Page 16 of Viking
She smiled then, a genuine smile that softened the grief in her eyes.“I know you won’t.”
We sat in companionable silence as the night deepened around us, the coffee cooling in our mugs, the distance between past and present gradually shrinking with each shared breath.
Chapter Five
Viking
The tech room was a new addition to the compound.Wire’s domain where few brothers ventured unless they needed something specific.The soft hum of cooling fans provided a constant backdrop to the clicking of keyboards as I leaned against the back wall, watching father and son work their magic.Wire’s fingers moved with practiced precision, while Atlas, his teenage son, remained utterly focused on his own screen, his face bathed in the blue glow of multiple monitors.
“Before we get into what I’ve found in regard to your friend, there’s something else you need to know,” Wire said.“You know I run checks on everyone who comes here, and that includes Karoline and Athena.”
My eyebrow arched.“You ran a check on a toddler?Are you expecting her to be a diabolical genius who’ll blow up the compound or something?”
Wire snorted.“No, smartass.But I looked into what happened to her.The woman Kris normally left in charge of Athena became gravely ill and was hospitalized.Her sister took over Athena’s care for the last few months he was gone.”
“Okay.What am I missing?”I asked.
“The sister is bad news.She’s never been convicted, but I found complaints filed against her for child abuse spanning several years.The courts couldn’t ever make anything stick, so on the surface, she just looks like she was misunderstood.In truth, she was a clever bitch who hid her tracks.”
At least we now knew what happened to Athena.I’d known it seemed odd for Kris to leave her to someone incompetent.If he’d taken the time to make sure Athena would go to Karoline, who in turn would come to me for safekeeping, then he had to have loved his little girl a lot.Which was in keeping with the man I’d known.
“Now for why you’re here.Kris Kringle,” Wire said, reading the name off the screen.“Your boy was into some serious shit, Viking.”
I nodded, crossing my arms over my chest.“That’s why I need you to dig deeper.His sister and niece are staying at my place.According to his letter, they might be in danger.”
I thought about things Kris had told me, and a flash drive he’d given me last time I saw him.I hadn’t looked at the contents of the drive and wondered if it would be helpful in this situation, but something held me back.
Wire pushed his reading glasses higher on his nose, the silver in his red hair catching the light from the monitors.Unlike most of the brothers, Wire kept his hair short, practical.Said it was easier to think without hair in his face.His son had inherited that pragmatism, though Atlas’s hair was slightly longer, falling just over his ears.
“How much danger are we talking about?”Wire asked, eyes never leaving his screen.
I pulled Kris’s letter from my cut and handed it over.“Read it yourself.”
Wire scanned the letter, his expression growing more serious with each line.“Government black ops.That’s a whole different ballgame than our usual trouble.”
“Can you find out what he was involved in?”I asked.
Wire handed the letter back with a snort.“Can I find out?Who do you think you’re talking to?”He turned to his son.“Atlas, start with financial trails.Government contractors, offshore accounts, anything unusual.”
Atlas nodded once, already typing.The kid was quiet, always had been, but his mind worked like a supercomputer.At sixteen, he could hack systems that even his father approached with caution.Now at eighteen, he was close to surpassing his dad in some ways.
I watched them work, the father-son team that had saved the club’s ass more times than I could count.Wire was all intuition and experience, following hunches and making connections that seemed to come from nowhere.Atlas was methodical, working through problems step by logical step, never missing a detail.
“Tell me about the sister,” Wire said as his fingers flew across the keyboard.“And the kid.”
“Karoline’s Kris’s younger sister.Preschool teacher.The kid, Athena, is three.Kris’s daughter, but no one knew about her until after he died.”
Wire let out a low whistle.“Secret kid?That’s some soap opera shit right there.”
“Tell me about it.”I moved closer to the screens, trying to make sense of the information flying past.“Anything yet?”
“Patience,” Wire muttered.“This isn’t like looking up someone’s Instagram.”
Atlas suddenly straightened in his chair.“Dad, look at this.”
Wire rolled his chair over to his son’s station, studying the screen.“Well, I’ll be damned.”
“What?”I moved to stand behind them.
