Page 18 of Digital Desire

“For coming for me, even though I was a bitch.”

“You were not a bitch, and I’ll always come for you, Aubrey. The quicker you start believing that, the quicker we can get to the good stuff,” he said as he traced the skin of her arm with his fingertips.

“I’m so worried about Madison,” she admitted showing a chink in her armour.

“I know, but the guys will get her back and if there is one thing I know about the Herbert women—it’s that they are strong and resilient. She’ll keep herself safe until we can get her out.”

“What if they hurt her?” she asked, and he knew very well what she was asking.

“Then we deal with it. There’s nothing else to do except move forward and play the hand you have.”

“I guess I’ve spent so long looking out for her it’s hard to let go. I keep wanting to fix it all for her.”

He could hear the exhaustion and worry in her voice now, and he wanted to strangle Madison for putting her sister through this. Instead, he said, “Get some sleep, you must be exhausted.” Within minutes she was snoring softly in his arms.

Will lay awake thinking about what had happened with Jack and trying to figure out if he could have handled things better. The result was always the same, Jack would have reacted badly whatever he did. Once his brain was done with that, he knew he had to figure out how to get Camila and Pierre to safety by noon tomorrow and then there was Madison who was still with Chopper.

What a fucking mess he was in, but right now with Aubrey in his arms, he didn’t want to think about that. There would be time enough to talk to Jack or Alex about Madison, and he would reach out to Zin first thing about helping Pierre and Camila.

Now he just wanted to enjoy the feel of the warm woman who was curled in his arms.

Chapter 9

The bar was almost empty as Jack tossed back his third glass of eighteen-year-old whisky like it was water. His brother was paying so he didn’t give a fuck if he drank it like it was cheap shit. He lifted his hand and shook the glass at the bartender who was polishing glasses at the other end, indicating he wanted a refill.

The bomb his brother had just dropped was still reverberating around his brain. How had he not seen it? How had he been working for his brother this entire time and not known who was behind Eidolon?

He had come to think of it as his. He had free rein on all missions and jobs he took, he had complete autonomy over what to buy, who to employ—for all intents and purposes it was his company, and he ran it as such.

It all made sense now, how he was approached and when. It had all seemed so fortuitous coming on the back of what had happened with Will. When Will had hacked the bank and moved around those funds, it had wrecked his family. His mum had almost had a breakdown, his dad had disappeared for months on end, taking on more extended deployments in Afghanistan and his career in the SAS had been cut short in its prime.

But Will had never seemed to understand what he had done. Jack knew in his heart that Will hadn’t meant to hurt anyone, that his brother was not a bad person, but his selfish act had cost everyone—most of all Will himself. Watching his baby brother—the brother who he had adored—being locked up with his whole future in jeopardy had almost killed him.

That was what made Jack so angry. Will was gifted beyond what anyone could comprehend. The systems he had designed had made him millions of pounds before he’d even reached nineteen. He had saved more lives with the programmes he had written and the information he had found than even he could understand. Will was good to his core which was why Jack couldn’t understand why Will had never come to him.

Jack had no doubt in his mind that Will had hacked that bank for someone else, he would never have done it otherwise. Not his sweet baby brother who had crawled in his bed in the middle of the night when the monsters scared him. Not the boy who had cried when a frog had gotten trapped in their car and died from the heat, not the boy who had followed him around imitating everything he did.

Will had accused him of turning his back on him, but it had been Will who had changed, who had locked him out of his world long before he left to go in the forces. What he didn’t know was why, and to this day he didn’t know, even though he had tried to investigate and find out his reasons. In the end, he had taken his father’s advice and given up. His old man was a tool, but in this instance he was right. If Will wanted to keep secrets, then he’d had to accept that but to now find out that after all this time his brother was, in fact, his boss, grated like an open sore rubbed with salt.

The hypocrisy did not sit well with him, and he was done trying to figure it all out. If Will wanted to play games, he could play them on his own because he was done with it all. He could go contracting, fuck, he could probably go and get a job working for Zack.

Looking into the glass behind the bar as he slugged back the fourth whisky, Jack tried to suppress a groan when he saw Liam, Alex, Drew, Reid, and Blake walking towards him. Just what he fucking needed, a pep talk from this lot. He knew that look on Alex’s face. That was his ‘let’s fix this and all be friends’ look.

The Cuban with model looks was as deadly as they came. He could take out a cartel single-handed and had when he had worked undercover, but he was also the fixer of the team. If something was going wrong, it was Alex who fixed it. If someone was hurting, then Alex would fix it.

He was also the one-night-stand king. Women dropped their underwear for him at the slightest encouragement, and he never called them back and yet on the rare occasion he ran into one of those women, they still wanted more. Although that had been dubbed the Eidolon effect because none of them had any trouble getting laid.

“Don’t want to hear it!” he stated as they reached him, and Blake and Alex sat either side of him.

Alex just looked at him and motioned the bartender. “Five more of whatever he’s drinking,” he asked, and Jack felt his eyes on him.

“Did you not hear me?” Jack asked caustically.

“We’re as shocked as you, Jack, but don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, mate,” Liam said as the drinks were lined up in front of them.

“You’re still fired, Liam,” Jack bit out.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Liam replied.