning, mate.”
“Come on. Let’s get this shit sorted. I can use my interrogation skills on Lena if necessary.” He gave me a disturbingly evil grin.
“Maybe save that for another time.” I shook my head at him, laughing, although I wasn’t completely sure if he was actually joking or not. Hard to tell with him, as always.
“I think Cassius and Winter are in the lounge. I’ll round up the others.”
I found Lena in the computer room with Weston, laptop open and headphones in, while he used his own laptop opposite her, rather than one of his giant monitors. Guess he didn’t want her to see anything he was doing on the screen. Trying to explain that he was essentially a hacker to anyone else, even Cassius’ sister, was a massive risk. We’d told Winter because…I wasn’t even sure why he’d told her, other than the fact she needed to know. And I think he’d trusted Winter from the beginning. She’d been completely open about what she’d been dealing with, investigating her dad, trusting us with that information, and in turn, he’d trusted her and knew she’d never rat him out to anyone. If only I could’ve been as trusting as him, maybe Winter and I wouldn’t have had so many fucking obstacles in our relationship.
Of course, all this meant Kinslee knew as well, since Winter hadn’t kept that shit from her, but Winter trusted her and that was good enough for me. Yeah, I had major problems with trust, but Winter’s instincts were spot on—normally at least.
“Zayde’s back,” I announced loudly, and both their heads shot up. They glanced across at each other and looked away immediately, Lena’s cheeks flushing. I narrowed my eyes, studying them both. I had my suspicions that West had a bit of a thing for Lena, but up until that point, I had no idea it was reciprocated. Not that it was surprising. Winter was the only woman that even remotely featured on my radar, so I rarely paid attention to anyone else.
“Gimme a minute, I’m just downloading the last of this file that you-know-who sent me,” West told me, signalling me with his eyes that he didn’t want to say anything in front of Lena.
“I’ll just save my work, then I’ll be there,” Lena spoke at the same time. I nodded at them both and left them to it, making my way back into the lounge where Winter and Cassius were deep in conversation, and Zayde was ignoring everyone, texting on his phone.
“You okay, mate?” I asked Zayde in a low voice, stopping by his