43. Devin

43

DEVIN

J ace and I head to campus together, tension riding between us like a third passenger. The campus feels different these days, more charged, and more dangerous. The closer we get to the Sterling Sentinel office, the tighter the knot in my gut twists. I know we're taking a gamble, showing up, and asking questions, but we don't have a choice. If Tessa's right about Ryan—or wrong, and it's someone else—we need to find out who's behind all this.

When we reach the door to the newspaper office, Jace pauses and glances at me. "You ready for this?"

I nod, steeling myself. "Let's do it."

Inside, the room is cluttered with desks, papers, and the kind of organized chaos you'd expect from a college newsroom. A few of the staff glance up as we walk in, but their attention quickly returns to their work. At the far end, a group of three are huddled around a computer, speaking in low tones. I catch sight of Ryan's desk, but he's nowhere in sight.

Jace steps forward first, clearing his throat. "Excuse me. We need to talk to someone about what's been going on around here."

A tall guy with glasses stands up from behind a desk, giving us a suspicious look. "What do you mean? Who are you?"

I step in. "Devin Cash. This is Jace Whitmore. We're from Sigma Theta."

As soon as I mention the fraternity, their eyes narrow, clearly not happy to see us. I don't blame them—our reputation isn't exactly great after everything that went down with the scandal.

"We're not here to cause trouble," I add quickly. "But we need your help."

One of the women at the far desk crosses her arms, leaning back in her chair. "Help? With what? Last I checked, Sigma Theta wasn't exactly on speaking terms with the Sentinel ."

Jace flashes them a tight smile, leaning in a bit. "Look, we know we're not your favorite organization right now, but this is about something bigger. As you guys know, someone stole one of your reporter's laptops and they leaked sensitive information. We believe the person responsible might have ties to our fraternity."

That catches their attention, but the hostility doesn't fade. The guy in glasses raises an eyebrow. "And why should we help you? You've got no business here. If anything, you're part of the problem."

"We're trying to fix it," I say, stepping up next to Jace. "This is an internal investigation. We have the authority to look into anyone with potential ties to Sigma Theta. If someone from the frat is involved, we need to know."

For a moment, they exchange uncertain glances. I can tell they don't fully trust us—why would they? But I'm betting they care about the truth as much as we do, and that's the card I'm playing.

Finally, the tall guy speaks up. "Alright, but don't expect us to roll over for you. We're protective of our own, and Tessa's one of us. If this is just some ploy to throw blame, you'll regret it."

"Fair enough," I say. "We just want answers."

The tension eases a little after they reluctantly agree to let us take a look at whatever we need. A tall girl with short, choppy hair shows us to the office server. Jace and I follow, exchanging a glance—this is the first break we've gotten in days, and we can't screw it up.

"We keep a digital log of all access badges that scan into the office," she explains as we reach the server room. "It should show you who came in and out but don't expect to find much. Campus security already took a look and found nothing suspicious."

"Appreciate it," Jace says, giving her a nod and a charming smile.

Once she leaves, Jace pulls up the access logs. It only takes a few minutes of scrolling through data before we find it—the entry for the night of the laptop theft.

"Tessa's badge," Jace murmurs, pointing at the screen. "Logged at 9:42 p.m."

I frown, leaning closer. "That's the same night she was with us, though. No way she was here."

Jace nods slowly, his expression hardening. "Exactly. So either someone stole her badge, or someone's trying to frame her."

A knot tightens in my gut. This is bigger than we thought. I run a hand through my hair and glance over my shoulder to make sure no one's watching us too closely. "You think it's Ryan?"

Jace's jaw tenses, and he gives a slight nod. "I'm gonna check the security footage, see if I can get eyes on him. You keep them busy."

"On it." I crack a grin, ready to use my powers of distraction.

Jace slips out of the server room, and I turn back to the office staff, catching their eyes. "Hey, you guys want to see a little magic?" I ask, pulling out the deck of cards I keep in my pocket with a flourish.

A couple of them raise their eyebrows, but curiosity starts to flicker across their faces. "Uh…magic?"

I spread the cards in a fan. "Indeed, my good sirs! Pick a card, any card. Promise, I won't peek." I shoot them my most disarming grin. It works—one of the guys steps up, plucks a card, and shows it to his coworkers.

For the next few minutes, I run through my best tricks, keeping them entertained with disappearing coins, sleight-of-hand card moves, and the ol' floating pencil bit. A few of them start to laugh and relax, which is exactly what I want. As long as I'm the center of attention, Jace has all the time he needs to work his magic behind the scenes.

Minutes tick by, and I keep the tricks coming. One guy looks genuinely amazed when I "guess" the card he picked. "How the hell did you do that?" he asks, his eyes wide.

I wink. "A magician never reveals his secrets."

Meanwhile, my mind's still racing. We're on the verge of something big, and if Jace finds what we're looking for, this could blow the whole thing wide open.

Finally, I spot Jace slipping back into the room, his expression grim. He gives me a subtle nod, and I know he's got something.

"Alright, folks, show's over!" I announce, tucking the cards back in my pocket and giving a mock bow. "Thanks for playing along."

As we walk out of the office and down the hall, I turn to Jace. "What did you find?"

Jace glances around to make sure we're alone before answering, his voice low. "I checked the footage from that night. You're not gonna believe this—I spotted someone on camera entering the building after hours. Right around the time Tessa's badge was scanned. I checked his Facebook and their face matched Ryan's profile picture."

I feel my blood run cold. "That son of a?—"

"Don't worry," Jace cuts in, his voice tight with anger. "We've got him. It's him, Dev. Ryan's behind this. He had Tessa's badge, and he's the one who accessed the office."

A surge of anger floods through me, but there's also a sickening realization. Ryan played everyone.

I clench my fists, my body buzzing with adrenaline. "Why didn't anyone bother to connect the dots? It seems so obvious now!"

"I don't know, but when we get to the bottom of all this, we're going to rain hell on the university administration for how they handled this situation," Jace says, his eyes flashing with fury. "They only took care of the Sigma issue after Tessa's podcast came out and it put pressure on them to act."

As we head back, we discuss what our next steps are going to be. "I say we confront him," Jace says as I drive, cold rage in his voice.

I grip the steering wheel tightly with both hands, my knuckles white under the strain. "I knew you'd want to do that but we have to be careful about this. Ryan has no idea that we know he used Tessa's badge to steal her laptop that night. Nor does he know that Julian sold him out.

"We can't just go confront him," I remind Jace. "We have to be careful. We need to tell Alec about this, and we can decide together what to do."

Jace sighs, settling back against the leather seat. "I guess. It feels counterproductive to just wait around though. We don't know if Julian has spoken to Ryan to warn him though. Time might not be on our side here."

I keep my eyes on the road but my mind is racing. "We also don't know if he was working on his own behalf."

"That's why we need to confront him," Jace argues. "We'll get in front of this and make him tell us what's going on."

"And if he denies it? Or worse, if he's not the only one involved? Remember what Julian said—there's more to this than we know. If we go in half-assed about this we could be putting Tessa, and our babies' lives in danger."

I glance at Jace, watching as a muscle in his jaw ticks as he tries to calm himself down. "I want to kill that bastard for what he did to her."

"I do too," I remind him. "But until we get all the facts, we have to wait on killing him for now."

We pull up to the house and I park before we head inside. The two of us walk into the living room but Alec and Tessa aren't there.

"Maybe they went to lie down," I suggest and we walk toward the back of the house, floorboards creaking under our feet.

The bedroom door is half-open and I hear the low murmur of voices in the bedroom. When we walk inside, Tessa's pants are down by her ankles and Alec is inside her, the two of them looking like they just finished a round of steamy sex.

"Oh, that looks fun," I say, tugging off my shirt, the whole Ryan situation forgotten for the moment.

Jace smirks. "I think we need our turn too," he adds.