Page 31 of Montana Rain

My little suitcase sitting by the door, me in my pajamas and coat. Panic—true fear and panic welled up in my chest. I couldn’t do anything to stop it, and right at this moment, the only thing I could do was look at Cole.

And he was looking right back at me.

Chapter 14

Cole

I’d known something was wrong when I’d left Rayne in her kitchen. I should have pressed her harder right then to tell me the truth. Maybe we could have prevented the look on her face right now.

This was different from when I’d walked into her house tonight. Exhaustion wasn’t the emotion on her face. Terror and panic were. She fought it because that was who she was, and she was stronger than most people I knew. But even the strongest people would feel something when faced with being murdered for something they had no involvement with.

She looked at me.

There were four men in the room, and the one she looked at when the panic rose was me. Pride and relief swelled in my chest, along with the same desire to pull her close and protect her from the world.

I would protect her now, even if she wasn’t aware of it. The option not to had disappeared when I heard her voice on the phone.

Opening my mouth to ask what she needed, I was interrupted by beeping. Loud, obnoxious beeping coming from the computer.

Jude swore and began typing. Only a few seconds later, he tore the flash drive out of the tower and stood, bending around the array of monitors and pulling the plug. The entire display went dark, and the rest of us stared at him in shock. Pulling the plug on the system like that…

“What the hell just happened?” I asked.

The computers beeped as he plugged things back in and rebooted the computers. No alarms sounded this time, and Jude went back to working as soon as the computers were online. He didn’t speak, a muscle in his jaw ticking.

Jude was generally a man of few words—and more than capable. He would tell us when he was ready. But every second that passed grated under my skin. Whatever the hell had happened, it wasn’t good.

“Shit,” he said under his breath.

“What?”

He looked at me and then turned and looked at Rayne. “I’m sorry, Rayne. There was something on the drive that I missed. A program beneath everything else, designed only to start up after a certain amount of time logged in.”

She paled. “What did it do?”

Leaning down, he picked up the little device from where it had landed when he'd pulled it out. “It sent up a flare.”

“A flare?” Daniel asked.

“Yes. And if I’d let it do its thing, the virus it launched would have eaten through my computer and pretty much destroyed it.”

This was bad. Everything we’d told Rayne about her options was now null and void. Because this changed everything. “Where did it go?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Any chance you shut it down fast enough that it didn’t get to its destination?”

He wanted to tell me yes; I could see it on his face. But Jude shook his head. “I don’t think so. But if we’re lucky, they only got a wide ping and not an exact location.”

I closed my eyes, letting my head fall forward for a second. Rayne cleared her throat. “Does this mean they know?”

“Yes,” I said. “They probably do. Or at least, they know someone has accessed the flash drive and approximately where.”

“We still need to monitor everything to see where we stand,” Daniel said. “That hasn’t changed.”

“But she can’t stay here.” I stood up straight. “Now Rayne’s right. Your families need to be protected. And they know who Rayne is, so they’ll know her connection to you. But if she’s not here, you’ll be fine. She’s the one they want.”

Daniel looked at Rayne. All of them did, and in those looks, I saw how desperately they wanted to help. But this was beyond what they could do, and they knew just as much as I did how dangerous it was. We didn’t have enough information. The mafia could be on their way to kill her right now, and we wouldn’t see them coming.

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