Omega

Chapter 10

Stephen's fridge was worse than what I'd anticipated. He had all sorts of pre-made meals and shakes that had been sitting there for a while. It made me wonder if he was planning to clear out his fridge the next day. It didn't matter anyway. The food was rotten and it made me gag as I dumped it into the bag.

With the kitchen clean, I began sorting through his things. Opening the bottom drawer of his nightstand was done with a pair of tongs. It and the contents were dumped in the trash.

"Ugh. You're so gross Stephen." I groaned.

It made me wary of his laptop.

"No sister should have to go through this crap."

Dumping the cords and the laptop into a box, I continued to search through his things. I looked at Stephen's clothes and decided that for the time being, I'd leave them here. Once the nightmare of Konrad and whatever else was going on was over, I'd offer them to the pack. They could take whatever they wanted.

As I flicked through the clothes, I reached the end and looked at the wall. There was a safe built into it. Above it was a small cork board with family photos. I smiled when I saw one of the two of us at the museum. Dad took us to an Egyptian exhibit. It was a fun day and it was probably one of only a handful of times when Stephen and I were treated as equals.

It was not the focus of this particular moment though. Getting into this ancient safe was.

My face screwed up as I wondered what kind of nude nonsense would be in there.

"If I find a video of you and whatever flavour of the month you've taped, Stephen, I swear to God I will,"

I paused and sighed.

"Yeah. Kicking your butt is no longer an option."

Pushing the clothes to the far end, I looked at the safe. It was an older thing with a turn lock rather than a keypad. Researching the brand and model on my phone, I soon found out that it was a four digit code.

"But what is that code?" I murmured. "You wouldn't pick numbers. It's not your style. You'd do something stupid like boobs. That's five though. I could check the internet for rude four letter words but I'm sure I'd be inundated and I'd be standing in your cupboard all night."

I tried a few with no luck so I pulled back the shirts and decided to think about it for longer. There were a lot more things that needed to be done tonight before I went to bed.

Returning to the living room upstairs, I wanted to sit down but knew there were more pressing issues. The first being the folder that was still sitting on the dining table.

Konrad suggested that I think about it overnight and offered to hold back on the issues between our clans. It would only be temporary because he had expectations placed on him by his own clan but Konrad knew that I needed time to figure things out for myself.

He also told me that they had someone out the front watching the house and if there was an issue, the person would call me. It bugged me that there was another Black Ridge pack member with my phone number because Konrad knew it and that was bad enough. But I appreciated the sentiment behind the gesture.

Of course, the pessimistic side of my mind pointed out that they might not be there for protection but to make sure that I wasn't doing something like throwing an urgent meeting with the elders.

As for Konrad leaving, I was grateful and as a bonus, I now knew that I could be in a room alone with him and not have it turn into something that was x-rated. It would be nice, there was no doubt about that but we had to be realistic and I had to find the truth.

Picking up the folder, I dumped it into the box with Stephen's laptop and walked into my father's office.

While I waited for my father's old computer to start, I turned on Stephen's laptop. It was easy to get past the login page. The idiot had taped it to the plastic frame under the screen.

"And yet you have a safe," I muttered.

It made me realise that whatever was in there was something he didn't want out in the open. I was definitely getting the sex tape vibe and I was not looking forward to cracking the code.

The wallpaper for Stephen's laptop was interesting. My eyebrows raised as I stared at the image of my brother with his arm around my best friend's neck. Shelly was all smiles as Stephen kissed the top of her head.

For Shelly to make it to the wallpaper like this, she clearly meant something to Stephen. It made me angry that neither of them had said anything. Did they worry what my reaction would be? If they did, why didn't they realise that I would be happy that my best friend was with my brother? If they mated, she'd be a part of our family.

But it was a secret. Shelly was sad that Stephen was gone but if they were together then I would have expected more from her. I wondered if she kept her emotions restrained at the funeral to hide the truth.

When my father's computer was loaded, I opened up the calculator app and punched in the code for the hidden door. Did I have a lot of distrust? Absolutely. I was just like my father who had installed two separate security systems in this place. One obvious and one hidden.

The door clicked and I got up to the bookcase. Konrad might have disarmed the security system but he could never disable the cameras.

I turned all of them back and watched as Konrad broke into the house with the help of the man who returned to the car across the road. Konrad walked in as if he owned the place, looked around and made a beeline to this office. It was not surprising to see him turn on the computer, rummage around the drawers and the books on the shelves.

When he was done and the computer had finished loading, he returned to the chair and began searching through everything. He deleted some things and then emptied the recycle bin.

"Such a shame that dad backed up his computer every night." I said with a pout.

And because my father was old school, he did it the old fashioned way.

Taking the external drive, I plugged it into the computer and tried to figure out what Konrad had deleted. It didn't take me long to find the folder called snakes in the grass.