Page 6 of The Geek and the Sheikh

When he returned to his seat, he scanned the screen where he was monitoring Colin Coldhouse and Andrius Bronislav. Both men were on the top ten list of most wanted in Jawahir. They had both tried to kill members of the royal family. Thanks to Bugs, he had shut down most of the funding flowing into Bronislav's companies, and Cold Methods Security, the mercenary group led by Colin Coldhouse, was now out of business for good.

Unfortunately, the two men were still a threat. He glanced at the series of world clocks on the wall, remembering all the times he had tried to guess where Bugs lived. It had been impossible to tell. She came and went like a ghost throughout the day and night.

He didn't know when she slept. He needed at least six hours to be functional. There had been times when she posted almost continuously for days, especially once the attacks on his brothers began.

He had tried to track her once, and she had snubbed him. He had expected her to blow up at him. Instead, she had returned the favor… with a vengeance.

The rootkit she had installed had taken him amonthto disable. During that time, he was trapped in a virtual room, unable to exit the game to access the rest of his computer. The virus had spread to the rest of his devices too.

He had rebooted into safe mode of course, tried different VPN addresses, new logins, everything he could think of. Every time he logged in—on any device—he was back in the barren room with a thousand doors that all led back to the same place. He even bought a new device, but connecting it to his old ones in any way had transferred the virus to it.

He had found the solution eventually, and he was a better hacker because of it, but her message had been very clear. If he messed with her again, she could, and would, do much worse to him. The most powerful message of all was when he tried to reconstruct what she had done and found that all traces of her coding were gone—wiped clean—in a manner he had never witnessed before.

He grimaced at the memory. Since then, he had resorted to the old fashioned way of researching—writing everything down. He stroked his thumb over the tattered journal he kept with him. It contained interesting tidbits of information that he had gleaned from his conversations with Bugs. It also contained a lot of his personal feelings and thoughts. The notebook was a dangerous thing to have, but he found comfort in writing and reading his posts.

The ping of the computer drew his attention. He sat forward, placed his coffee mug on his desk, and opened the message. His smile grew as he typed.

Hey, beautiful. You're up early. Is everything okay?

This isn't Bugs. Is this Jam-man?

He stiffened, his fingers hovering above the keyboard. Fear made his stomach clench. His eyes froze on the screen before he read the message again, twice. He typed a curt reply.

Who is this and where is Bugs?

You helped me find my mystery lady.

He sat back when the reply came. Confusion flooded him. There was only one person that could be—his twin brother, Junayd. What the hell was Junayd doing on Bugs' computer?

Shaking his head, he typed a brief quote, leaving the ending for the person on the other end to complete. If someone had been monitoring their conversations, they wouldn't know this one. It was a running joke between the two of them.

'You know that you are supposed to be'…

… The sane one out of the four of us.

Disbelief held him immobile in his chair for a split second before he typed out a furious reply. His heart hammered with fear. If his brother was there, that meant something had to be wrong… seriously wrong. No one knew who Bugs was. It didn't make sense that his brother would know before he did. Junayd was a frigging doctor—not an IT or security genius!

What the hell are you doing on this system? Where's Bugs?

We think she is coming to see you.

Jameel stared at the screen in stunned silence. Bugs… was coming to see him? Did she know who he was? They had never talked about it. Well, she had never asked. That had seemed strange to him, especially after all the time he had spent trying to find information on her.

She knows who I am? How are you on her account?

He waited impatiently as the dotted lines showed that his brother was typing. It seemed to take forever before Junayd replied. When he did, the air swooshed out of Jameel's lungs.

Her sister is my mystery lady. She is worried that Bugs will be in danger because she… is not used to being out in the world alone. Have you heard from her?

Bugs was in danger? A deluge of memories of all the really terrible people Bugs had brought down—including Coldhouse and Bronislav—swept through his mind.

Danger! She's walking into a frigging minefield if Coldhouse, Bronislav, or more than half the countries in the world find out her identity!he thought with growing horror.And what did Junayd mean when he said she wasn't used to being out in the world alone?Was she held captive all these years?

He realized that his brother was waiting for a response. He quickly typed one, along with a promise to keep in touch—after he found out some answers. At least he had a starting point. He could link what he knew about Midnight to Bugs.

The ping of the computer alerted him that Junayd had sent a few additional pieces of information. Bugs had used a ride-share. That would create data. He concentrated on the cameras around the area where she was picked up to get a visual on her.

"Finally!" he muttered as his fingers flew across the keyboard.

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