“No. Looks like it’s been that way a while. But he followed us home. Isn’t that awesome?” Jeremy asked.
Kat laughed. “You always were the king of the stray animals, Jeremy.” She patted his arm, pushed onto her tiptoes, and kissed his cheek. “One of the many things I love about you. Hope Nick doesn’t mind.” She winked and walked away.
“Shit, don’t tell him yet,” Jeremy called.
She waved. “Good luck with that.”
More -people poured into the room, including Nick. The family resemblance between the brothers was clear, although Nick was about a million times more serious than Jer. Which, despite the fact that Nick had personally hauled Charlie’s half--conscious body out of his prison two weeks before, made him pretty damn intimidating, too. Plus, Charlie couldn’t help but wonder what the guy would think of his interest in his brother.
“There you are,” Nick said to Jeremy. “I can’t believe you skipped out on our celebratory breakfast. Becca even put chocolate chips in the pancakes.”
Jeremy shrugged and the humor from moments before faded from his face. “Sorry.”
“No worries,” Nick said. “But we’re meeting as soon as everyone’s done eating. You in?”
“Yeah, of course,” Jeremy said. Charlie nodded, knowing he’d be helping Marz set up additional computers so more -people could work through the documents they’d discovered on the microchip.
“Then come on over,” Nick said. “Because we’ve got work to do.”
Chapter 3
JEREMY DESPERATELY WANTED a few more quiet moments with Charlie. He didn’t think he’d imagined the guy’s embarrassment after their phones had interrupted their almost kiss. Hell, Charlie hadn’t even wanted to look at him. So Jeremy really needed to let him know the only thing he regretted was that it hadn’t happened.
Because Jeremy’s heart was still racing at how close he’d been to getting something he’d wanted for weeks. If he closed his eyes, he could almost feel Charlie’s breath teasing his lips. And since he was standing right behind Charlie’s seat at Marz’s big makeshift desk, he actually could smell the cool, clean scent of the Ivory soap with which he’d showered.
But there wasn’t a damn thing Jeremy could do right now. Not when they were surrounded by Nick’s team, all their girlfriends, and a handful of the Ravens, too. The only person missing from their usual group was Ike Young, who had worked as a tattooist for Jeremy the past -couple of years and was also a Raven. Ike had facilitated the alliance between the motorcycle club and the team and was bringing the rest of the club to help them later this morning. That alliance had finally given Nick and his guys the manpower they needed to fight the Church Gang, who’d kidnapped Charlie, and a defense contractor named Seneka they’d only recently realized was somehow involved.
“Okay, let’s get started,” Nick said, standing in front of Marz’s desk. His gaze ran over the group. “We’ve got a lot on our plates today.” He counted off on his fingers. “First, Marz and Charlie are going to network more computers this morning so that more of us can read the documents we uncovered at the same time. I’d like all hands on deck for that so we can get through as much as possible in the next few days and ascertain what we’ve got and how we can use it.”
Nods all around. Everyone had volunteered to help. Jeremy was just glad to have something he could do that actually contributed.
“Second, we have a number of security measures getting put into place today. Detective Vance will be here shortly to set up roadblocks around the neighborhood. The official story is that a major gas--main break caused yesterday’s explosion and the area needs to be cordoned off while authorities assess safety and undertake maintenance. He thinks that should buy us a few weeks of security, especially since this area is so sparsely populated and there aren’t many -people to protest the roadblocks.”