She was an addition to the team that had come from LA. Her name was Cora, and she was a high-tech hacker. Max explained that the LAPD had used her for a number of special secret projects.
At first, I didn’t think much of her because she had purple hair and seemed more at home in a cyber bar at college, but she surely put me in my place from the minute she opened her mouth.
Apparently, she thought she could track Victor’s location from the number that was on Amelia’s phone. The number he’d sent the text message from with Gigi’s picture. Thankfully, Amelia’s phone was still in her purse and hadn’t been taken with her.
I tried to tell Cora that we’d already tried to locate him this way, but she was still of the belief that she could do it.
It gave me some hope. Hope I hadn’t felt since this whole nightmare took off.
We all sat in the living room, and tension was thick in the air, to say the least.
Cora sat near the coffee table with a laptop in front of her. Sinclaire and Max stood side by side behind her. I sat opposite her with Maurice and Saul. At least we were near them.
On the other side of the room were Raphael, Pa, Claudius, and The Four. They kept to themselves, and the looks they cast this side was enough to kill.
Cops and mobsters. Cops, mobsters, and one tech hacker.
Maurice had brought him and Max up to speed with what was going and who Amelia really was.
Neither of them had asked me about it. While Sinclaire was very vocal, I noticed Max said very little. I’d never spoken to the guy, and knowing him for the hour or so I’d known him, I didn’t know what to make of him except that he didn’t like our kind. I guess I had to understand since Raphael had threatened him to take his family and uproot to Florida to make room for me to slip in as Amelia’s fake partner.
I’d become a cop, a thing I hated most. Back then. My tolerance had grown substantially over the last few months.
“I think this should work,” Cora announced. She glanced at me and looked away instantly. Her skin flushed, and she looked uncomfortable.
I didn’t mean to look the way I did with the harsh expression on my face. And quite frankly, I didn’t care how I looked. My concern was whether or not she could help.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“More than you,” Sinclaire muttered under his breath.
Fucking asshole was working my last nerve. He kept dropping remarks like that the whole time. Like this was all my fault.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I looked him straight in the eye, and the fool looked back at me. It didn’t help that he was standing and I was sitting down. It made it look like he had the upper hand over me. Authority.
“Go figure.” He smirked.
I glanced at Claudius, who leaned forward with a grin on his face. It wasn’t a grin of amusement; it was the expression he wore right before a fight.
Of the two of us, I was considered the more even-tempered brother. Claudius wouldn’t stand for this shit.
“Go figure?” Claudius challenged. His voice reverberated across the walls.
Sinclaire looked at him. I felt jealous of the wary look that washed over him, because he seemed to be more afraid of Claudius than me.
Saul started laughing.
“This is real interesting,” Saul commented. “Cops and mobsters. It’s like a game.”
“Can we just keep quiet, so Cora can focus?” I offered.
Again, she looked at me, nervously, but she faced me.
“I’m screwing with their firewalls.”
“They have firewalls on a phone number?” Never heard of anyone doing that.
“Yeah, big time. They hired the best to do this. It basically stops any trace from being made on them. Very clever.”
