"I'm fine," I said, waving him off. "It grazed me. We'll deal with it later."
"You should let me have a look at that," one of the EMTs said.
"Yes," Mamma agreed. "You should."
"Not now," I replied, walking past them.
Renzo and his team met us in the driveway. He let out a relieved sigh and hugged my Father. "Uncle, I'm glad to see you're okay."
"Where's my family?" Father asked.
Renzo's gray T-shirt was darkened with sweat and he held a semi-automatic in his hands. "Nonna's inside. She went to Dr. Monte's house. Said she had Markie get the twins out of here. We're still lookin' for them."
Nonna chose that very moment to come waltzing out of the house, raising a fist at any of the EMTs who tried to stop her.
"I was slowin' Markie and the kids down, Dom. I had her take them on as I went to the doc's house. She had a good lead and I took down two of those bastards to make sure she stayed ahead of them."
Mamma took care of Nonna, leading her back into the house, while Father pulled me aside.
"Get to Tech's office," he told me. "I want you both staring at that goddamn wall of screen of his until you find the twins. I'll get teams all over the city so we can move the instant you two have a visual."
I nodded.
"Good. I don't know who to trust right now, Angel, but I know I can trust you. You do whatever you need to do, you hear me?"
"Yes sir."
With that, Bones and I headed out to infiltrate Tech's mysterious lair.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Angel
IFIRST MET Tech over Skype when I was eight years old and trying to network my father's computer to the new security system. Tech walked me through a compatibility issue, and then showed me how to program the outside lights so we could turn them on remotely. He was the smartest person I'd ever known. Over the years, we worked on several more projects together, and I gained an awestruck respect for him. Although I'd never met him in person, Tech was my idol.
His office was well-hidden beneath a self-storage building toward the north end of Las Vegas. I'd used a key and a finger print scanner to get down to his level and there was one last step. Excited to finally meet the man behind the screens, I leaned against the retinal scanner and waited.
"You sure about this?" Bones asked.
The scanner beeped, and the door unlocked with a click.
I nodded, turning the handle. "Yeah. I need you on the street. If I find them, I want you to be the first one there. I can't trust anyone else. Text me when you get to Ari's. Maybe the two of you can figure out where Markie would take the kids. Drive around. You search your way, I'll search mine, and maybe one of us will get lucky."
My friend was still hesitant to leave me, but I didn't have time for his shit. I pulled open the heavy iron door and walked into every geek's wet dream. Over one hundred square security camera feeds were projected onto the white wall to my left. I froze and took it all in, hearing the door close and lock behind me. Tech's messy blond mop peeked over the top of a high-backed desk chair, positioned in front of the wall. Keyboard keys clicked, and then the images on the wall rotated.
Wondering if he realized I was there, I cleared my throat and stepped forward.
"Take a seat." He directed me to the empty chair beside him. "I'm dividing the screen in half, and you have a keyboard and a mouse to control the feeds on your side. If you have any... wait a second. What do we have here?"
My gaze shifted to the feed he was studying. Blonde woman, two small children. Thinking he'd found them, I ignored the chair and rushed to his side. He zoomed in until we got a clear view of the faces. Not Markie, and not the twins. His only reaction was to switch to a different feed.
"You shouldn't have any questions. DOS commands, it's self-explanatory." Then Tech seemed to realize I was standing right beside him. He leaned away and looked up at me over dark-framed glasses. "Angel."
"Tech." I nodded.
His gaze shifted back to the chair he obviously wanted me to sit in. I eased into it and looked around. Tech's workspace was immaculate. He had a yellow smiley-faced stress ball in front of his keyboard, but that was the only decorative element. Everything else was functional. Coffeepot, phones, computers, screens.
As for Tech, I'd put him somewhere in his mid-forties, but wearing a black-and-white checkered button-up shirt, and black joggers tucked into classic red Chuck Taylors he looked more like some twenty-something wannabe hipster.
