Page 8 of The Brat Tamers

3

CASE

Ijump out of the SUV at the front of the house and run in to catch Soren as he’s packing up his equipment. “Her ex-IT person designed her thisscrambler. Want to check it out?”

“Absolutely.” He takes it from me, tucking it into his laptop bag.

“Are you leaving?”

“Yeah. The guys and I are heading back to the garage. I think I have a lock on Leti south-west of here near Peoria. I’ll look at this while the guys are packing up the tactical gear.”

“Are you going with them for extraction?”

He nods. “Yeah, the signals are too erratic to not be constantly tracking her.”

I hand him Epi’s cell phone. “Can you make this seem like it’s working, but route all the traffic to us?”

Laughing, he takes the phone. “Is she giving you hell?”

“You have no idea.”

“Yeah, but you guys like that. Chicks with a ton of attitude get you hard.”

I roll my eyes and say again, “You have no idea.”

“They are beautiful, aren’t they?” Soren says casually as he pops out the SIM card and slides it into some handheld device. He then opens an app on his phone and ninety seconds later, is handing it back to me. The man is a fucking genius with equipment.

People—not so much.

“Yeah.” My thoughts go to the sister who is going through God knows what right now. I hope we get to her in time. Nothing boils my blood faster than seeing a woman brutalized. I hold up the phone. “Thanks. You guys be careful.”

“You’ll hear from us when we have something.”

“Same.”

I tilt my chin as I catch Victor’s eyes and then exit the property, the FBI mad-dogging me from their perch in Mr. Krushner’s office. I don’t envy Victor having to deal with them at all. It’s his twenty-plus years of politics as an Army officer that gives him the strength of character to deal with their bullshit, meanwhile knowing in the shadows that we are the ones getting the job done. I slide into the backseat next to our brat—I mean, client—and hand over her cell phone. “All clean.”

“I knew it would be.” Her gaze lingers on me for a heartbeat longer than appropriate, diverting blood that should feed my brain to my dick. I can’t stop my gaze from raking over her. She put on a thread-bare V-neck shirt, but didn’t bother putting on any pants, leaving miles of leg for me to lust after on the short drive to our place downtown.

As soon as Lee pulls onto the highway, I ask one of my many questions. “Tell us more about this ex-employee.”

She shrugs, her fingers flying over her keyboard. “What’s there to say? She’s super smart, but when I chose not to invest in her business idea, she got really weird. Aggressive, I guess, and I don’t need that kind of energy in my circle. So, I fired her.”

“How long ago was that?” Porter turns around and makes eye contact with me.

“I don’t know, maybe six months.” She looks up from her phone to flash him a warm smile that invokes a tinge of jealousy within me. I want her to smile at me. I want to see her light up when I enter a room or make her come.

Fuck, this is going to be a long mission if I can’t quell my thoughts about her.

“Your last post where you told your fans you were going to an ultra-reclusive spa. Did you mention where?” Lee asks, his eyes meeting mine in the rear-view mirror.

“Super-secret tropical resort, the kind you have to be invited to. That was my excuse for being offline. Too busy mingling with celebrities and all that.”

Lies. I wonder how much of her online persona is built on similar bullshit.

“Did anyone in your entourage know you were really going to be here in Chicago?” I ask.

“No one. Trust me, in this business, the draw is the illusion I create for my fans, and there are too many gossips around to not hold my truth as close as possible.”

---