Havoc hasn’t bellowed a word this entire time. Almost like he is trying to choose his words carefully.
“Raegan, who wants to hack us?” Havoc finally speaks leaning forward in his chair.
I grab my bag and pull out my laptop. After booting it up, I pull the email I was sent and show the guys.
“It was sent by a guy named Antonio Garza. It took me a few minutes to reverse the sender, but it led me there. I couldn’t find anyone by that name at first, but the Vipers do have a Tony Garza in their crew. He does a lot of computer stuff for them apparently.”
There is a collective groan and cussing going around the room now.
“Hold the fuck up!” Hawk hops up and snatches the laptop right out of my hands. His eyes are all over the screen, but then he stares back up at me with a new found attitude. “You’re Ghost? No fucking way!” he snaps in disbelief then drops my computer on the desk to grab my upper arms in a fierce grip causing me to whimper. I don’t think these men understand just how gigantic they are compared to me.
I hear the sliding of chairs and then Hawk is snatched from in front of me with Kane pushing me behind him.
“Don’t you ever put your hands on her,” he booms. His hands are shaking. I think with the way his body is locked and tense and ready for battle that he could take on an army.
Brass and Havoc both have Hawk up against the wall. I bury my head into Kane’s back to collect myself. Hawk didn’t hurt me, but he did surprise the shit out of me. Being manhandled is not something I’m used to and after just a few days around these men I think I’ve hit my limit.
“No, no. You don’t understand. I’ve been trying to find you for years,” Hawk confesses trying to shake off the guys. “Every time I get close to being able to contact you, you seem to vanish on the deep web.” He turns to the other guys in the room and says, “She’s like the biggest celebrity in the IT world.”
The tension eases a little as Hawk tames his overzealous enthusiasm. Kane heaves out a breath then turns his back to the others and starts checking me out. Leaning down he whispers, “Are you okay?” When I nod, he says, “I won’t let anyone hurt you.” He starts rubbing my back then upper arms, soothing my anxiety away.
I nod because I don’t trust my voice right now. I know he can probably tell I’m still a little shaken. Kane leads me over behind his desk to sit in his chair and to put some distance from the others. I can’t help to think what Havoc is thinking about Kane’s protectiveness over me.
“Are you cool, Hawk?” Kane asks pointedly.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m sorry if I scared you. You’re a legend and…wow.” Hawk looks star struck. It makes me feel a little weird.
“If you’re done fangirling, we need to get to business,” Kane chides.
He nods to me and I pick up the laptop that landed on the desk.
“Before going any further, the people in this room are the only ones who know my identity as Ghost, and I’d like for it to stay that way. Things could get very bad for me if who I really was got out,” I say to them while looking around the room at the four burly men.
They each give me their word and we move on.
“I received this email a few days ago and did some research. I have no idea why they want it, but thought you all should know. I did hack into your system and downloaded everything to show you just how easy it can be done by a person who knows what they’re doing.”
I pull out a flash drive and place it on the desk.
“Also, I was able to plant a bug on Tony Garza’s computer and made a copy of all his files onto an external hard drive so that you’d be able to see what they had. I don’t normally get involved, but since meeting you guys this last week and having a history with Riot and Havoc, I wanted to let you all know.”
“That’s a lot of money to pass up. How do we know that you didn’t already send our information to them?” Brass questions as he skims over the email request.
“You don’t, I guess. But I don’t have a dog in this fight, and I would never put Riot or even Havoc in harm’s way, even if I hated his guts at the time. The good thing about my job is that it pays well, so I can pick and choose who I help.” I look over at Havoc and he’s giving me a curious expression.
Hawk takes the flash drive off the desk.
“Oh, before I forget.” I dig back into the bag once again and pull another flash drive out. “This is for your new firewall. I had it specifically designed to block any attempts to hack into your system.”
I pass it over towards Hawk and he gladly takes it.
“I would love to get together—” Hawk says then starts to take a step closer to me when another growl comes from Kane.
“Everyone out! Church in the morning, let everyone know that we’ll need to vote on some things before Sunday,” he orders.
The four men stand and start to make their way out of the room. I can tell by the way Havoc is looking back and forth between Kane and I that he must know that something is going on between us.
If I didn’t get them out of that room immediately, I think I would’ve killed one of them. How dare Hawk put a hand on my woman! I’m already on edge with the Vipers, and now they are trying to get all our information. Then, Hawk goes and grabs Raegan. Fuck no. We need to leave the clubhouse right now before someone else pisses me off and I actually do kill someone in front of her.
