Page 82 of Knocked Up by my Best Friend's Brothers

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Christa

The next day, I’m comfortably settled into the Hawthorne mansion with a room of my own. Cassius, River, and Nathan spent the night with me, making love until the wee hours of the morning—until I was too tired to think about much else.

By noon, however, I’m in the downstairs home office, serving coffee to Spike and Teagan.

“No one saw you come in, right?” I ask Spike as I give him his cup.

He shakes his head. “Took a cab. Had him go twice around the block before he pulled up to the back gate, just like you told me.”

“River and Cassius are talking to some of their Marine buddies about this, and Nathan is on his way to the FBI’s field office to discretely assess options,” Teagan tells me. “Mind you, they won’t mention your name unless you want them to.”

“Anything we can learn will be useful.” I nod slowly and take a seat behind the desk, a laptop open in front of me and running multiple scanning sessions at once. “And thank you for helpingme keep them on their toes after yesterday’s incident, Tee.”

“Oh, I almost got Uncle Zeddy involved. They were hell-bent on paying Vince Mancini another visit, and not the good kind,” she replies.

“Better that they didn’t, though,” I say and turn to Spike. Time to get down to business. “Thank you for making the time, Spike.”

“Hey, if it’s legally shady and it involves taking down some mob pricks, count me in,” he replies with a cool grin, then points to the ankle monitoring bracelet he’s still wearing. “I bypassed this, by the way. The signal is cloned. My so-called handlers think I’m still at home. We’re cool to talk for at least an hour before they check in.”

“Then I will be brief,” I say. “The reason I asked Teagan to come in as well is because she can help us.”

Spike gives her an amused glance. “You? The preppy, Miss Goody Two-Shoes?”

“Come on! When was a Hawthorne ever a real Goody Two-Shoes?” Teagan scoffs.

“I’m already loving the sound of this,” he laughs. “You know, I had the biggest crush on you back in high school. Never had the balls to ask you out, though.”

“It’s a shame,” she replies. “We might’ve made an interesting couple, to say the least. It would’ve pissed my brothers off to the next level.”

Spike playfully wiggles his eyebrows. “Do I still have a shot, then?”

“Sorry.” She shows him the sparkling rings on her fingers. “Someone else got lucky in the meantime.”

“I’m fine with being a side piece.”

I laugh. “Okay you two. So, here’s what I need from you, Teagan.”

“Shoot.”

I point at my laptop. “I’ll need you to take this computer as close as possible to Vince Mancini’s office building. Judging by the blueprints Spike was so kind to provide us with, if you stay in your car, parked in the service alley to the side, you’ll be close enough to their basement servers to run the mirror software I’m installing now.”

“Okay, what does said software do exactly?” she asks.

“It’s a bit more complicated, but in short and sweet terms, it helps me plant eyes and ears into one Mancini-operated server for long enough to let a worm through,” I tell her. “Spike designed it and I’ll be running the code to guide it. I only need you there for twenty minutes, tops. And then you’re gone.”

Spike nods slowly. “The idea is to get into the Mancinis’ main servers via an email link. It’s a high-risk option. It involves a hell of a lot of luck and plenty of things going our way, but it’s our best shot at getting inside without ever setting foot in their offices.”

“Especially their LA-based offices,” Teagan says. “It makes sense.”

“I’m targeting their LA-based server with that worm. I’ll be running it from the Hawthorne building at an ungodly hour, just in case they’ve got anybody from IT with eyes on the system,” Iexplain. “I’ll bump it through this laptop.”

“So all I have to do is get in that service alley and run the software on this laptop for twenty minutes?” Teagan asks.

“Yes.”

“What happens if they catch me?”

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