Page 56 of Protected Hearts

She drifted toward the table. “What can I help with?”

He turned the laptop to show her the screen. “Carson was doing a background check on someone, and scareware took us out.”

“Ohh. Let me have a look.” She drew the laptop closer.

“We’ll provide you with a contract and pay.” Oaks’s words made her look up sharply at him.

“You don’t need to pay me. You’re providing me with protection services.”

Something flickered in the recesses of his gaze. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll get an agreement written up now while you get to work.”

She eyed him for a moment and then nodded. It was easier to agree than to argue. Besides, she could have him deposit the funds in a secret account that William would never be able to trace to her. Once all this was over, when she finally left the Black Heart Ranch and was free, she would require money to live.

After he walked out, she slanted a look at Colt. He was absorbed in whatever he was doing on the other laptop and not paying attention to her. As she set to work, she realized their system setup could be improved.

“I can make some changes to your security while I’m in the system,” she told Colt.

He paused to give her his attention, brows raised. “Considering what just happened, I’d say we can use it.”

The minutes turned into an hour. When she finally broke into the system, she let out a small noise of success.

“You got in?” Colt peered over her shoulder.

“Yes! It took a while. Whoever did that knew what they were doing.” That brought another question—what enemies did Black Heart Security have?

She imagined the enemies of the people they protected might target them as well. She didn’t like being the reason for that drone showing up on the ranch.

All the more reason to dig her way out of this wreckage.

As soon as she ensured the Black Heart Security system was secure, she could go into her own account and update the authentications needed to secure William’s files. She’d been updating the credentials every day on the device Oaks supplied her with, but since she was already logged in here, there was no reason why she shouldn’t.

Colt returned to his own work. Somewhere outside the house, she heard an engine rumble to life.

Stealing another look at Colt from the corner of her eye, she made sure he wasn’t paying attention to her. Then she set her fingers to the keys, opened a clandestine window and logged in to her own private account.

Seeing that the files were secure brought relief to her nerves. Lately, those nerves had been frayed, snapped, snipped and fried. When it came to her life, she would take any peace she could.

Off and on for the past six months, she’d been logging in to an old email just to ensure she wasn’t missing anything. Nobody knew about the account she’d used in college, and it only received the occasional spam these days. At this point, she was just being paranoid about checking it. But she checked it anyway out of habit.

Same old empty inbox. Even the spam folder was barren.

Suddenly, in the corner of the screen, a chat message popped up.

She blinked. Who would be messaging her on this platform?

Holding her breath, she twisted her lips in concentration and clicked on the chat.

At first, she didn’t know what she was looking at. The person messaging her used an unfamiliar name, and they’d only sent an image.

She focused on the image, trying to make out what the subject matter was.

When she enlarged it, she realized it was an aerial map.

There were tiny red pins dropped at various spots and—

Oh god, no.

It was a map of the Black Heart Ranch…and those little pins were targets.

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