Page 34 of Drift
She looked down at herself and sighed softly. “I didn’t pack anything.”
“I’ll get your stuff later.”
That got her attention, and her eyes lifted, meeting mine. Whatever she saw there—whatever she heard in my tone—seemed to stop the argument before it started. She just nodded.
The clubhouse was waking up slowly as we passed through to the hallway that led to Kane’s office. Tyre sat at the bar, coffee mug in hand, his voice rough as he talked to Rev about a supply run. Cage—the club’s doctor—leaned in the doorway to the kitchen, a smirk ghosting across his mouth when he saw us. He didn’t say anything, but the look was enough—he knew.
Kane’s office door was open. The blinds were half drawn, sunlight slicing across the desk in narrow strips. He was already behind it—cut open and the sleeves of his black Henley rolled up—and leaning back in his chair. The faint blue glow of his laptop cast a sharp line across his jaw.
Jax’s face filled the laptop screen—blond hair shoved under a backward ball cap, glasses on, expression sharp enough to cut glass. The second his gaze landed on us, his jaw tightened. His expression was calm, but his eyes were a few degrees colder than usual. The kind of cold that meant he’d been digging deep and didn’t like what he’d found.
I stepped inside and shut the door, then nodded to Kane before resting one hand on the back of Alanna’s chair as she sat.
“Why does my sister look like she hasn’t slept in a week?” he demanded. His glare cut to me. “And why the hell does she look rumpled?”
Before I could open my mouth, Alanna’s eyes narrowed. Her voice came out flat and dripped with sarcasm. “Good morning, Alanna. How did you sleep, Alanna? You look great, Alanna. Even though you spent the night alone in a place you’ve only been to once, without any of your stuff, and a deranged stalker on the loose.”
Kane leaned back in his chair, lips twitching.
I bit back a low sound that was halfway between a chuckle and a sigh. Her fire shouldn’t have amused me, but it did. Especially when she turned it on Jax.
He blinked, clearly caught between being pissed and begrudgingly impressed. “You always this mouthy in the morning?”
“Only when I’ve been rescued from a psycho,” she shot back.
Kane’s voice cut through the exchange, calm and deep. “You two can start the family therapy session later. Jax, focus.”
Jax’s jaw flexed. “Right. Focus. Fine. But I don’t like that she’s there without me.”
Kane’s tone didn’t change. “She’s safe, Jax. Safer here than anywhere else.”
“I know,” Jax muttered, but his eyes slid back to me. The look wasn’t subtle. It was the kind of warning that came from blood and brotherhood both. “You keep her that way.”
I just jerked my chin up in acknowledgment. That was all that was needed. Even if I hadn’t been half in love with Alanna, I would have kept her safe because she was family. We protected our own.
Kane reached forward, steepling his fingers on the desk. “Now that we’re all caught up, why don’t you tell us what you found, Jax?”
The screen brightened as Jax adjusted the camera, his eyes scanning something off-screen. “You’re not gonna like it.”
He leaned closer, his eyes flicking across something on his second monitor. The light sharpened the angles of his face and reflected off his glasses. “On paper, the kid’s clean. No priors. Decent grades. Average social media. But that’s the problem—he’s too clean. Not like WITSEC clean.” He smirked and winked at Alanna, who giggled because Jax’s new wife had been in witness protection when they met. Then he continued, “But every online footprint’s been scrubbed. Every IP masked. He’s good, but not that good.”
Kane’s expression didn’t change, but a muscle in his jaw flexed. “How not good?”
“Good enough to fool a background check. Not good enough to hide from me.” Jax tapped something off-screen, and a set of data traces lit up on the monitor. “His email history runs through multiple proxy routes—all tied to a flagged access ring we’ve been tracking. They’re targeting university systems—specifically ones linked to state-sponsored research programs.”
My brows lifted slightly. “That’s not small-time.”
“Not even close,” Jax confirmed. “They’re mining credentials. Access points. Anything that provides them with a secure access point into grant databases and academic firewalls. They hit one system clean, they can piggyback into a dozen more. If they pull it off, they can reroute millions without anyone noticing.”
Kane leaned back. “And Alanna?”
“She’s not really the target,” Jax explained. “She’s the entry point. Ethan used her class project as a bridge into the system. Once she logged in from her end, he could trace the connection and slide into the network through her credentials.”
Alanna’s breath hitched. “He-he was using me?”
She looked horrified, and guilt swam in her stormy-gray depths when she glanced up at me.
Jax’s expression softened a fraction. “Hey, hey. You’re not to blame, Alanna.”
