44. Lucy

I pretendedto sign something on the clipboard and handed it to Erin. She led me down the hall to the patient rooms to wait for the doctor and I made a non-committal noise to whatever question she asked me as I strained my ears to hear what I really came here for.

"The doctor will be with you shortly," Erin informed me as she opened the door to one of the empty patient rooms. "Let's get your blood pressure, temperature, and weight in the meantime."

I adjusted the earbud in my ear and nodded, pulling my arm out of my grey coat so she could wrap the cuff around it.

The sound of the machine squeezing the absolute shit out of my arm made it hard to hear anything else, but Erin sat down and logged into the computer at the little desk before rolling back over to me to stick the thermometer in my ear.

"120 over 80 and 97.6 degrees. Still on the low side it seems." She tossed out the little plastic cap and pulled off the cuff. "Could you take off your shoes before standing on the scale?"

I nodded again and slipped off my steel-toed boots to stand on the scale, still not hearing Melinda.

"She's downstairs getting her blood drawn," Erin whispered as she leaned down to see the number on the scale. "Her appointment is already over."

"I'm waiting just outside the building," Cas told me over the phone. His deep voice in my ear was soft enough it didn't make me jump. "Once I know what car she's driving, I'll get the license plate number and pull up the tracking device on it."

"175.3 pounds and you're still 5 foot 8, right?" Erin directed me back to the exam table. "You've lost a bit of weight since the last time you were here. How are your stress levels these days?"

"Fine? I dunno. They seem the same…" Maybe a little worse after everything that happened with Cas and Liam, but better now that I was bonded. I just didn't really want to get into that.

I wanted her to leave so I could get what I needed.

"Alright, we'll make sure to do some blood tests then. Anything you'd like me to note in your file for the doctor?"

"Yes, actually. I would like to start birth control."

Erin's eyebrows rose but she didn't say anything about that. She just typed my answer into the computer and then opened the mini fridge under the desk. "Is there anything else I can get you while you wait?"

She handed me a bottle of expensive water with a small sticky note stuck to.

You have ten minutes.

"No, thank you. This is more than enough."

Erin nodded and took the hundred dollar bill I handed her, along with the sticky note she'd given me. She tucked it into her pocket as she quietly left the room and closed the door behind her.

Leaving the computer with it still logged in to her account.

I hopped on the little chair and rolled over to the desk, sticking my flash drive into the USB port before pulling up the patient files for the day.

Thanks to the emphasis on comfort and privacy, I couldn't hear anything other than voices rising and falling, but I had Cas watching everything through the little enamel pin on my shirt as well as whatever else he could get his hands on.

"The doctor is still with the other patient," he informed me.

"And how would you know that?"

"The owner of the building that the Tree of Life Omega Center resides in hired Aegis Security not long after we secured our contract with Valor Enterprises," he explained. "Liam got them to consent to having cameras in the hall where the patient rooms are located as well as the waiting room so long as there isn't any sound being recorded."

"Why would he want that?" I clicked on Melinda's patient file and went through the notes for her appointment today.

"It's to make sure there's nothing weird going on with the doctors. We can protect them from external threats, but that doesn't protect them from anyone already on the inside."

Everything in Melinda's file seemed fine, but per these notes she was already five months along. Jesus. She wasn't showing yet either so she was still able to keep it hidden.

Why would she put her baby at risk to do that?

"Not all doctors can be trusted," I agreed. "But everyone who works here is either a zeta, or an omega."

I copied Melinda's patient file to my drive and went as deep as I could before planting a keylogger on the machine. It would send me every keystroke made over the next week and then destroy itself so I could set up a new program on Dr. Grover's account.

Then I'd have another permanent backdoor to add to my collection.

"Lucy, don't take this the wrong way, but I feel like you of all people saying that is kind of funny. Just because they're omegas, or even zetas, doesn't mean they can't be dangerous or predatory."

I grinned and went through all the tests the doctor ordered for Melinda.

Knowing Cas and Liam didn't see designations as black or white, but a spectrum, really reinforced how right I was to let them bond me. They were psychos, but they were my psychos.

All the information on Melinda was pretty basic since we had no previous appointments to look at, but they did do a sonogram today that showed the baby's sex.

The baby was developing exactly as one would hope, with a strong heartbeat.

"She's having a girl," I whispered, dropping the JPEG of the sonogram into my drive. "No genetic tests have been done yet though. She's getting her blood drawn so we'll have the usual ones, but nothing about paternity."

I didn't give a flying fuck who was the father of Melinda's child, but I did want the evidence for Liam. He needed it for his own sanity, not just the case.

Checking my watch, I chewed on my lip as the progress bar on the screen told me I still had sixty percent left before my program finished uploading and I only had five minutes before I needed to log off.

Fuck! Why did their computer have to be so goddamn slow?

I pulled up Melinda's family history to see she'd conveniently left out any information about the father. That or the doctor had agreed to keep any information she did give off the record. I bounced my leg up and down as I kept one eye on the progress bar.

"Can't you make that shit go any faster?" Cas muttered through the earbud.

"No, as a matter of fact, I can't." Closing out of all the patient files, I bounced my leg faster. "I don't know what the fuck kind of processor they have on this shit but it sucks."

Forty percent left…

"Lucy—"

"Shut up," I hissed. "Just shut up, okay? It's going to be fine. Stop stressing me out."

Thirty percent.

The sound of Dr. Grover leaving the patient room felt loud and I almost jumped right out of my skin. I popped up and made sure the chair was in exactly the same position as it was before, my hand hovering over the mouse where the record of my upload would go once it was done.

"Dr. Grover's at the front desk with the patient," Cas warned. "They're scheduling his appointment and then you're next."

Twenty percent left.

Almost there.

Erin sent me a text then, warning me I better be done when the doctor got there or we'd both be fucked.

No shit, Sherlock.

I eyed the distance between the desk and the exam table and decided to just leave the record. I wouldn't have time to delete anything so I'd just do it remotely. The only thing I could do was log out of her account with a key command so she didn't get in trouble and pull out the flash drive.

Seven percent, six…

Just a few more seconds and I would pull this off.

"I'm not late am I?"

I froze when I heard Cas's deep voice in my ear as well as down the hall.

"I'm sorry, who are you here to see?"

Shit.

The program finally fucking finished and I yanked out the flash drive, opening up the Command Prompt window to delete any traces of me plugging it in.

I could hear Cas speaking to the doctor, trying to explain to her I'd asked him to meet me here, but she was insisting she had to call security to drag him out if he didn't leave because only bonded alphas were allowed in here.

Obviously, he was already aware of that if they used his security company.

I had no idea what he thought he was doing, but I was grateful for the extra time.

Ripping the flash drive out of the computer, I logged out of Erin's account right as my phone rang.

It was the clinic.

I put Cas on hold and answered it as I jumped back on the exam table. "This is Lou."

"I'm sorry to disturb you Ms. Lopez, but there's an alpha here who insists he was supposed to meet you here for your appointment. We don't have any paperwork on file for the alpha Cassius Valentine or your bond certificate though. We can't just let him in."

"I understand. Should I come out there and let him know?"

"Only if you're comfortable, Ms. Lopez."

"I'll be right there." I hung up on the doctor and opened the door, peeking my head out to see Cas waiting at the end of the hall.

"Babe, I'm sorry I'm late, but finding parking was a bitch. I'm here now, but they won't let me back there."

I came down the hall and wrapped my arms around his neck, squeezing him tight. "I'm sorry, I forgot to do the paperwork. I'll make sure to do it next time."

The doctor cleared her throat but I didn't move. Not when every second he held me made it easier and easier to breathe. My heart rate started dropping down to normal and I took a deep breath before finally letting go.

"It won't take long. I'll meet you downstairs, okay?"

Cas kissed my forehead. "Call me when you're done. I'll come back up to get you."

I rubbed my chest as I watched him go.

He was definitely going to punish me for this later.