Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 43456 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 217(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43456 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 217(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
I nodded even though I wished he didn’t need to go back there. “I get it.”
A ghost of a smile touched Keegan’s mouth before he pressed a quick kiss to my lips. Then he looked back at Wizard. “Set her up so she can help, but keep her safe.”
“Already on it.” Wizard stood. “I’ll be ready for her in ten. Need to air-gap a machine for her first.”
He gave us a chin lift and headed down the hall toward his office.
Keegan shifted, turning so we were facing each other on the couch. His hands framed my face, his thumbs brushing my cheekbones. “You won’t be doing this alone. Wizard and Fallon are the best. And I’ll be back before you know it.”
“I know. Thanks for letting me help. Carson deserves the truth. And if someone at Aegis Aerospace Systems covered this up, I want to help burn it down.” I wrapped one of my hands around his. “Just be careful. These are dangerous people.”
“I know how to keep my head down, little dove.” He kissed me again, resting his forehead against mine when he pulled back. “Stay safe. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Promise?”
“Swear it.” He gave me one last kiss before he stood, tugging me up with him. He wrapped me in a tight hug, his chin resting on top of my head. “Knowing you’re here is a fuck of a lot of motivation to be quick.”
“Take as long as you need to be sure nobody at Aegis suspects you of anything.”
I didn’t know what I’d do if he got hurt digging into this. Losing my brother had been hard, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever get over it if something happened to Keegan.
“Don’t worry. I won't give them reason to suspect a thing,” he reassured me.
He gave me one last squeeze, then led me to Wizard’s office, where we had to wait for him to answer the door after Keegan knocked. I didn’t think I had seen so many electronics in one place, and suddenly the security pad with a fingerprint and retinal scan on the wall next to the door made more sense.
There was an entire wall of monitors and several computers set up at a half-circle desk in the center of the room. And a ton of interesting gadgets that I wouldn’t mind getting a closer look at.
“Be good for Wizard.”
Keegan’s request pulled me from my inspection of the office. “I will.”
He gave me a quick kiss, then murmured, “Bye, little dove.”
Already pulling his phone from his pocket, he headed for the door. He stopped in the doorway to talk to Fallon, who’d been about to knock when Keegan opened the door.
Then he was on his way, and it was just his two club brothers and me. They set me up at a small table in the corner of the office. Wizard walked me through the setup—dual air-gapped drives, encrypted partitions, and read-only access to the raw data dumps. Fallon sat beside me, and we started slowly with a side-by-side comparison of the two data sets, line by line.
I pointed out anomalies when I found them. Hours slipped by. My eyes burned from staring at numbers and letters, but every small discrepancy felt like a victory. As though we were peeling back layers of lies.
At some point, Fallon leaned back, stretching his arms overhead. “I’ve known Tomcat for a dozen years.”
I turned to look at him. “You have?”
“Yeah,” he confirmed with a nod. “We met when we were both at Fallon.”
“At Top Gun school?” Even if Keegan hadn’t shared with me that they’d been there together, I was a Navy brat, so I knew a lot about the different naval air stations and would’ve guessed.
“Yup.” His gaze turned mischievous as he added, “So I know what I’m saying when I tell you that Tomcat’s different with you.”
“Really?” I whispered.
“He’s never looked at anyone the way he looks at you. So you’d better be in it for the long haul because you’re quickly becoming the only thing keeping him tethered.”
I thought about how Keegan held me after I cried and hoped Fallon was right. Because Keegan might have grown up with parents who kept everything at arm’s length, but he was the opposite with me.
“Back off,” Wizard growled from across the room. “Unless you want Tomcat to kick your ass when he gets back.”
“It’s okay. Really,” I insisted when Wizard shot me a suspicious look.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” Fallon muttered.
I liked that Keegan had a friend looking out for him, but I wasn’t going to convince either of them of that. So I decided to lighten the mood instead. “I’ll forgive you if you tell me the real story behind his road name. I’m not sure I believe it’s just because he’s related to someone who helped develop the plane he’s named after,” I teased. “When he first told me, I assumed he earned the name because he was known for tomcatting around with lots of women.”