Page 6 of Own

“You…” I gawked. Genuinely, gawked. My mouth fell open and I stared at him. Then I pulled out my phone to check the time.

Thirty-three minutes.

Thirty-three minutes from when he left me to returning.Andhe bought a new car.

A dozen questions cascaded through my mind, but only one sputtered out, “How?”

The last time I bought I car, I had to sign away my soul in triplicate times three. The sheer volume of paperwork had beenabsurd. You didn’t sign that much to buy a damn house.

Then again, a house didn’t go 0 to 150 in 3.5 seconds, but who was counting?

He circled the car and took my arm lightly before walking me to the passenger door. When he opened it, I tried to shake off the shock holding me captive.

“With money,” he said after I was in the seat. Then he pulled the seatbelt over me and strapped me in. He touched my chin again, then scanned my eyes. “Did you hit your head at all during the chase?”

I frowned. “Probably, but it was against the seat. So, padded.”

“Headache?” He still searched my face.

“What are you looking for?”

“A concussion. You’ve taken too many hits to the head. But you’re focusing.”

I was. “Yeah, I’m fine.” I told him. “Sorry, I’m a little scattered.” I thrust a hand through my hair. I’d pulled it down, and it fell in a jumble. I should probably have tried to comb it, but I hadn’t felt like it. “And there’s no bumps that I’m feeling…” I checked.

He nodded, seemingly satisfied, then closed the door before he circled the car and climbed back into the driver’s seat. Without a word, he started the car and it was every bit as silent as I expected. The interior was plush and itsmelledlike a new car.

I really wanted to know how he pulled this off but… it wasn’t that important and I wanted to know about the guys more. I also wanted to go back for them or at least know when we would be going back.

As he pulled out of the garage, I took the sunglasses he passed me. I slid them on and scanned the town as he took a slow turn. It was like the chase had never happened.

There was surreal and then there was this. He’d told me to trust him, and I was.

Still…

“What do we do now?”

Chapter

Three

ALPHABET

Igave it a beat as they headed out, Bones leaving with Gracie wasn’t my favorite. Especially with the research we still needed to do. Gallo would break far sooner than he realized. He’d already provided us with a great deal of data. Accessing his data servers from offsite was a hell of a lot easier with his biometrics.

Goblin huffed out a sigh as the door closed behind them. I got Bones wanting to talk to Grace. He didn’t trust her. Not fully, but he also didn’tknowher. The challenge there was he didn’twantto know her. That was an issue they needed to resolve for themselves.

In choosing to go with him, Grace made a good call. At least, I hoped she had. The friction between the two needed resolution. Cap wouldn’t trust her until he got to know her. His dismissive attitude and coldness would keep her at arms length and she already struggled on so many fronts.

He made for an easy target for her anger, disappointment, worry, and hurt. If I saw it, then I knew he’d seen it too. “Good first step,” I murmured. They needed to find detente.

It hadn’t been ten minutes when the alert sounded that the gate was opening. That was swifter than expected. I tabbedswiftly to the security cameras. The gate was closed. No vehicle. No people.

The yellow light flickered on the pad. That meant the gate was open or opening. The camera said one thing, the screen said another.

We had company. I sent the alert down to Voodoo and Lunchbox before I patted the laptop in apology. Terminating all external connections, I locked it down. It had a deadman’s switch in its programming. Any attempt to decrypt the password and it would auto erase several times until the data was utterly unusable.

One single opportunity to enter the correct passcode or the machine was toast. So either I opened it or it didn’t boot up. “Komen,” I told Goblin as I rose, and yanked the thumb drive from the computer. I stowed it into the pocket of his harness. Afterwards, I closed my laptop with one hand and carried it with me. Too much glass right here and I wanted a better position to welcome our guests.

---