Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Hours later, Jorja stared at the screen but didn’t really see a darn thing on it.
It could have been some version of Chinese rather than codes she should have been able to decipher in her sleep.
Concentrating after not so Jerk-God after all Gunnar McKinley had kissed you senseless was virtually impossible. Who knew?
Me. I know now.
“George?”
“Hmmh?”
“George?”
“Yes?”
“Jorja?” Remi calling her full name finally snapped her out of the trance-like thing she had going on. “Do you want me to check why your computer is beeping?”
“What?”
“It’s been beeping for five minutes straight,” Remi muttered. “Either shut it off, or I’m going to throw something at either you or the screen. And if we have to order another computer because a repetitive sound made me crazy, Gunnar will lose his shit.”
“Gunnar?”
“He’s not here. Hah, how did I know his name would snap you out of it?” he teased her.
She resisted the urge to fan her hands in front of her face against the heat she could feel building there. “Stop it. It’s annoying when you do that.”
“Hell no,” Remi continued. “My brother has the same dazed look on his face as you’re wearing right now. So, no there’s not a chance in hell I’m not going to let this get past me without teasing you for at least a few minutes.”
Why had she thought he was the nice brother again?
Jorja stabbed at the keyboard with one finger and hit the space bar.
Maybe if she looked like she was concentrating, then he’d go back to work too.
The screen moved from the rolling rows of code she could swear was there the last time she’d actually noticed what was on the screen and a swirling circle appeared in the center of it.
“Shit.” If she’d put them back hours, Remi was going to be so fricking pissed.
Remi laughed his ass off at her as she held her breath and crossed her fingers.
“Thank God,” she whispered quietly in her head, because apparently the space bar was somehow not a fuck-up.
She was so relieved. Relieved and elated, she reached behind her and smacked at Remi when she recognized the list in front of her.
“I got it back.” She tugged at his t-shirt.
“Look, look.” She skimmed the list, and her heart sank when she noticed three more names had been crossed off it.
Remi stood next to her and read over her shoulder. “Holy hell, you did it. Awesome job, George.”
His praise pleased her. Unless you counted herself, nobody typically patted her on the back for finding a way into a site which was meant to be invitation only. Even her clients didn’t know what her job entailed. “Thank you.”
“I’m gonna call the guys.” He picked up his phone and tapped out a message. “They’ll probably be here in a minute.” Remi sat back down and opened another search engine. “I’m going to run those names through my databases, because Gunnar is going to want them when he gets here.”
“Mind if I watch?” Curiosity was a killer for her when there was a program running which she wasn’t familiar with. As she watched Remi filling out the inquiry boxes, her fingers itched.
What I wouldn’t give to play around with that for a couple of days.
Sister, then you’d need bail money, because that looks all kinds of official and I’m sure they put people in jail for breaking programs like that.
She watched, fascinated as the program got to work and started spitting out information.
“That’s not good,” Remi muttered.
She didn’t see what he was seeing, but obviously it was enough for him to shoot off another text message to someone… probably Gunnar.
Her suspicions were confirmed when a beep sounded from outside just before Gunnar’s broad shoulders blocked out the sun which had been shining through the open door.
“Everyone’s name on her list are people who worked on one mission in Syria.” Remi didn’t wait for Gunnar to ask him a question or for the others to arrive. He launched straight into what they’d found. Jorja scooted back in front of her own computer to allow Gunnar to see what was on Remi’s screen.
“What mission?” Gunnar shot her a wink before focusing on Remi again.
“One you led.” Remi tapped at the screen with the end of his pencil. “This is your code… right?”
“You know it is.”
Oh, boy, it’s all kinds of wrong to be thinking how sexy that growl of his is at a time like this.
“Did you figure out why we are on that list and who is after me?” Gunnar asked. “And why now? Why not years ago when this shit went down?”
“Is it connected to Gillian?” She knew it was a shitty thing to ask. But she was still feeling all kinds of salty about the phone call. Plus, she didn’t want any of them to pay the price of ignoring the one person who she knew for certain hated Gunnar’s guts.
“I don’t think so,” Gunnar replied slowly.
At least he was considering it, that was a start.
He clearly decided it wasn’t something his ex-wife was involved with when he tagged on, “She’s part of the rich people side of our lives.
All the wives are. I doubt she’d know a tango if he bit her on the ass. ”
If you think so, sexy pants.
Jeez, stop with giving him pet names already.
Why? It’s fun.
Say them out loud and see how much fun he thinks it is.
Shut. Up.
“What does being rich have to do with anything?” She leaned to one side so he could see the screen. “Just because they are women doesn’t mean they can’t be behind something like this.”
The room slowly filled with people. All of the brothers and the other men who’d been at the restaurant made the war-room, which had seemed so big a few minutes ago, feel positively tiny. Gunnar smiled at her and leaned against her chair as he studied the screen in front of them.
“Give her room to breathe, Gun,” Remi whisper shouted.
Before the flush had time to make it from the back of her neck to her cheeks, Gunnar growled, and the reason behind the heat changed from embarrassment to something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
She’d figure it out eventually when he wasn’t crowding every single one of her senses.
She was grateful that none of the other guys seemed to notice as they spread out around the room, because Remi started shooting intel onto the big screens which lowered over the work stations.
“This is all I’ve found so far,” Remi said.
“Did you not recognize the names, Grizzly?” Marco asked. “Because those are pretty distinctive monikers. Not even a dude as old as you could forget them.”
“Hah, asshole,” Gunnar replied. “That job was code names only. I have no idea how someone connected the dots to me.”
“What were the code names?” Jorja flipped screens. “I can see if there’s something in here which mentions the names.” She tapped on the keyboard. “Crap, I don’t have access to anything but this screen.” She nudged Gunnar to get him to move out of the way. “Remi, you need to give me access, please.”
“Sure.” Remi rolled toward her on his chair. “Swap places for a sec, I need to be on that one to open the codes for you.”
“Yeah, no. I’m not touching your computer.” She rolled away from hers to give him room to look. “If I break it, you might poison my wine or refuse to feed me.”
“Hah.” Remi snickered. “Smart thinking. This is why you were allowed here.” He got to work on her computer.
Why on earth are they looking at me so weirdly?
She glanced down at her front just to make sure she’d hadn’t spilled coffee all over herself again. Nope, she hadn’t.
“Why does she get to touch your computers, Zipper?”
She was sure the one who asked was called Zorro, but she couldn’t swear to it. She cocked her head to one side and glanced at Remi, wondering what his response would be too.
“If you don’t see that she’s now family,” Remi muttered as his fingers flew across the keyboard, “then every single one of you are blind as fuck. Because even with my TBI, it’s as plain as day to me.”
Huh?
But she didn’t have time to question the statement as Remi moved away from her computer.
“There, you have internet access.” He lifted one shoulder. “Don’t fuck it up, sister, or Imma gonna be pissed.”
“I won’t, I promise.” She went back to her keyboard and got to work.
Thankfully, the others had nothing else to say and they all buckled down and got to work.
At some point, Remi had her swap places and continue her work on his computer so he could code a program into the list site.
It was risky, and she was so relieved it wasn’t on her to not fuck that up.
They kept working late into the evening, passing information back and forth with the guys all making notations on whiteboards and filling data into their own notebooks until Remi swore softly and nudged her on the shoulder.
“There’s a timer countdown. Have you seen that before? Did we trip something?”
She glanced at the screen. “I’ve seen that before for auctions. The program will shut itself off when the clock runs out.” Damn, she’d been afraid that was going to happen. “Did you have time to get your program in place?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t have time to test it.”
“You might have triggered something if you’d tried,” she reassured him. “We’ll find out the next time it comes back online again if we have access, or if we have to go through the searches again.”
“Do these jackwads not care that assassins aren’t always computer savvy?” Talon asked. “It’s a sucky move to make them jump through hoops.”
“I’ll take them being sucky if it means they ain’t putting a hole through my forehead,” Gunnar muttered. He glanced at his watch. “It’s been a long ass day, that’s enough for tonight. We’ll come back to it in the morning with fresh eyes.”
“Yeah.” Talon got to his feet. “Now it’s cool enough, I’m gonna take Zombie for a run. Catch you later.”
“Ten minutes, Rem.” Gunnar pulled back her chair, and Jorja got to her feet. “If you aren’t done in ten minutes, I’m switching off the power for the war-room.”
“Bastard.”