15. Daxton

Chapter 15

Daxton

The smart thing to do would be to go to work, keep my head down, work on those stupid new projects, and then go home to my mate. Rinse and repeat.

Not draw any attention to myself.

Not dig any deeper into the possible connection between AIDEN and my mate's former job.

That would have been the smart thing to do.

But it wasn't my plan.

I talked to Willy about everything that happened with Oscar's job, and he agreed that there were just too many coincidences. He promised to keep an eye out, and I knew he would. But I made him promise not to do anything that would draw attention to himself. He had a family to worry about. He didn't need to get sucked into this, and I understood all the reasons why he wanted to help, but it was better this way.

At first, I was super cautious. I did everything by the book. I made sure I clocked in exactly on time, clocked out exactly on time, and got far more done than I needed to on each project every day. I followed every rule, dotted every "I" and crossed every "T." The list went on and on.

I was meticulous, almost paranoid, ensuring that no one could accuse me of stepping out of line. But as time passed, I realized that if they wanted to come after me, they'd already have done it. They might not know everything I was capable of, but the chances that they'd figure it out were pretty darn high.

And if they did, my time would be over anyway.

The anxiety gnawed at me, a constant companion during my daily work routine. Every time I walked into the lab, I felt like I was walking on a tightrope. The pressure was suffocating, but I knew I had to keep up appearances. I couldn't afford to slip.

The reality was that no matter how careful I was, no matter how much I tried to blend in, I was already involved so deeply that I'd never be able to separate myself from this, so why should I try?

I went home one day to check if my mate was still there, but he'd already gone grocery shopping. The house was quiet, almost too quiet, and the silence was oppressive. I felt like I was losing my grip, like the walls were closing in on me. It was all too much—Oscar's job being lost, the looming threats that this might all be connected and I could easily become AIDEN's new patient—it was unmanageable. I couldn't keep living like this, always looking over my shoulder, waiting for the other shoe to drop. It wasn't fair to me, but more importantly than that, it wasn't fair to my mate.

"Fuck it." I took a deep breath and pulled myself together. "If I'm going down, I'm going down swinging." I never understood that phrase, but down swinging it was.

With a newfound resolve, I made a plan for when I got back to my computer. By the time Oscar came home, all I wanted to do was shift and hang with him. Tomorrow could wait. At least I had a plan for then, unlike today, it turned out.

The smart thing to do would have been to let it go, to not poke the bear, but I was done playing it safe. The next morning at work, I logged into the system, my fingers trembling slightly as I typed in my credentials. And by my credentials, I meant the ones I stole from a coworker when they accidentally left their keycard in the bathroom.

He would get it back when I was done.

I was stepping onto dangerous ground, but I couldn't stop myself. Curiosity and the need for answers were driving me, pushing me to dig deeper, to find out what was really going on.

The screen flickered to life, and I began searching, digging through files, cross-referencing names, dates, and projects. I was careful not to leave a trail, using every trick I could think of to cover my tracks. I wasn't being reckless—I was being methodical, deliberate. I needed to know what they were hiding, what they were planning. And most importantly, I needed to know how Oscar was connected to all this.

Hours passed, but I didn't stop. The more I uncovered, the more determined I became. It wasn't just about protecting myself anymore. It was about protecting my mate, my life, everything we had built together. There were too many coincidences, too many connections that couldn't be ignored.

The name Rigg kept popping up, linked to projects that didn't make sense, to funding streams that seemed to come out of nowhere. And then there were the files—classified, encrypted files that were buried deep within the system. Adrenaline surged through me as I worked, the thrill of discovery mingling with the ever-present fear of being caught.

I kept saying the name over and over again. It sounded oddly familiar. When I discovered a list with the name on it, I tried to print it out. If I was going to be this bold, I wanted something tangible to go with it. The list had been buried in the deepest recesses of the company's database, hidden behind layers of encryption. It took everything I had to crack it, so it had to be important.

But the printer wouldn't connect, and I got cold feet. When my alarm went off, I shut everything down. If I didn't leave now, they would come in to find out why, and I didn't need that.

First thing I needed to do was go home, tell my mate. After that, it would be time to head back to River's Edge.