“Why not?” she quips back, planting her hands on her legging-clad hips. She’s wearing another version of the same outfit Oliver gave her a few days ago, and I finally got my hands on a similar one.
I flip the asshole off because the memory of what he put me in for the meeting starts all over again.
“Because,” I whisper-hiss, “he’s like a cute puppy. If you give him a nickname, he’ll stick around!”
Ella sighs long and loud, but Oliver merely shifts in his chair and flicks his gaze back to his row of many,manyscreens. The tech room in Madeline’s compound is a hundred times crazier than Stone’s. I’d be impressed if I weren’t seconds from flipping his glass desk on its side.
“Actually,” he murmurs. “If you give a puppy food, he’ll probably stick around. If you just give him a nickname, he’ll likely piss all over his property.” He narrows his eyes at Ella and jerks his chin at me. “What do you call him to make him so annoyingly feral over you?”
Her mouth gapes open and she quickly grips my arm, digging her nails in as if to hold me back. Did she think that would offend me? Hah. This prick will have to try a hell of a lot harder to get under my skin.
Leaning back in my chair, I give him a lazy smirk. Slowly reaching up, I slide my fingers around the back of her neck and squeeze possessively.
“Well,” I drawl. “When we’re around people, she calls me Hunt.” I shift, wrapping my hand around her ponytail. I tug. Hard. “But when I’m buried between her thighs, eating her sweet cunt, she calls me Daddy.”
A chorus of gasps echoes around the suddenly too quiet room, and my mouth falls open. Fuck. I forgot where we were. My throat bobs as I release her hair and retract my hand, retreating the way one would near a ravenous beast.
“Elle,” I murmur, gulping. Her head turns slowly, reminding me of a creepy movie. I hold my hands up to placate the sleepy demon. “My love—”
“Don’t!” she hisses, pointing a finger at my face. “Do notmy loveme, Hunter Morris!”
“Oooh!” Oliver laughs. “You just got full named—”
“And you!” she snaps, turning her ire toward the current object of my irritation.
I smirk, settling in for the drama. This is going to be so good. I wait, and wait, but it never comes. I flick my gaze to Ella, finding her shoulders slumped and her eyes watery.
My mouth falls open. What the hell just happened?
She sniffles and drops tiredly to her seat. “What are we going to do, Oliver?” Her voice cracks and my heart goes right along with it. “If you can’t track them from our phones, and haven’t found anything with the bugs in my jewelry yet, what are we supposed to do? It’s only been a few days and I feel like I’m losing my mind. What if—”
Ella’s jaw ticks as she fights with all she has to hold back her emotions. It takes a ridiculous amount of control to keep myself from snatching her up, and running far, far away from here. I’d do anything to protect her, to keep her safe. I’d die for her, and nearly did. It was hell, but I’d do it a hundred times over just to fix this for her.
Unfortunately, this is out of my wheelhouse.
My throat constricts as I turn my focus to Oliver. It’s beyond anything I can do, and that means this random nerd is our only hope.
Goddammit.
He seems utterly uncomfortable with her emotions, and I almost smile as I watch him shift awkwardly, looking anywhere but at her. Poor fucker.
My smile falls and my brows dip. Since when did I start feeling bad for the guy?
I rub my forehead. This is becoming exhausting.
“Well,” he mutters as he stares off into the distance and drums his fingers on his thigh. “You said the trackers all transmit back to the phones, but there has to be a central system they default to when the phones are out of commission.”
“Yeah,” I reply, watching Ella out of the corner of my eye. She’s doing her best to keep it together, but I can see the strain in her eyes, the way she’s gripping the edge of the table like it’s the only thing keeping her grounded. “Stone set it up that way—smart, considering what we’re up against.”
And I don’t even think the Diablos had any idea how deep shit runs when Stone created the program.
Oliver nods, his mind already racing ahead. “So, if their phones are destroyed, the trackers switch to transmitting back to a central hub, right?”
“Exactly,” Ella cuts in, her voice steady despite the undercurrent of fear she’s trying to hide. “Stone coded it himself and only the six, well, seven of us, know about it. The trackers are embedded in our jewelry—rings, bracelets, whatever we’ve got on us. Plus, each of the guys has a tracker in their cufflinks. If the phones go dark, they start transmitting to one of two places: our house or The Den.”
“The Den?”
I notice the way her hands tremble at his question and she quickly tucks them under her thighs, so I jump in.
