Page 11 of Room One Hundred and Eighteen

He nods and follows me to my office along with Max and Reid.

“Now tell me what’s going on with Court.”

“We followed her when she left the club. But someone else was in front of us following her too.”

I sit up and snarl. “Did you get a license plate at least? Something to identify them.”

“Yeah. It was one of MonroeTech’s company cars.”

I sit back and eye my boys. “So they work for Court’s company then. I wonder who it is.”

Max and Reid both glare at me. “Does it matter who they are? They’re about to have a shitty life as soon as we find out.”

I couldn’t agree more. But I need to get inside Court’s security system to find out who the hell might have brought that car back.

And then we’ll take care of the problem before it even affects our princess.

We’re her sword and shield in this big, bad world and nothing and no one will keep us from taking care of our pretty little princess.

CHAPTER 8

Courtney

I want to tell everyone in the office to go home and stop coming into my office looking like the gloomy, tearful employees they are.

I sigh and tug at my earring on my left ear. It’s an old habit when I’m worried or agitated. And right now I’m both.

My mind drifts back to the men who rocked my world last night, taking control and letting me just be. Not asking anything of me but my body.

I wish that was the case today. Instead, everyone at my company wants a piece of me. It’s been a whirlwind since I got in here this morning. Every time I turned around and thought I could get just a minute’s peace to myself, another person knocked with another damn problem.

We’re about to launch a new security line and there’s a bug in the system so we’re all on high alert and working overtime until we get the damn thing fixed. I know it’s good. Hell, I’ve got the system installed in my townhouse just outside of town.

It’s good except for the tiny little flaw of experienced hackers being able to find a back door to the system and disarm it.

Not ideal for a fucking security system.

My oldest employee, a personal friend of my parents and like an uncle to me strides in the door still wearing his lab coat. He’s in charge of the lab and I know he feels responsible for this fuck-up.

“I’m so sorry, Courtney. We’re still working on it but so far that damn back door is staying open and causing a shit ton of problems with the system as a whole. The guy who’s testing the system has found even more places to breach the security and cause shut-downs all over the place.”

I take a deep breath and close my eyes, shaking my head. Rubbing at the massive headache threatening to explode into a migraine. “I don’t understand, Evan. We’ve been working on this system for two years. How has none of this shit come up before in all the tests?”

He grimaces and his thin, wiry body almost quivers with agitation, his glasses slipping down his nose. The man takes his job seriously. Hell, he takes everything seriously. He’s been like a second father to me since I was born.

As Dad’s best friend, he took over in the lab several years ago and expanded our tech into fantastic new directions including a new product that he’s still working on for a device that helps to connect patients in the hospital with their new prosthesis, helping to mobilize them quicker and help them adjust to their new devices.

It’s amazing and I can’t wait to make it a reality and send it out on the market. It’s been doing well in testing but now with this massive issue with one product, I’m terrified that that one is going to be an even bigger problem. Since it’s an invasive product that has to be implanted in the brain there’s a helluva lot more that could go wrong and if I wasn’t worried, I’d be concerned about my own humanity.

“I don’t know, Courtney.” His washed-out gray eyes sparkle with anger. The salt and pepper head of hair is thinning and he looks like everyone’s idea of a stereotypical scientist. “I thought we ran every test and possible scenario on it before this happened. Now I’m starting to wonder.”

“Just keep working on it.”

“Of course, of course.” He stops and his eyes linger on mine. “Do you need anything, Courtney. I’m so sorry about your parents.”

I flinch away from yet another concerned employee. Although Evan has more of an interest in it than most of our short-term employees. But they all care and I should respect that. Should understand their pain.

But right now I’m fighting my own overwhelming losses and the horrible feeling that this is where I tank my family’s company and take us all down some sketchy rabbit hole that fills in with dirt all around us.

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