“Yeah?” Brandon sounded like he was chewing.
Of course he was chewing. Help desk ran on caffeine and sarcasm and sandwiches.
“If April Feuller shows up, you tell her Jax already flagged it and you send her to sublevel. Server room. Immediately.”
“Uh… is this a printer thing or a April needs actual help thing?”
“Just send her to me.”
Brandon swallowed. “Got it. And if she asks me to fix it?”
“You look her in the eyes,” Jax said, “and you tell her this is a Jax thing.”
“Do not let it become a Brandon thing.”
“Message received.”
Jax ended the call and spun his chair back toward the bank of monitors.
He pulled up the elevator cam feeds. The hallway cams. The access logs.
He told himself he was checking for Chad.
He was also looking for April.
Two figures on the third-floor corridor: April, moving fast. Arthur Vance behind her like a tall, well-dressed omen.
Jax’s mouth twitched.
April turned slightly as she walked, like she’d realized she was being followed.
Jax’s gaze dropped to her hands.
Phone clenched tight.
Shoulders rigid.
Still moving when her body clearly wanted to stop.
His fingers hovered over a text field.
His thumb tapped once against the screen.
His brain offered up a dozen messages in rapid succession.
He didn’t type any of them.
He sent… something else.
Years of love have been forgot, in the hatred of a minute.
“Okay, Okay. Cool. Great choice, Jax.”
Then he moved again.
He keyed in additional locks on the server-room door. Pulled up a clean workstation. Prepped the session-ending scripts and the MFA reset flow. Set the room to “restricted” in the building system so only authorized badges would register.
The elevator camera feed flashed. Sublevel doors opening.
