Page 36 of Too Guarded to Love

Olivia’s jaw dropped as she took in the recreation room. “Seriously?” She walked across the tile and slapped her brother on the side of his head.

He jumped from the black leather sectional. Drops of energy drink flew from the can he held and landed on his long-sleeve T-shirt. “Jesus, Livvie. What was that for?”

“I swear, Kane, if you call me one more time and complain about sitting around work and waiting for orders, I’ll throat punch you.” She darted her gaze to the three tables in the center of the room—pool, foosball, and Ping-Pong—and to a big screen television with a gaming system underneath. A full kitchen with a see-through refrigerator stocked with drinks and snacks took up an entire wall. “Being stuck in this adult male playground does not look like something to bitch about.”

Edgar tugged the cover over the corner of the pool table. “You should have heard how much they complained when this was just a small kitchen with no toys. Ain’t going to lie, though. I enjoy when I get to kick the president’s ass. That is, until we’re interrupted.” He looked at Olivia. “I checked in on Ava again before I came here. I asked her a question, and she squeezed my hand. That’s a good sign, correct?”

“Yes.” A very good sign.

“Sorry I’m late.” Ryan strode in with a stack of laptops in his hands. “I was guiding Hudson around traffic on the beltway. They should be here in twenty minutes.”

Olivia sank into a wooden chair at the end of the long table near the kitchen. “Hudson is VIPER’s medical support, right? And he’s married to Tessa, who used to be a paramedic but now heads up fundraising at Washington Medical Center.” She recalled Kane telling her about them and their son, a toddler whom everyone still refers to as “the baby” even though he was a year and a half old.

“Right.” Ryan explained why they were called back from wedding planning and how the tractor-trailer accident delayed their return.

Dread coursed through Olivia. “You think they’re targets too?”

“We don’t know yet and aren’t taking any chances.”

Nic nodded and turned his gaze to Olivia. “We protect what’s ours.”

Ours? As in Nic’s or VIPER’s? Confusion-laced panic rushed into her chest. Being Nic’s for a night had sounded divine when she’d been miles away from her brother. Being part of VIPER and its secrecy and danger and everything it entailed scared the crap out of her.

Ryan cleared his throat. “Chris and Linc are in the gym blowing off some steam, thank the devil.”

Nic chuckled. “Is Chris asking you every fifteen minutes for updates on Richardson?”

“More like every five.”

Olivia remembered seeing a headline a few weeks ago about an appeal Richardson had lost. “He’s Scarlett’s stepfather, right? Isn’t he in prison?”

“Yes, to the first. No, to the second, and that’s classified intel that’s not public knowledge.” Ryan adjusted the technology load in his arms. “Let’s get started. Gage is with Lucy because she woke up from a nightmare, and Patience is with Gran, so it’s just us.”

“Does anybody sleep around here?”

“The demolition twins finally passed out.” Ryan sat at the other end, popped open the multiple laptops and looked at Olivia. “We have information about your job.”

She leaned forward in her seat. “And?”

“With everything going on tonight, my team and I have been busy, so Nic did some research into the hospital’s network.”

She spun to Nic. “You know how to hack?”

“My degree from West Point is in computer science. I’m not as good as Ryan, although he and Scarlett have taught me a lot. It took me a couple of hours, but I was able to get past your organization’s firewalls. There’s evidence someone tampered with your documentation and calendar. Ryan double-checked my findings. They’re accurate.”

She placed a hand on her heart, which beat in overdrive. She didn’t know what made her happier—that Nic had forgone sleep to help clear her name, he believed her, or she had the evidence to do the clearing. But she did know he was more than a bossy soldier with a pretty face and a bionic body. He was smart and supportive too. “Thank you.”

“I didn’t want to tell you in case I was wrong.”

“And you aren’t, which means if the hospital’s security team had looked into it like I’d asked, they would have found the breach.”

“Not necessarily. I knew exactly what I was looking for.”

Ryan looked up from his laptops. “I did a quick dive into the hospital’s cybersecurity team’s credentials and its investment into network security. Based on the lack of resources and talent, the red flag Nic found wouldn’t have been discovered. I also did some preliminary digging into Jonathan Garrity. I haven’t found anything criminal yet, but his knowledge of your whereabouts is a red flag.”

Olivia bit back, “No shit.” She’d known Jonathan since she’d started working at Southern Memorial. It had taken a year in their evolving relationship from colleagues, to friends, to lovers, to figure out the guy was shady. If only she had figured it out as quickly as Ryan. Maybe the key to foresight wasn’t possessing a sixth sense. Maybe it was three laptops.

Ryan set his fingers on the center keyboard. “Nic had asked local PD to check for signs of a tracker on your car. Nothing. And I accessed video footage from the rental car garage and traffic cameras for your route to the beach. It doesn’t appear that you were followed. Your phone didn’t have a tracker in it either.”