Page 24 of Dash

Mina Moses was one of the most brilliant persons I knew. No one would’ve ever suspected that this copper-skinned, fair-haired cutie was one of the world’s top hackers. Or that she had a well-established reputation as one of the world’s Most Wanted cybercriminals, until a few months ago, when she partnered up with my friend Trev.

To this day, Trevor Marks, AKA Druid, was my closest surviving friend and the chief of cybersecurity for Elite Team,BB’s advanced fighting unit. Like Mina, he was also one of the world’s best hackers. Trev had discovered a generous heart behind Mina’s mad skills, and working together, we’d caught one really nasty SOB during our last mission.

Mina and Trev’s association had evolved way beyond a professional partnership, and now my best friend and Mina were joined for life. That the three of us had survived our last mission was a miracle. I still had the limp to show for it. I’d struck gold on the day Mina joined Tracker Team as my first official hire. She was top talent, original, creative, and funny as hell.

“Boss? Hey, Earth to Dagger.” She imitated the crackling sound of white noise. “Am I already fired, or should I share with you the full powers of my intellectual prowess before you boot me out? Not for nothing, but you’re walking around as if a wasp stung your pecker.”

“No wasp, just frustrated.” I took a deep breath and marched past the door to Thena’s bedroom like a sentinel making his rounds. “Tracker Team is getting off to a slow start.”

“Frustrated I get, but here’s breaking news,” she announced with her usual flair. “This is Tracker Team’s first mission. You just got the team together.”

Mina was right. I was asking a lot of a new team. Some of the guys had served with me while on active duty. Some had served with Nix. After what they’d been through, these guys needed the work. But integration took time. It wasn’t easy to get a new team to gel. In an ideal situation, I would’ve had more time to transition them in. The problem was that my situation was far from ideal.

I couldn’t leave Thena’s side. Her health was much improved, but the assassin could strike at any moment. I was still awaiting the result of the test we were running on every ingestible item we’d collected from her apartment and her workplace. If we could figure out how she’d been poisoned, wemight be able to connect the poison with the poisoner.

This meant that, at this point, every person in her life was a suspect and undergoing close scrutiny. From her bed at the hospital, Thena had protested, arguing that Jorge Rivera, Monique, and Paolo had her full confidence.

“Great,” I’d said. “They haven’t earned mine yet.”

I hadn’t told anyone at the Astor Group that Old Man Astor had been murdered. I hadn’t informed them that Thena had been poisoned, either. The current story was that Thena was suffering from an ulcer and resting. Until I knew who to trust, I was keeping all the facts to myself.

Thena had insisted we forgo the police. She didn’t want anyone to know what had happened or to cast doubt on the Astor Group’s stability. I agreed with her, but only because I knew we were dealing with a powerful foe. Involving the authorities could spring leaks that could alert a well-connected enemy to our steps.

Meanwhile, I’d allowed no one other than me to visit Thena in the hospital or at her place. She’d been released yesterday. I had deployed my assets to cover the building and protect her. The only person I allowed inside the apartment was me. Even that was dangerous, although in a totally different way.

Suppressing the lust that sent my blood rushing south whenever I faced her wasn’t easy. Maybe I was going bonkers, but every time our gazes met, desire burned in me and flashed in her stare. I sensed her need simmering in her crystal eyes, powering up my systems even as she fought the connection. Since she’d gotten better, all I’d wanted to do was take her to bed and fuck her until my body convinced hers that we belonged together.

Not so fast, Marine.

Her distrust of me ran deep. Her moods ebbed and waned with an undercurrent of hostility. It entailed facts and emotionsI hadn’t been able to decipher yet. I struggled to understand her accusations of betrayal, but I was gonna figure it out.

So far, I’d kept my priorities straight. I’d teamed up with Doctor Jacob to keep Thena in the hospital for a few extra days to rest and recover. I’d deployed the team to look for the Astor sisters. I’d also facilitated several virtual conferences between Mina and Thena so that my cyber-hunter-in-chief could gather all the information she needed about the missing Astor sisters and the searches that came before ours.

Thena hadn’t been able to answer some of our key questions. She had no idea if her sisters planned to hide together or separately. She’d said her sisters wanted nothing to do with her father and the Astor name. Did they know their father was dead? And if they did know, had they chosen not to come back?

I’d also kept my promise to Thena. I’d made no big changes at the Astor Group, even though I’d been swamped by the sheer volume of work and bullshit necessary to keep the business up and running.

I hated being the Astor Group’s CEO. I was trained to protect people, not to squeeze profit from them, and I wasn’t exactly stellar at massaging people’s overinflated egos or dealing with the greedy sons of bitches who demanded my attention.

So far, Monique, Paolo, and Jorge had kept the ship afloat and took on the brunt of the daily administrative chores—meetings, calls, investor relations, press inquiries, asshole management, the works. I didn’t trust them, but I had to admit that in the last few days, they had prevented me from sending some assholes to hell and tanking the business.

I decided to call that progress.

“Knock, knock.” Mina lifted her fist and pretended to rap on the screen. “Where did you go, boss? Were you listening to anything I said?”

I had a lot on my mind, but I had to keep my focus. “Goahead.”

“The reason we can’t find the Astor sisters is because we don’t have a clear starting point,” Mina pointed out in her quick staccato. “But that’s about to change, ’cause you’ve got me. Ta-dah!” She threw her arms in the air. “Do I hear the crowd roaring?”

“It’s roaring all right,” I said. “Keep going.”

“If you relieve me of the soul-sucking task of processing paperwork, and, assuming that these women exist on planet Earth,Iwill find them, or at least, traces of them.”

“Can the paperwork.” I reshuffled my priorities on the spot. “Get on it.”

“My conversations with Thena have provided me with a lot of helpful information,” Mina said. “But since I have the delicacy of a crushing boulder and I don’t want to offend Thena, there are some issues I’d rather you flush out for me.”

“Go ahead. Shoot.”