Page 167 of Knox

“My room.”

“Wait there.” I double-tap the ear comm and kiss Cillian’s lips. “Let’s go, little Prince.”

— ¤ —

“Yes, Knoxy. I promise it won’t leave the room,” Alexios swears from a loveseat surrounded by monitors, while eating a Caesar salad out of a serving bowl.

“I’m being serious, Alex. This is important to me.”

Alexios sets his fork down and places his hand over his heart. “You have my word.”

“Okay.” I step forward and hand him Cillian’s phone.

Alexios hits play, watches for three seconds, and his cheeks turn very red. “Wow, Knox. That’s… some powerful thrusting you’ve got there.”

Cillian blushes beside me, and man, he looks adorable.

“Focus,” I warn him.

“This is a very weird angle. Whoever filmed this had to be following you and most likely get on top of a chair or table to be able to see you,” Alexios points out. “Who taped you?”

“Cillian’s ex,” I answer, scanning our Greek hacker from head to toe. “You don’t seem surprised about any of this.”

“Of course I’m not surprised,” Alexios says, taking another mouthful of his salad. “I didn’t know you two had gotten this far, but after you asked about Cillian twelve times yesterday, I figured he was special to you.”

Cillian smiles teasingly, looking over at me. “You asked about me twelve times? Wow, Knox…”

“I have no idea what Alexios is talking about,” I lie, pointing back at the phone. “Can you fix this or not?”

“Please,” Alexios scoffs.

He connects Cillian’s phone to his main console with a cable and starts typing.

“Connecting to the network… locating the sender device… and done. I’m inside Aurelio’s phone.”

He hits a few more keys.

“Deleting the video file from his local storage, cloud backups, and sent items. Erasing all traces… Done.”

“Does this mean… the blackmail threat is gone?” Cillian asks.

“Yup. There’s no way that dipshit is ever recovering that video,” Alexios says, leaning back in his chair. “You’re clean.”

“Thank you, Alexios.” He smiles, and the ache and pressure in my chest are finally gone.

“Don’t mention it.” Alexios pauses, and his blue eyes light up. “Oh, hello there. He might not have anything on you now, but you have a lot on him.”

“What do you mean?” Cil asks, and Alexios shares Aurelio’s phone screen on the monitors.

A folder opens, and we see dozens of pictures of Aurelio naked in various positions with various men.

“Oh, my God!” Cillian gasps, pointing at the screen. “Those two men in that picture with him are married! And that guy over there is a US senator.”

“Pff! Wow, classy guy.” Alexios types something on his keyboard, and Cillian’s phone beeps. “I transferred the file to your phone, Cil.”

“What! No. What am I going to do with it?”

“Sweet, little Prince.” I hug him from behind and kiss his cheek. “Call it insurance so Aurelio can never touch you again.”