Chapter 39
Daniel
I sat in my living room with Cole and Jake, opening my third bottle of beer by the time they woke up and joined me. It was already late evening, and we were all still tired enough to easily go back to sleep after we caught up.
“How’s Becca?” Jake asked.
I shook my head and cursed. “Home. Seems okay, but I don’t know. She’s got a nasty bruise on her neck and Lydia said she saw more when she helped her get dressed. I put my family’s bodyguards on her.”
Jake exhaled loudly. “You think she’ll be ok? I know what he—”
“Yeah. Lydia took care of her.”
Cole smiled. “Your girl did some damage last night. Fucker kept cussing her out.”
I shook my head, still trying to process what I saw when I ran into that alley. “You should have seen her. She was on him so fast, I couldn’t catch her. She fucking headbutted the guy. Grabbed his hand, jumped in the air, and headbutted him in the face like it was nothing.”
“Fuck,” Jake leaned back and finished his beer.
Cole’s grin widened.
“I don’t know how you held back, man,” Jake said. “Seeing him hurting Becca, I… fuck, I would have ripped his head off.”
“She stopped me.”
Cole raised an eyebrow. “Why? So we could question him?”
I sighed. “No. She asked me to hold him so that Becca could get a few punches in.”
Cole smiled, nodding in approval.
Jake straightened up. “Did she?”
“Yeah, punched him a few times screaming bloody murder. Lydia stopped her when she started crying.”
“Who the fuck is this girl?” Jake asked.
I smiled. “Don’t care, she’s mine.”
“She’s a good one, brother,” Cole said when Jake didn’t respond. “And she’s one of us now.”
Jake nodded. “After what she did for Becca, fuck yeah she’s one of us.”
Jake wanted to know more about Becca and what the guy, Luthor, did to her.
Despite everything Cole did to him, Luthor insisted that he barely touched her when we all knew it was a lie.
I told them what Lydia told me—that she saw bruises on Becca’s stomach and back.
There were also the nasty bruises on her neck that I saw myself.
I didn’t tell them that he said something to her she wasn’t ready to share—it wasn’t important anymore now that the man was dead.
After Cole was completely updated on our investigation and everything that had happened with Lydia, the hacker, and Condukt, we still couldn’t figure out who would target Becca that way.
It wasn’t Kernel’s style. We didn’t know if he was acting alone or on someone’s behalf, and that someone was a wild card.
It was also hard to believe Langford would go so far, but we couldn’t rule it out considering his history with Becca and how much Brad said he hated her.
Jake didn’t know what happened with Howard and why she initially left Condukt, so when I told him, we spent another half hour holding him down. He wanted to kill Langford and Howard, and the only reason Cole helped me stop him was because I promised we’d get to it eventually.
Then there was my family—we had enemies that could do something like this, but it wouldn’t make sense to target Becca. They’d target Alec or someone close to him. Becca and I wouldn’t affect the family business if we were hurt—it might be news for a little while, but it wouldn’t matter in the end.
This was either Langford or Kernel.
Cole and Jake had already updated Terry and I called to fill in the blanks. By the time it was midnight, Cole, Jake, and I had emptied too many bottles of beer and five boxes of pizza, and had Terry on the line on speaker.
“Phones were burners, nothing on them. I’m still going through CCTV. I think we should investigate Langford,” Terry’s voice was a bit distorted from the speaker’s high volume.
“Why Langford? Something point to him?” I asked.
“No, nothing. Maybe if we investigate Langford directly, we can either confirm his involvement or rule him out. I want to use your algorithms to—”
“Do it. Hack every fucking thing he owns. Howard, too.”
I turned to Jake. “Put people on him, someone you can trust to stay quiet.”
“Yeah, got a few old friends I can use, civilians.”
“What do I do?” Cole stretched his arms above his head and smiled.
“Wait until we know enough to make a move.” And then he’s all yours.
I told them they could still crash in my guest rooms, but Cole and Jake both decided to leave.
Cole was probably staying in a motel. He liked being alone and was a drifter.
He was fucking insane too, but his anger and violence were always directed at people who deserved it.
Jake wasn’t usually violent, despite growing up in a family of powerful criminals.
While he didn’t join the family business and chose a military career instead, he was still close to them and had a lot of ‘unsavory’ friends.
And he loved Becca—it had been obvious for years.
Neither ever made a move or said anything, so I ignored it, but if they ever decide to do something about it, I’ll support it.
I squeezed my eyes shut and was hit in the face with the memory of Lydia dancing and moving her hips against mine.
“Fuck,” I muttered. I went to my gym and worked out until I couldn’t feel anything, took a cold shower, and passed out on my bed.