“I know she appreciates staying with you and being close to Bianca. I’m sure she’s happy to help.”
Michael’s gaze drifted to me and he studied me as the silence grew thick. “You two grew close when you guarded her.”
“We did.”
Michael’s eyes lingered on me as I wondered if he knew of my feelings for Alexis. Keeping secrets from him wasn’t allowed with the oath I pledged to him, and I felt like a piece of shit for not telling him. Opening my mouth, I decided to confess just as his phone rang.
“Yes?” He scowled into the phone. “Okay, can you meet me at our spot at Fort Tilton beach? Good. See you there in fifteen minutes.”
Clicking off the phone, his expression grew serious. “One of Oskar’s men was arrested for drunk driving last night. He offeredto turn on Oskar in lieu of prosecution, and Leo has information for us.”
“That could be huge.”
Michael nodded. “We’ll talk more at dinner tonight. For now, let’s focus on figuring out what the hell’s going on. I refuse to allow another shipment to slip in under my nose. And if someone’s stockpiling for a war, I damned well want to know who.”
We rode in silence to Fort Tilton, a latent understanding passing between us: if someone was stockpiling weapons and keeping it from Michael, then the war they wanted to wage was onhim.
Armed with that heavy knowledge, we headed to meet Leo.
Alexis
My fingers roved over my keyboard in my office as I completed the additional encryption I’d installed on Michael’s Wi-Fi. The original encryption was fine for everyday Wi-Fi users, but with the recent breaches, I wanted extra firewalls.
I clicked enter, and smiled. “There. Much better.”
Rising, I headed to his office to restart the router. When I returned to my laptop, I pulled up the available networks and located Michael’s which I’d affectionately renamed “SFH740479!*0969.” Of course, SFH stood for “Siver Fox Hottie,” which was my favorite nickname for Michael.
I logged into his router on an incognito browser just to double check the connected devices and my mouse arrow hovered over one I’d never seen. “What the fuck?”
There was a device named CAM09368 and I looked toward the ceiling as I racked my brain. I’d renamed all the outsidesecurity cameras, and they all appeared on the list I was seeing. The names were similar: CAM69409, CAM53098, and so on, but I had an excellent memory and didn’t remember entering the specific sequence CAM09368. I checked the number of cameras listed—fourteen total—but something felt off. If someone had hacked in and attached a new camera to the Wi-Fi, they could’ve deleted the old one to ensure the number of devices remained the same.
I’d created encryption that didn’t allow the cameras to be named the same twice as a precaution, just in case we were hacked, which I didn’t think was possible with my encryption skills. Sitting back in my chair, I blew out a huge breath.
“Someone with some good fucking hacking skills is watching us,” I whispered. I was sure of it. There couldn’t be any other possible explanation.
Standing, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise. Fear snaked down my spine at the knowledge that everyone in the house was possibly being surveilled. Walking into the foyer, I found Chris there. He usually stayed at home as a lookout when Michael needed Joaquin and Enzo with him.
“Hey, Alexis. You good?”
“Um, not really. Can you come out back with me for a second?”
His eyebrows lifted. “Is everything okay? You look spooked.”
“I kind of am. I think someone planted a camera in the back yard. Can you come with me while I look?”
He hesitated. “We should call Michael and wait until he gets home.”
“He told us last night at dinner that he and Nick will be out all day. I can’t wait that long. If you don’t come with me, I’ll just do it myself.” Pivoting, I pulled my phone from my pocket and headed toward the kitchen.
Chris muttered something that sounded like “stubborn Rossi women” and followed me into the back yard.
I searched my phone for the app I needed and held it high as I rotated it around.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m using a RF triangulation app to pinpoint where a signal is coming from.” I walked around the yard, monitoring where the signal grew weaker and then stronger. Approaching the gate, I unlatched it and walked through.
“Alexis, you need to stay inside the fence,” Chris said, following me.
