Chapter 14

FOURTEEN

"All right!I think we are finally getting somewhere!" Julius shoved back from his desk and spun in his chair.

"What did you find?" I asked, rolling over so I could look at his screens.

"I've got a partial file path. It was hidden in one of the files TheUpsideDown sent."

"Let me see." I nudged Julius out of the way, and he stood and stretched. "You want anything to eat or drink? I'm going to head up to the kitchen."

"What time is it?" I asked, not taking my eyes off the document in front of me.

"Oh shit. It's almost four."

And Nero still wasn't back yet. When I'd rolled out of bed at just after eleven, he was gone, so I'd headed downstairs to find Julius, who had been behind his computer. He claimed to have napped too, but with the way he was chugging energy drinks, I'd guessed that was a lie. The glass-fronted minifridge in his office that had been full of red and blue cans last night was now completely empty.

My stomach rumbled. "Bring me whatever you're having. Except skip the caffeine."

Julius rolled his bloodshot eyes. "You are no fun. What kind of hacker are you if your blood isn't ninety-nine percent energy drink?"

"One who's not going to die of a heart attack."

"What's life without a little risk?" Julius tossed the statement over his shoulder as he stepped out of the room.

"Here, here." Cal pumped a fist as he waltzed into the room and flopped down on the couch. "How are things going down here?"

He'd been down to check in a few times, but he had the annoying habit of talking while we were trying to work, so Julius kept chasing him out. Apparently, he was now going to make himself at home.

"I think we finally have something to go on."

"Really?" Cal's head popped up over the back of the sofa. "Excellent. It's almost my turn."

"Your turn for what?"

He flopped back down, the leather creaking as he changed position. "Fieldwork. This part has been all your thing, all the hacking and digging and research and whatnot. Once you get a lead we can follow, Nero and I can go and take the guy down."

"Uh, hate to burst your bubble, but I meant I had a lead on the file we are trying to track down, not on the person who's after me."

"Damn it." Cal huffed out a frustrated sigh. "Is there anything I can do? I'm going stir-crazy here."

I shrugged, but he didn't see it. "I promise I'll let you know the second you're needed."

"Good enough, I guess."

My focus returned to the file path Julius had decrypted. Something about it felt familiar and for more reasons than that it was an FBI server. Grabbing the laptop Julius had set up for me, I started following the path. By the time I got past the FBI-encrypted firewall, I knew why it felt familiar. I had hacked this server for fun right after I graduated from college. I remembered it well. I'd been new to the dark web, taking jobs that paid pretty well to hack the unhackable. On a dare, someone in a forum where everyone bragged about their biggest conquests challenged me to get into a classified FBI server. Up until then, I'd stuck to smaller banks and businesses and some local government files. Thinking I had something to prove, I took the bait and found an older classified server that hadn't had much activity on it in years. The dare included showing proof in the form of a file transfer, and since I'd gone into the most dormant server I could find, I figured it would be harmless to steal a file. I picked the biggest encrypted file on the server, grabbed a screenshot of the file downloading with the FBI server extension visible, and got the fuck out of there the second the transfer was done. Thinking I'd have time to dig into what it was, I stored the file on a jump drive and tossed it in my safe.

Wait.

I tossed it in my safe.

Which meant I had it here.

"Fuck." I pushed back from the desk and crossed the room to Julius's safe, where he'd let me store the drives I'd grabbed from my apartment.

"What? What are you looking for?"

"Shh." Sweat beaded on my brow as I entered the code Julius had set up for me with shaking fingers. It took two tries to get it right, and I pulled out the lockbox Julius had insisted I store the drives in. The key to the box was on the shelf above the computers, so I brought the box back to the desk and set it down. Key in hand, I took a breath and slid it into the lock. Twelve jump drives stared back at me, but I knew in a second the one I needed was missing.

"Damn it."

Cal had gotten up from the couch and was watching me with his arms crossed over his chest. "What's wrong?"

"I'm missing a drive. I swear I grabbed them all, but I must have left the one I need in the safe at my apartment."

A sly smile stretched across Cal's face, and he rubbed his hands together. "Then let's go get it."

Slamming the lid closed on the box of drives, I met Cal's eyes. "I can't do that. Nero told me to stay here."

Cal's eyebrow rose. "Do you need this drive thingy?"

My stomach turned over. Without a doubt, the file that was at the heart of all this was on the Spider-Man drive that was—hopefully—still in the safe at my place. I'd never gotten around to looking at what was in the file because shortly after I'd met Jordan and not long after that, I was arrested for my role in his Ponzi scheme, but there was no way the incomplete file path didn't lead to the file I'd stolen. There was no way in heaven or hell this was a coincidence.

Someone knew I had that file, and they were willing to threaten my life for it.

We needed to know what was on that drive.

"Yes. I really do."

"Then let's go get it."

Outside of a couple of days in the field with Nero, I hadn't left the Hunter estate. I hadn't left at all without Nero by my side, and thinking about doing so now felt wrong all the way to my bones. Leaving was a huge risk, but I'd have Cal with me. If we were going to make ORCA work when this was over, I was going to need to be able to trust all of Nero's brothers. I needed to have faith that while leaving with Cal would no doubt piss my mate off, getting that drive was worth the risk for the greater good of ending the threat against me.

I nodded. "Okay. Let's go, but if Nero is pissed, you better tell him this was all your idea."

Cal smiled, his eyes full of glee. "Understood. I just need to grab something from the garage. I'll meet you at the front door."

He slipped past me and raced up the stairs. I didn't want to know what he was getting from the garage, but I could probably guess. Guns weren't my favorite thing, though the FBI had made sure I knew how to shoot. I didn't own one, but Cal had alluded to having an arsenal, and I half expected him to be waiting at the front door decked out like sea panda Rambo.

Taking a deep breath, I followed him upstairs.

In the kitchen, I found Julius passed out with his head dangerously close to a bowl of cereal. He was snoring, and there was a small puddle of drool on the granite countertop.

"Jules," I whispered, crouching so we would be face-to-face if he opened his eyes. "Jules."

He didn't move.

"Julius, I'm about to make a very bad decision." I pitched my voice at my normal volume. "You'd better wake up and stop me." I added a sharp poke to his ribs.

He flinched but didn't open his eyes. "I don't want to eat the baby trees," he mumbled.

"Okay, I know a lost cause when I see one."

The brothers had a whiteboard hanging on the fridge, and I grabbed the marker and uncapped it with my teeth while I erased the store list that was dated for two weeks ago. I scrawled a quick message to let Julius, and Nero if he beat us home, know where Cal and I had gone.

"Are you coming or what?" Cal asked from the entryway.

Julius still didn't move.

Cal looked surprisingly normal when I rounded the corner. He'd put a jacket on over the jeans and T-shirt he'd been wearing, but I didn't see any weaponry. I was sure he was carrying, but I didn't ask as I grabbed my keys from the bowl by the door. It felt weird to see the little Darth Vader swinging from his key chain like nothing was amiss.

The drive to my apartment felt forever long. My brain had dredged up the entire memory from the night I'd stolen the file and was hell-bent on playing it on repeat. Cal had tried to make conversation, but I was too distracted to engage. I just needed to get inside my place, grab the drive, and get back to Julius so we could start decrypting whatever it was that I'd taken.

There were only a few cars in the parking lot when we pulled in, and all looked like cars I'd seen before. No one was waiting by the back door, and there were no shrubs for anyone to hide in, not that I really expected anyone to be lying in wait.

Cal jumped out of the car first, and I followed at a slightly slower pace.

"I'll go in first and clear your apartment, then you can go in and grab what you need, okay?"

I nodded. "Okay."

"What is it you're looking for exactly?"

"It's a Spider-Man jump drive."

Cal nodded. "Got it."

As we approached the door, Cal's phone rang, and he pulled it out of his pocket. He frowned when he looked at the screen. "I'm sorry, Felix, but I better take this."

"Should we go back to the car?"

Cal shook his head as he connected the call. "This will just take a second." He took a step away from me. "No, I wasn't talking to you, asshole."

I wasn't sure where to put myself while I waited for Cal to finish his call. The parking lot felt very open, and the small awning over the back door offered little cover. Spending time with Nero, hunting down skips, had made me a little paranoid. He'd pointed out ways to hide and areas that were usually too open for hiding. Empty parking lots had been number one on that list.

Cal was pacing now, his phone still pressed to his ear and his expression thunderous. "Alex, I need to go. No, you—shut up and let me speak."

I didn't like waiting in the open. By the time Cal got off the phone, I could already have the drive. Without waiting, I turned toward the door, slid my key into the lock, and went inside.

My apartment door was locked, so I used my key to enter. I didn't know why I assumed the locked door meant the inside would look normal, but my place was still trashed. Seeing it again made my heartbeat pick up. I'd been living in a fairy tale with Nero. My real life was still a goddamn mess that someone—me—was going to have to sort through sooner or later.

Glass crunched under my feet as I rushed through the space. There was no reason to linger. My destroyed computers were missing from the small second bedroom I'd used as an office, and I wondered whether the police had taken them or if the guys who'd tossed my place returned, thinking they'd find what they were looking for if they took the whole machines. If that was the case, they were idiots since they'd already ripped out the hard drives. They wouldn't get anything else.

The closet door was open just the way I'd left it, which meant even if the asshole who was looking for me sent more goons back to my apartment, they still hadn't found the safe in the floor. Crouching down, I pried up the floorboard and punched in the combination. The safe opened with a faint beep that echoed through the room, and my heart skipped a beat as I waited for some bad guy to appear in the doorway.

When no one came, I glanced into the safe. There at the bottom was the one drive I'd left behind. I grabbed it, closed the safe, and slid the floorboard as fast as I could. My skin was prickling, and I had the insane urge to get out of there.

Rushing through the living room, I slid on some rogue pillow fluff and went sliding, the drive slipping from my fingers as I collided with a solid wall of muscle. For a millisecond, I thought I'd fallen into Cal's arms, but the arms turned me roughly, and something sharp pressed into my neck.

The room began to swim, going fuzzy at the edges, and panic raced through my veins.

Before I had a chance to scream, my world went black.