“Bye, Momma.”
She hit end on the call and went back to her laptop, pulled up a search engine, and went looking for a company called XXXX in Italy. Once she found the website, she searched for a menu and contact details and found exactlynothing.
Well, shit. How the heck can they expect to do business if there is no way for a potential client to contact them on their pages?
Even if they didn’t have their contact details on the site, she figured she could make an educated guess at what the emails might be. She opened up her personal email and double-checked the spelling on the photo of the list.
Oh, I thought his name was spelled different, I didn't even notice when I was searching earlier.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Home & our mommas.
Gunner,
I’m not sure if you remember me; I was a couple of years below you in school. My momma wants to do something special for your momma. Can you get back to me so we can bounce around some ideas?
Thank you.
Jorja
She read over it a couple of times, then decided that sounded perfectly reasonable, and hit send. Her inbox immediately populated with an email. Her heart sank and she already knew what it meant but went and opened it anyway. She scanned the email, “of course you bounced. Let’s try [email protected].” Once again, the email bounced back. After trying every combination she could think of, she was up to ten attempts when she gave up. There was only one thing for it; she’d just have to go to Italy and tell him in person. “Okay, I’ve always wanted to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa and Rome.” Even so, she couldn’t just drive around Italy and hope to bump into one of the McKinleys. She needed a better plan than that. She pulled up another database, this time for Italian registered businesses. That would be her starting point. She’d figure it out from there. She set everything up to run. If she was going to drive to Italytomorrow, then she needed some sleep. Maybe, somewhere in her dreams she could come up with a logical reason why she was doing this. An explanation which didn’t result in Gunnar and his brothers thinking she was insane would also be helpful. She carefully moved her laptop onto the floor and flipped off the light. If she didn’t know what she would say by morning, then she had more than a thousand miles to figure it out. That would have to be good enough for now.
CHAPTER TWO
Gunnar McKinley,former SEAL and CEO of The Four X’s Group, adjusted the headphone in his right ear and made a mental note to yell at his younger brother, Remi, for insisting these wireless ones were better than his old over the head ones which hadn’t survived a dunk in the pool last week. “Bastard does shit like this just to annoy me on purpose.” He adjusted the speed on the treadmill and kept running. He was sixteen miles in on a twenty-six-mile stretch.
Only ten to go.
Easy day.
I’ve got this.
He glanced at the clock and pushed his legs to move faster. Even if he beat yesterday’s time by a second, that was improvement. He’d take it. Getting shot on his last mission had sucked. It had sucked even worse that recovery was taking longer than he’d like. He was determined to get his ass back in the field as fast as possible. Passing fitness tests was the first step. Although he was sure their medic would have a shit fit if he knew Gunnar was throwing down miles on the treadmill, but Gunnar didn’t give a shit. He was over thecoddling. Tyrone Power had better remember who paid his fucking wages. He just wasn’t over it enough to pull rank and insist he didn’t need to pass the damn tests. He would not put his people in danger because he was impatient. That would never be acceptable in his book, especially as three of the men relying on him were his younger brothers. His mom wouldn’t like it if they got hurt because of him. He did not want to be on his mom’s wrong side. Especially not this close to her annual visit.
“Yo, Gun?”
“What?” He didn’t dare glance over his shoulder at Talon, his youngest brother. Most of his concentration was required to ensure he didn’t fly off the ass end of the treadmill. He’d never live that shit down.
“Remi needs you in his office, stat.”
Damn it. He’d been so fucking close to hitting the twenty-six miler and under time to boot. He hit the stop button and slowed his steps in time with the machine. “Why didn’t he call me? I have my phone.”
“He did.” Talon tossed him a bottle of water. “Said you didn’t answer, so he sent us.”
Gunnar snatched the bottle out of the air. He forced himself to breathe as normally as possible. If Talon figured out that he was winded from the run, he’d tease him, and Gunnar really wasn’t in the mood today. “I didn’t hear it. Sorry.” He wiped sweat from his brow, draped the towel over his shoulders, and plucked his phone out of the pocket on the treadmill. “What happened?” He figured it couldn’t be a problem with the team he had in the field. All the warning lights in this room would have started flashing if a situation that dire had transpired.
“Someone is hunting us.” Talon twirled his finger next to his hip and his ever-present K9 twirled on the spot to place himself back at Talon’s heels as they both walked toward thedoor. “Remi said shit is pinging, but he’s still looking for the who and where.” Talon pushed through the door, held it for him, then let it swing closed behind them.
“Why is someone looking for us?” Gunnar ducked his head to avoid the hanging basket of geraniums. “We’ve been off radar for weeks.”
“There’s always someone after something,” Talon said dryly. “You know that, bro. Everyone wants something. Usually for nothing.”
“Truth.” He stepped into the office at the other side of the courtyard. “SITREP.” He figured Remi wouldn’t give a shit that he was being short on words. When his brother worked on computers, he tended to get lost in the patterns and shit he said existed in the codes. Gunnar didn’t give a flying fuck about those codes and numbers as long as Remi kept deciphering them Barney style so he and the others could understand what was needed.
“We’ve had hits on the website.” Remi pointed to his computer screen with the chewed end of a pen. “See?”
