She nodded and pulled out a paper and pen to take notes. Knowing that something was going to be off the record and illegal, Rowan kept it off the computer and used a paper and pen so she could ensure any evidence got destroyed. “What do you need?”
I explained everything I wanted her to do as she took notes. She didn’t ask what was going on or why I was asking her to make it look like this woman took off and disappeared on her own. Rowan took it all in stride.
“Do you need phony documents for her?”
The safest option for her would be to disappear completely with a new name, social, and a completely different future in a new place far away from here. It wasn’t right that she would have to run from her home, and I hated the thought of her being somewhere I couldn’t protect her. It was something I had never experienced with any of the women we had helped in the past.
I clenched my jaw hard. “Get a new identity together for her. We’ll use it as a backup in case shit goes south, and she needs to get out fast. I’m hoping we can figure out a way to keep her here.”
Rowan paused and looked up at me curiously. Her dark, copper-colored eyes pinned me as she raised a perfectly arched brow at me. “You’ve helped quite a few women over the years, Killian.”
“Your point?” I ground out.
Her eyes softened even as my voice hardened. “Your mom would be proud of you, but she would also want you to find someone to make you happy, and you have enough legal businesses to let go of the illegal shit. You don’t need the headache of the illegal games and loan sharking.”
“How’s the girl Donovan rescued?” I switched the subject to the other girl we were protecting from these assholes, not wanting to address what she said. It was true. I could have gotten out of the underworld a long fucking time ago, but I didn’t. If I had gotten out, where would both the young women we were protecting right now be? Fucked.
“She’s as good as can be expected.” Rowan sounded indifferent, but I knew she still felt outrage at what the girl had been through. Distant memories and traumas were being brought up by this situation, but unfortunately, it couldn’t be helped. “I only came into the office because you asked to meet with me, but I’m headed back to the loft after we’re done here. I will work from there until we can figure out what to do with her.”
I nodded. “Are you doing okay, Ro?” I reverted to the shortened form of her name that I picked up, calling her when she was a kid.
“I’m not a wilted flower, Killian. I can take care of myself. You and Donovan made sure of it.” She gave me a confident half smirk as she sat back in the modern high-backed chair.
I smiled. She was right. Once Donovan and I got out of juvie and back to the group home, we taught Rowan how to kick ass if she needed to. Because we would not be there much longer. I only had six months left in the group home after we got out, and Donovan had just over a year.
If we weren’t around and she ever got cornered like that again, she could do some damage of her own and get away. Rowan also knew she could always come to us if she needed help.
“We taught you well, but this has to bring up some shit for you.” I was genuinely concerned for her. She was my sister as much as Donovan was my brother. I cared about them both and felt a responsibility toward them.
“I’m good, Killian. I promise. If it gets bad again, I’ll let you know.”
I nodded and stood up from my chair seated across from her desk and moved toward her window overlooking the city below. She preferred the hustle and bustle of being in downtown Houston, where I preferred the north side of the city. Close enough to be involved, but far enough to keep my distance from the madness of downtown traffic that seemed never-ending. Donovan and I were the only two that knew the full extent of the hell she’d been through.
Rowan kept these offices for when she needed to meet clients for her cyber security firm. She was a wiz with computers. After she aged out of the system, she took the full ride to college that being in the foster system afforded you and worked her ass off to get through school majoring in computer science.
When she needed money to start up her company, I gave it to her as a graduation present. Rowan insisted on paying me back when her company started turning a profit, which didn’t take long. She was family, so I didn’t charge her any kind of interest for the startup capital, and when she paid me back in full, I put the money in a trust for her as a rainy day fund if she ever needed it.
Most of what she did was legitimate and within the lines of the law. The only time she stepped beyond that line was when she was doing something for me or Donovan, or when she was protecting someone like creating fake documents to help a woman disappear.
There was something else I needed from Rowan. Something that if she were to be caught, she could do hard time for. It could end everything she’d worked so hard to build. Rowan had come so far from the little girl at the group home that wouldn’t talk to anyone, to the kid who would only talk to me and Donovan—the two men she considered her brothers.
“I need something else from you.” I hesitated. My whole body tightened with distaste at asking her to do what I needed. The stuff I’d asked her to do in the past was small compared to what this would entail. She could go to jail for all of it, but the likelihood of her getting caught was about to increase exponentially. I hated it. It was my job to protect her.
“This sounds ominous,” she half joked. I could feel her eyes on me even as I refused to look at her. How the hell did I tell my sister I wanted her to do something that could put her world in jeopardy? “Rip it off like a band-aid,” she whispered as if she was reading my mind.
I sighed and turned around to face her, taking in her purple hair and copper-colored eyes. She was five foot three inches of edgy, angsty female, and I never wanted to see her in an orange jumpsuit. She was better than that.
“Don’t say yes right away, Ro. You think about this long and hard before you say yes because it could get you in a lot of trouble if you get caught—trouble I most likely wouldn’t be able to get you out of.”
She cocked a brow at me and laced her fingers over her stomach as she considered me carefully, then shrugged, “What do you need?”
I ran my fingers through my hair, then stated, “I need you to hack a federal judge. I need eyes on his emails, appointments, any suspicion of corruption tied to him, and you can’t leave a trace that you were ever there.”
“When do you need it by?”
“Tomorrow.”
“I will do it tonight.”
