The Covenant (The Billionairess, #3)

Chapter 10: Man Behind The Curtain

I'm awoken the next morning by Rose's hand shaking my arm. I squint my eyes against the sun beaming through the window. When my eyes adjusted, I saw Rose, her silhouette illuminated by the light behind. I smiled. She looked like an angel.

Until she shoved her laptop on my face.

"Thomas," she said. "Look at this."

I grabbed my glasses off the end table and looked at the screen. Another anonymous message, though from a different addres than the hacker. The message was simple:

Garrett Lars. Find him, find your guy.

Below the message was an address. I looked up at Rose.

"What's this?" I asked.

"I'm not sure," she said. "I had Malone's team scan it, but they're having trouble tracking it."

"That guy...Garrett Lars...did he send it?"

"I'm not sure. If so, it's weird he would refer to himself in third-person. But he must be connected to the hacker somehow. We find him, we find our guy."

Rose stood up from the bed. I threw my legs over the side and stood up.

"So, what?" I said. "Are you really going to go find this guy?"

"Well, we have an address. I've heard of this neighborhood, it's nowhere too sketchy. And until Malone and her team can get us more info, which is not fast enough, we may as well."

I shrugged on a shirt.

"Are you sure it's safe?" I asked.

Rose gave me a luck and a smirk.

"Thomas, my darling, don't you remember the night we met? What I did to that mugger who tried to rob you?" She grabbed her purse off the desk and gave my cheek a pinch. "If anyone tries to hurt either of us, I will take good care of them."

~

Garrett Lars lived in a simple apartment complex. It was an innocent looking place, hiding something sinister. As Rose locked the car, I gazed up at the windows, looking for which room could be hiding our guy.

Rose took my hand as we went inside. She'd written the address on a slip of paper, ane followed it up to room 433. No welcome mat, no mailbox. Nothing to suggest a person even lived there. But then again, maybe that was the point. Someone like Garrett Lars may likely want to blend in, go unnoticed, not be found easily.

Rose knocked on the door. No respone. She knocked again. No response.

I always already nervous, and my feet started taking me back to the elevator.

"Well, maybe he's just home," I said. "Maybe if we--"

I heard a loud bang, and spun around. The door to the apartment creaked open. Rose lowered her foot back to the door. She managed to kick the door open. I never realized just how strong she was.

I'm not going to lie, it turned me on.

Rose wiped her brow and looked up at me.

"Let's get to it," she said. "This place creeps me out."

We both stepped inside. The place was simple: A living room with a TV, a kitchen, a hallway leading to a bedroom. And from that bedroom, Rose and I could hear hands clicking away at a keyboard.