13. Sonali
Chapter 13
Sonali
“Can one of you please give me a good reason why you need to keep coming to my appointments?” Paolo asked, his tone clipped as he waved his one arm in the air. Currently, Paolo, Kat, Antonio, CJ, and I were in a private room of Sawyer’s medical research company.
“Because I don’t trust you won’t skip. So, until your ass is no longer sick, I will continue to show up at every single one of your appointments,” Antonio countered.
When we arrived back in Fort Lauderdale, Paolo accepted Sawyer’s help to try an experimental treatment. It was confirmed he did have stage four cancer. Twice a week, he went to the facility for treatment. It wasn’t chemo, but an experimental cocktail. I’d tried to talk to him about seeing if we could use my blood, and he shot me down each time.
His last reasoning was that he claimed to care too much to put me through any pain. Besides, if he did do it, too many people knew he had cancer, and a miracle cure could put me at risk.
Paolo pointed at CJ and Kat. “Then why the extra people today?”
Kat walked across the room and lowered herself onto Antonio’s lap. He was in one of the guest chairs to Paolo’s right. CJ had used the small table in the room setting up his laptop and portable monitor. I took the chair on the other side of Paolo, next to the machine reading his vitals.
“One second.” CJ leaned over, grabbed his backpack from the floor, and pulled out a small black device. His finger tapped the top. “Okay, you can talk now.”
Before meeting Paolo, I didn’t know much about security or tech. But over the last few weeks, I’d gone into the office with him. He’d claimed he didn’t think it was safe for me at home. Kat had let me use a small corner conference room with a lot of windows to paint in. I wanted to point out I wouldn’t have security when I went back to Paris, which was only in a couple of days.
We both had been avoiding the subject of what would happen next. If I was honest with myself, I’d fallen deep in love with Paolo, but we both agreed to one month, and I had to head to Paris for my show.
“Wait. Won’t that mess with the equipment?” Paolo asked.
CJ glanced up from his laptop. “From the scan of the facility’s network I just did, nothing will be interfered with.”
Sawyer had come in a couple of times while Paolo had his treatment and sat with us. He was back in town for a charity event this week, and we had plans for dinner tomorrow. “I’m surprised Sawyer gave you access to the network.”
Kat shook her head. “No way would your brother give us access. He’s very protective of whatever he has going on here. That is the reason we brought CJ with us and blocked the room, so nobody can listen to our conversation.”
Paolo rubbed his forehead. “Mission? Is Sawyer doing something we need to investigate?”
Antonio sighed. “Any time a billionaire has a research facility, we should worry. Don’t get me wrong, the treatments his company has produced are groundbreaking. Many of them, I think, are tied to Sonali’s mother’s work. Which brings me back to what was really in that container.”
“You think Sawyer lied to me?”
“I ran my facial recognition program over Fort Lauderdale near this facility and his facility in Houston. From digging deeper, he has three other shell companies tied to medical research. I also ran it near those buildings. No scan came back as your mother,” CJ said.
Kat climbed off Antonio’s lap and paced back and forth. “But the program doesn’t pick up if the person had gone through plastic surgery.”
“True, love. But tell me this—if you disconnected from your kids for years and they knew you were alive, would you still stay contactless?”
“Fuck no. Plus, we have ways to counter anything. I would at the very least talk to them on the phone.”
A pang slashed through my chest. This was a mission to them, but to me they were talking like my mother might be dead. Paolo reached out and grabbed my hand.
“We can speculate all we want. Until we find evidence he lied, or we’re given a reason not to believe him, I think we should trust him,” Paolo said.
I squeezed Paolo’s hand. “I know they are working on the mission. And what Kat said is true: a normal parent would reach out to their kids. My mom did love me, but she was brilliant; her work, to her, was equivalent to her firstborn. At the age of eight, I thought I only mattered to her, but looking back, I can see how she chose her research over me.”
Kat tapped her foot on the floor. “Paolo is correct; we don’t know for sure. As for Sawyer, he broke the truce we had in the game, so I don’t trust him.”
The damn game was consuming. Paolo refused to play, but he constantly looked over my shoulder to see the gossip on the main chat. Sometimes he would tell me what I should write. Half the time, I handed him my phone so he could chime in. But the betrayal Kat was talking about was Jared Black and Brock from Blackwood Mercenaries, who was in our alliance. Jared was in Sawyer’s alliance. They were bickering in world chat about being better than the other, and Brock attacked during the truce. It led to Sawyer and a bunch of others attacking.
Antonio chuckled under his breath. “Love, you can’t judge someone by the way they play an online game. We need solid evidence against him. Jared swears that Sawyer is a good man. Personally, I think Sawyer is, but I also think he is keeping something from us.”
“How did the meeting with the CIA go today when you told them our research led to nothing?” Paolo asked.
“They think we are hiding something. Claimed they planned to make sure we never received another contract.” Antonio laughed. “I told him, ‘Good, because they only led to my men and women almost dying.’ We all know the next time something goes down, they will still call, and my dumb ass will take the contract.”
I really didn’t want to believe Sawyer was doing something wrong. Yet his continuing to keep my research made me curious about what he really planned to do with it. “I still don’t understand how you plan to figure out if he is hiding something.”
Kat waved her arm toward CJ. “That’s his job … using his magic fingers on the computer to access the network. Sawyer runs a lot of companies, but the only one that might have something the government would want is the medical research. Hence CJ tagging along today.”
“Wouldn’t a place like this have stuff setup to keep hackers out?”
CJ glanced up from the keyboard. “They have top-of-the-line network security appliances. But real hacking is about social engineering and people being lax about their security.”
“Social engineering?” I asked.
Antonio chuckled. “My older brother Alex learned about social engineering the hard way. His now-wife sent him phishing emails, which are fake emails about his iCloud account being compromised. The dumb ass logged in and input his password. Many people use the same password for everything, which allowed Bridget to gain access to not only his iCloud, but also his network account at Ross Enterprise.”
I blinked, trying to take all the information in and realized I was one of those people. Years ago, I’d created a standard password and used it for everything. “But nowadays, you need to get a text on your phone for verification. So even if you had the password compromised, you would be fine.”
“Most people do think that.” CJ held up his phone. “It’s gotten hard to intercept SMS messages, but there are still ways to do it. Last night Sawyer came to Sanctorum, and while he was on the floor, I snuck into his locker and installed an app that mirrors his messages. Before you ask how I unlocked the phone … one of my friends has a company that builds holograms. When Sawyer wasn’t looking, I recorded him and uploaded the video into the device, which gave me a picture of his face to unlock the phone.”
“So, you got his face to unlock the phone, and did a phishing email for his password?” I started to understand the process. It seemed like a lot of work just to access a machine.
“Yes, but it took me a lot of attempts to get him to fall for the phishing email. It only happened a couple of days ago. I knew Paolo had an appointment today, which would allow me to access the Wi-Fi here along with his credentials.” CJ turned back to the machine.
Kat leaned against the far wall. “While we are waiting on CJ to do his magic, Paolo, how are you feeling?”
“Fine.”
I rolled my eyes. “He hasn’t coughed up blood in four days. With this treatment, they do scans weekly, and on Monday, it showed the mass in his lung had shrunk. The doctors are still concerned with how much it has spread in his body, but we should know more in the next few weeks.”
“Great, you are coming back after your show this weekend?” Kat asked the question neither Paolo nor I had talked about.
“As of right now, I don’t have a trip planned to come back,” I answered.
The room became uncomfortably quiet as Paolo didn’t say anything else either.
“Found something,” CJ announced, breaking the silence.
Kat rushed to where CJ worked and leaned over his shoulder. I went to stand, but Paolo squeezed my hand. I could see the questions in his eyes—one we needed to talk about.
“What is it?” Antonio asked.
“United Kingdom government contract for mind remapping. From what I understand in this letter back to the government, there’s a report on the progress of a device that could map brain cells by genes and then trace the connection to neural circuitry,” Kat explained.
I grabbed my phone and googled neural circuitry. The basic definition covered how neurons connected within our brains and worked together to process and transmit information.
Kat spun on her heels. “Those Brits in the world chat. I can’t remember the alliance name, but the one that always sides with Sawyer and him with them. My guess is they are MI6.”
“Those fuckers. Bryson Walker’s family has connections to those security societies and MI6,” Antonio ground out.
“Who is Bryson Walker?” Paolo asked.
“He and his brothers live in the Dallas area. I know him from when I was in the Navy, and he worked for the CIA. His family owns a large oil company, and are also part of the Nobility Society, which I don’t even have enough time to get into,” Antonio explained.
Paolo nodded. “But I don’t see how this links together.”
“The Black brothers and Walker brothers are close to each other. Sawyer, from what I can see, has been in Jared’s inner circle for a long time. Walker told me about the Society in the UK—I can’t remember the name right now—that only recruits the smartest people and funnels money into the organization,” Antonio replied.
“You are on to something,” CJ chimed in. “Sonali’s mom was a research scientist and did have a huge income along with her father. Her dad’s mother is from the UK, so he has the bloodline. Let’s say the Society gave him the money to fund his medical company that Sawyer now runs, which is tied back to the UK.”
“This sounds like a conspiracy I’d read on Reddit forums. You’re saying secret societies exist?” I asked.
“Yes,” the entire room answered in unison.
Each day I went into AA Security with Paolo, I found out how often things happened in the world that nobody knew about. Three of Paolo’s coworkers went on a mission to South America to save three people who were kidnapped, and not one news story covered it. Or last week, half the team flew to California and defused a bomb at a public sporting event. The call had come down from the White House to look into a possible threat. By midnight, the team had returned, and not one story appeared anywhere. The public had no clue what had happened.
“Sawyer isn’t going to tell us his connection. But Bryson owes me for when his now-wife was in danger. I’m going to head back to the office and make a call.”
CJ packed up his laptop, and the three of them left the room. I was alone with Paolo.
“Are we going to talk about it?” Paolo asked.
That was a loaded question.
“Us?”
He nodded. “We’ve put it off, but you leave in a couple days.”
“Yes,” I answered. “What do you want?”
The door to the room swung open, and a nurse I hadn’t seen before walked in. She also didn’t have a name tag. “Hi, I’m Jackie, and I am here to finish up your treatment.” She walked over and pulled the IV from his arm. “The doctor wanted me to give you these pills as well. He said to start taking them approximately twenty-four hours from now. They are supposed to boost the treatment.”
She handed me the bottle, and a sharp piece of plastic stuck on the side cut my finger. “I’m so sorry about that. Let me help you.” She pulled some gauze from her pocket, dabbed my hand, and then wrapped it with a bandage.
When she finished with Paolo, we left the facility. My mind couldn’t get over the nurse; something wasn’t right about her. Paolo pulled me into his arms when we reached the car. “Let’s go get dinner, and then we can talk.”
My mind was no longer on the nurse, but thinking about how my heart was going to shatter.