“Oh, Ian. Did they detain you?” Eve asked, her voice sympathetic.
“I didn’t ask him to come in,” Alex said quietly to Kristen. All her plans had been working, so he chose to placate her for now. The truth was he rather liked Kristen. “And I’m sorry I didn’t mention Jacob. The idea came to me late last night. He did his job and he’s out of it now. And it doesn’t sound like Ian’s going to make it out of Texas. I do respect you. I want you on this team. I know Eve respects you, too. She really wants to take a look at those files.” She’d mentioned it to him as he’d dried her off from their shower. His gut tightened at the idea of Eve getting deeper in, but he was going to honor her request. And he was going to get back in good with Kristen. He could be charming when he wanted to be. “I’m so grateful that you have the full files. My old partner is a slave to the rules. He couldn’t help me.”
He could stroke her ego a little.
A little smile curved her lips up. “Warren Petty. I’ve studied up on him. Interesting guy. His brother is about to be in a tough election fight.”
Warren had always supported his brother’s campaigns. When they were working together, he’d always been so proud he had a brother in politics. “Hoping you get a story out of it?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Ugh, I hate politics. Talk about mired in scandal. No. I’ll stay out of Washington. Yeah, let’s not bring the feds in here. I can get us any info we need, though Adam has proven to not be a total nimrod.”
“I’m excellent, thank you very much,” Adam said. “I could totally have those files in five seconds. Do you want me to prove it?”
Ian’s voice came over the monitor. “No, asshole, I want you to prove that you can get my fucking life back in order. Nelson is screwing with me, and I don’t like it. I got more than detained, damn it. I got searched by two of Homeland Security’s finest, and by finest what I really mean is hairiest and least gentle with the body cavities.”
Wow. “Nelson is playing hardball.”
Adam snickered. “Or hardballs, as in Ian’s case.”
Adam should be happy Ian was four states away.
“I’ll get the files for you.” Kristen walked back to her office.
“Holy shit, did I just hear that big brother got the slow hand from Homeland Security?” Sean wasn’t even trying not to laugh.
“Yeah, well wait until Nelson decides to come after you, baby brother. We know he doesn’t like you either,” Ian said. Alex moved in front of the monitor. Ian was in his office, but somehow he made his presence felt despite the distance. “In the course of a few days, he’s managed to blow my whole damn life apart. I just got a notification that someone changed the ownership names on my properties to Hottie McHot Pants. I can’t sell those assets or change things or accept rent until I get this fixed. He is seriously fucking with me.”
“I can figure it out.” Adam hid a smile behind his hand. “I can totally fix all of that for you, but it’s going to take a little time. I need everything that’s been changed and I can fairly easily change it all back. These are all simple hacks for an expert.”
“Can you track him back? Can you use this information to figure out where he is?” Ian asked.
Adam shrugged. “I can try. He’s escalating.”
“I’m surprised,” Eve said. “This doesn’t sound like Nelson. He’s never come at us out in the open.”
Nelson had been a pain in the firm’s collective asses for longer than any of them had imagined. Alex had thought their troubles with Nelson began when the CIA operative decided to sell corporate secrets to the Chinese and he’d tried to use Sean Taggart’s wife to do it. But a couple of months ago in London he had discovered that Nelson had been dirty for years and had very likely had a hand in killing Ian’s wife and sending Liam on the run. Alex wouldn’t put anything past the man, but he seriously doubted that Nelson was out there calling Ian Hottie McHot Pants.
“He’s coming after us personally now.” Ian sat back in his chair.
“He’s coming after the boss anyway.” Liam knelt down, nodding toward the monitor. “And I think we might have had a breakin a couple of weeks ago. Ian asked me to go through all the security records. Someone used my security code at 1:51 am exactly three weeks and two days ago. I checked my records. I happen to know I didn’t come to the office that night. Avery and I were in Austin for the weekend. The rest of you were working on a corporate case and you were all in Omaha. No one but the accounting girl was in the office, and she certainly wasn’t here at that time of night.”