Page 43 of Lips On My Soul

Punk surveys the road around us, tense and on alert. He shakes his head. “No, I don’t. Your gut feeling has been spot on since I’ve known you. You’re my sister, and if you speculate your therapist has been compromised, I’m going to take you seriously. Let’s get back to headquarters and fill in the rest of the guys.”

* * *

A few minutes later, we’re back at the new headquarters. I park and run into the house to the tech room, ignoring the furniture chaos in the living room.

Chase sees me barreling in the room and arches a pierced eyebrow. Hades whines at our feet, sensing my uneasiness.

“Chase, I need to talk to you?”

“Is Punk teasing you again? Say the word and I’ll knock the fucker on his ass,” he chuckles.

“I’m not the fucker messing with her this time,” Punk says with a steely voice, flopping in a chair.

Chase tenses. “What’s going on, Jo?”

My worries about Heather come spewing out of me like vomit. I tell him about my counselor and how she poopooed my concern when I suspected I was being watched. I tell him how she recordseverythingwe discuss and documents it. I tell him how Lorenzo is aware of my night terrors from his cryptic comments. And I tell him I have no proof other than a nagging feeling in the back of my head that my shit has been compromised.

Chase’s brown eyes grow darker with every passing second it takes me to explain my concerns. When I’m done, his eyes are nearly as black as Maceo’s. He looks over my head at Punk. “Call Atlas and Gauge, and tell them to come in.” Chase turns to one of his many computers and starts typing away.

“What are you doing?” I ask, sitting next to him.

Without looking away from the monitor, Chase addresses me. “I’m seeing how easy it is to hack into your therapist’s database.”

It seems like he’s only been working mere minutes when he starts cursing. He works a couple more minutes before running his fingers through his long, tawny hair in frustration.

Chase grabs his cell and makes a call. “Stop macking on your boy-toy and get your ass in here. Call Butch while you’re at it.” He ends the call, with who I assume was Ziggy, and his fingers return to the keyboard, moving across the keys at blazing speed.

“Is there anything I can help with?” I ask.

Chase spares me a glance. “You know how to navigate the dark web?”

I give him an irritated look. He knows I have no hacking skills. “How about something I can actually do?”

“You could tell me what’s discussed during your counseling sessions? I know it’s personal, and I wouldn’t ask unless I felt it could help us. Leave out the details and give me the bullet points. I’ll be able to use the information to see if anything similar is floating around out in cyberspace.”

It’s not like Chase is a stranger to what happened to me. I can be honest with him and trust he will respect my privacy. I give him a brief description.

He nods. “I need Ziggy and Butch’s help now. We’ll be able to access more with the three of us digging.”

Uneasiness settles over me. I pull my knees up to my chin, rocking back and forth. Hades jumps to his hind legs on the armrest of my chair and lays his thick head on my shoulder. I close my eyes and ask Chase the question I already know the answer to. “How bad is it?”

Chase doesn’t pause his work when he answers me. “It’s not good, Jo.”

Ziggy comes running into the room and sits across from Chase, starting a different set of computers. “Care to fill me in?”

“Jo’s therapy files may have been accessed remotely from an outside source, most likely Bianchi’s hacker. I was able to crack through the clinic’s cyber wall in less than five minutes, and I located her files in their system. I’m currently trying to open her records.”

Ziggy grumbles as he works. “Aw, hell.”

Butch enters the room and grabs a tablet before approaching the flat screens on the wall. The screens flicker to life and texts of computer jargon scroll up the screens like movie credits—it looks like he’s installing code.

Chase updates Butch on what’s going on and he nods his understanding. Butch is not a man of many words, but what he lacks in communication, he makes up for in his knowledge of the dark web.

All three of the men work in silence, allowing the occasional swear to pass their lips from time to time.

Punk clears his throat. “How sure are we this is Bianchi’s doing and not Esteban’s? Couldn’t Moreno be behind this instead?”

“A fair point,” Chase says with his eyes focused on his computer. “Based on what we know, and what Bianchi has already revealed to Jo, he’s suspect number one. Setting a trap to see if Bianchi reveals more than he should, will confirm my suspicions.”

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