Her dark hair was in a high ponytail, and even though she was dressed in the same casual clothes pretty much everyone except the executives wore, they were clean and coordinated. But more than being presentable, she was fucking cute.
She had crystal-clear blue eyes, a pert nose, and lips that immediately had him thinking thoughts that were probably dirty enough to be grounds for several sexual harassment lawsuits. And this was their antisocial key to getting into the Thirteen Stars?
Michael forced himself to stop thinking about her lips as they reached her cube. It was too late to turn back now. This deal needed to be done as soon as possible, and after what happened at Emma’s home last night, it was more urgent than ever. “She needs her laptop and some type of cable that can hook it into the one we’re trying to get into. It should be in the top right drawer.”
Evelyn pulled the drawer open as Michael unplugged Lori’s computer. “Who did Ken bring with him?”
“Some guy named Hunter. I can’t tell if he’s hired muscle or a bigger part.”
She pulled a cord out of the drawer and shut it. “The name doesn’t sound familiar. I’ll have to look through the case files and see if he’s been involved in anything before this.”
“So for the time being, I just do whatever they say and act like their bitch? Fantastic. Joslyn is lucky she’s in jail because if she ever gets out, I’m going to kill her,” he said between clenched teeth as they made their way back to the elevator.
As the elevator headed up to the executive level, Evelyn looked him over. “I am sorry you have to go through this. If you just trust me and stick to the plan, we’re going to get everything we want. Emma will be safe, criminals will be behind bars. All we need to do is find out who all the players in the Thirteen Stars are. Once they accept you and Luke as members, it shouldn’t be long before we can make arrests. And once they’re in jail, they will be the bitch, okay?”
“You give strangely motivating pep talks,” he admitted as they reached the executive level.
Evelyn handed the cord to him. “I’m your handler. It’s my job. Now go and play the good bitch. Save your cousin. Beat the bad guys. Those are your orders.”
He sighed and left Evelyn there as he strode back to the conference room. Everyone seemed to be in the same position they’d been in when he’d left. Three men in suits and little Lori sitting off to the side in blue jeans and a surly expression as she looked up at him. He set her laptop next to the one she was supposed to unlock and handed her the cord. Without saying a word to him, she hooked the two computers together and got to work.
“If this is going to take a while, maybe we can set her up in my office and we can continue talking?” suggested Michael. Anything to keep Lori out of family business.
“I’m sure Ms. Briggs over there is more than qualified to get us access. If not, this is a software firm, right? I’m sure we can call in more hands if needed,” said Ken
Because more people knowing about this was better. To make it worse, Ken had learned Lori’s name at some point while he’d been gone. “I’m sure if Lori wants us to call in help, she’ll let us know.”
“Hunter and I don’t mind waiting,” assured Ken.
Of course they didn’t.
Lori sat back as she waited for the mystery computer to power up. “I doubt this will take that long.”
Michael met Luke’s gaze from behind her as they both let out a small sigh of relief. Until that one little affirmation, he hadn’t really been sure she could do this.
Hunter raised a brow. “What makes you think it will be easy?”
Lori leaned forward and opened up some technical-looking program on the screen of her work computer and rapidly moved her fingers over the keyboard. “Because the human race is utterly unoriginal.”
Everyone was quiet, waiting for her to explain, but she continued to input a series of commands into her laptop before she sat back again as whatever program she’d just fiddled with started to input a series of passwords into the security software on the mystery computer.
“We all know that password requirements are getting more and more complicated these days. A lot of security systems at this level require eight characters, capital and lowercase letters, and symbols. Which leads to billions of possible combinations that would take days to crack. But people are not nearly that complicated. I picked up this code a few months back that starts out with the most likely combinations. A six-letter word or two three-letter words, first letter capitalized, and then the number and symbol keys being the same key.”
Luke turned to grin at Ken and Hunter. “Like she said. Easy.”
Even though Lori never seemed the slightest bit nervous as she monitored the program and periodically entered in new prompts, Michael couldn’t stop staring at the screen, willing this whole ordeal to get over with.
After an hour of waiting, the screen on the mystery laptop finally flashed before the normal-looking PC desktop was revealed. “Got it.” Lori met Michael’s gaze with a mixture of pride and nervousness. “Are we all set here?”
“Should I walk Ms. Briggs to the elevator?”
She pushed the computer across to Ken and Hunter so they could look over their prize. “You can change the password from there to something that you can use from now on.”
Ken moved his hands over the keyboard, but from his vantage point, Michael couldn’t tell what he was looking for. After a few moments, a large grin filled his face. “This is perfect, Ms. Briggs. I appreciate your time.”
“Happy to help.” She pushed herself out of the chair and headed around the table. “I hope you all have a great day.”
Michael stood, too, and made it to the door the same time as her, but by that time, Ken was also standing and still beaming at Lori.
“It was a pleasure meeting you.” He held out a hand.
She returned his smile and reached out tentatively to meet his handshake. Michael could practically feel the tension coming from her, and he fought back the urge to break the contact where their hands touched. It was bad enough he’d pulled her in to this meeting. She shouldn’t have to touch the son of a bitch.
But in just seconds, the whole exchange was over. Michael reached for the door and held it open as she slipped through.
As soon as the door was shut, she speed-walked to the elevator. Michael kept pace with her. “I appreciate your help today.”
She shook her head but didn’t say anything. Damn it. That wasn’t good enough. He needed to have some idea of what she was going to do. After her quick performance in there, he assumed she wasn’t a total moron and knew that what was happening in that room wasn’t completely legit.
“Lori,” he said, but she still ignored him. Before they reached the elevator bay where there were more people, he set a hand on her arm and stopped her.
She twisted around to face him. “What more could you possibly want from me?”
“As I said, I want you to know how grateful I am for your help.”
“You mean grateful I didn’t walk out in the first thirty seconds and call the cops?”
Not a good sign. “I don’t think—”
“Do you have any idea who that computer belonged to?”
He frowned. There hadn’t been any identifiable information he had seen and he’d been sitting right next to her the entire time. “Did they tell you while I was gone?”
“No, I recognized the security system I hacked. It’s FBI, which means I can’t even count how many laws I just broke.”
Michael took a deep breath and thought back to what Evelyn told him. Just play along for a little bit and everything would work out. Emma’s life was on the line. He inched closer to Lori until she took a step back. “What happened in there is going to stay between us, understand?”
Her breath caught. For a moment she stood stock-still and stared up at him with those big blue eyes. Damn it, she looked like a cornered, injured bunny, and he was the big bad wolf threatening her to keep her mouth shut.<
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She averted her gaze down. “I got it. Can I go now?”
He started to apologize for his outright bullying, but stopped himself. If she had to hate him, so be it. She wouldn’t be the first woman he pissed off and probably wouldn’t be the last. He stepped back and watched her as she scrambled away from him and down the hall. She was a definite wild card in this whole scheme, but he’d have to trust Evelyn’s opinion that she wouldn’t cause trouble because there was nothing he could do about it now.
He tried to shake his scowl as he went back to the conference room. Hopefully now that whatever little test they gave them was over, the rest of the meeting would go by fast. He wasn’t sure what the point of having the computer broken into was. On one hand, Luke and Michael’s hands were dirty now too, so it would prevent any last-minute second-guessing. Also, it gave Ken a good idea of which direction their moral compass pointed.
Michael took his seat next to Luke, who took a deep swig of water. Ken and Hunter didn’t have any papers or notes in front of them. Normally in investment deals, the person who wanted the buy-in came prepared with charts and graphs and anything that could possibly convince more investors to sign on.
Apparently Thirteen Stars didn’t need a big sales pitch.
Luke set his bottle down. “So let’s get down to business.”
Ken smiled and Michael had to clench his fists to keep from saying something to wipe that smug grin off his face. If he stuck with the plan, Ken’s associates would go down with him and all his savings would be seized by the government. He just needed to play the long con in the meantime.
Luckily, Luke was better at hiding disdain than Michael. “Joslyn said that in her time with your group, she’d heard there were some very profitable ventures that only you had access to. We’d like to get in.”
“We have a very simple sales pitch. You give us a minimum of fifty million dollars and we guarantee a return of twenty percent over the next year. The earnings are considered capital gains and the statements we provide will pass any IRS audit.”
Michael and Luke exchanged a look, but there wasn’t much to say. The deal sounded fishy as hell, but they didn’t have much of a choice. The whole thing screamed Ponzi scheme, but if it would convince them to call off the contract on Emma, he’d give them whatever they wanted.
“That’s a pretty attractive number. How are you able to get twenty percent?”
Ken raised a brow. “The nice thing about getting returns like this is that we can be selective in our investors. If you don’t want to take the deal, that’s fine.”
“My brother and I are in the business of making money,” said Luke. “I’m more than happy to take a chance with your…firm. But you know there’s one more item we need to sort out beforehand?”
Ken nodded. “Emma Devereaux. Once you send the wire, it will be our firm. Whatever evidence Joslyn gave to Emma will work against you just as much as us. So we will leave it to you to make sure that we are all protected.”
“And we can trust there won’t be another Emma situation?” asked Michael. “We just avoided having our company dragged through the mud with Joslyn. We are all for making money, but we don’t want another scandal.” He couldn’t care less about another scandal. He just wanted Emma safe. They wanted some sort of evidence that Joslyn had supposedly stolen, but Michael knew the truth. Joslyn had faked it. She blackmailed the man in charge of Thirteen Stars for almost a year, getting over a million out of him in that time, and now that she was behind bars, the outfit was on damage control. And everything of Joslyn’s was in her sister’s possession, so they were convinced Emma now had the damning evidence.
Except Emma didn’t have anything to hand over. They’d already approached her on the street with threats and trashed her home to look for it. He wasn’t going to let them get any closer to hurting his family. Well, his sane family. They could do whatever they wanted with Joslyn.
“The Joslyn situation was…unique,” assured Ken.
Luke snorted. “Tell me about it.”
Okay, it was time to get this over with. Michael leaned forward. “Where do we sign?”
CHAPTER THREE
“Earth to Lori…” said Quinn from behind her.
Lori jumped at the unexpected voice and twisted around to face her roommate. “Sorry, did you say something?”
Quinn narrowed her eyes and tilted her head. “No… You were just sitting there in front of your computer like a zombie. It looks like the Internet is out again.” She pointed to the buffering screen in front of Lori. “Are you okay there?”
Lori exited out of the Internet browser. There went her plans of relaxing with cute animal videos from her crazy ass day. “I’m fine. It was just a strange day.”
Quinn shook her head at Lori and sat on the other recliner in the apartment. Seating was limited in the open living area. A majority of the rent-controlled space they shared was taken up by the two bedrooms, so the living area and kitchen barely had enough room for the two seats, let alone a couch. There was also a television that came with the place, but to save money, Lori didn’t pay for cable. Her neighbors above her were, ahem, nice enough to have unsecured wireless Internet, but the signal wasn’t the strongest.
“So are you staying in tonight?” Quinn strapped on a high heel shoe that was half the height of Lori.
Lori couldn’t decide whether Quinn was being nice or snarky by asking. Lori stayed in every Friday night. She went clubbing with her ultra-trendy roommate one time and it might qualify for the worst night of her life. Yes, she knew she needed to get out at some point if she didn’t want to turn into a complete hermit, but the loud blaring music and bodies pressing on every side of her on the dance floor were enough to send her into a full-blown panic attack. And taking shots had seemed like a great idea to calm her nerves until she puked all over a few of the dancers.
So, no, she was not planning to go out with Quinn. “I think I’m going to have a quiet night in.”
Quinn shrugged and stood, smoothing her form-fitting bandage dress down her body. “Are you sure? There’s a new place opening in SoHo. It’s supposed to be crazy.”
“Oh, I’m sure. But thanks for asking.” Even if hell did freeze over and Lori did want to go out clubbing, it was probably best for her to save some money. It would be hard to cover her half of the rent after quitting. Or getting fired. For the sake of her resume, she should really quit before she got fired. Or quit purely on ethics.
Ethics were good and all, but not getting evicted was even better. She could probably stick around at DevX Tech for a bit while looking for a new job. That wasn’t bad, right? That was just survival.
“Are you sure you’re okay? You’re doing your spacey stare-y thing.”
Damn it. Lori forgot how perceptive Quinn could be. When Lori moved in, Quinn had seemed like such an airhead. High, squeaky voice, worked in the fashion industry, wore a constant parade of shoes that were sure to be destroying her feet for life. But apparently this airhead had a bachelors in fashion design and a masters in business. After her internship was over, she would have her choice of magazines and designers to work for.
“It was just a stressful day at work. I’ll be fine after I relax for a bit.” And find a new job. But Quinn didn’t need to know about her possible financial insecurity. How long would it take to find a new job? Plenty of companies these days were looking for workers who knew their way around a computer, but she’d only worked for DevX Tech for three months. What was she going to say when they all asked why she was leaving so soon?
“Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. I’m meeting your boss next week.”
The laptop started to slide off Lori’s lap and she scrambled to catch it. “What? Why?”
Quinn let out a small laugh. “It’s an eligible bachelor article. You’ve seen him, right? He’s flipping gorgeous. They’re already working ways to sneak him in for his photo shoot so all the girls won’t mob him as soon as he’s in the building.”
“He’s doing a photo shoot? How does he even have time for that? He has a business to run.” And computers to hack into. And employees to threaten. And shady meetings to attend.
“It’s hardly the first magazine Luke Devereaux has been on, Lori.”
“Oh! You meant Luke.” Why would she think Michael would be there? Luke was the CEO and had final say-so in everything. “I thought you were talking about Michael.” The brother so fresh on her mind.
Quinn started to head to grab her purse but stopped mid-step. “Michael…I forgot there were two of them.”
Lori’s eyes widened. What had she done? “Yeah, but…”
Quinn twirled around. “We can get them both. Double the pleasure type spread, you know?”
“No…I really don’t.”
“Women love sexy brothers, Lori.” She tapped her palm against her forehead. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of this sooner! You don’t see them or anything, do you? Like pass him in the halls?”
“I’ve never once passed the Devereauxs in the hallway! I just started working there.” Even if she did get some quality one-on-one intimidation time with Michael earlier that day, Quinn didn’t need to know.
Quinn sighed. “Worth a shot. I’ll have to call the editor tonight and see if we can work on getting Michael Devereaux to be on our list.”
“Wouldn’t that mean you have to bump someone else off?”
Quinn gave her a sympathetic look. “Honey, for brothers who look like that, a woman needs to be flexible.”
Lori couldn’t stop the smile as Quinn winked and made her exit from the apartment. As uneasy as he made her, even she couldn’t deny how handsome Michael was. He would undoubtedly be a great addition to Quinn’s article. Even with their strange, scary time together, Lori couldn’t stop picturing his back as he led her from her cubicle to the elevator. Would they photograph him in a suit? It was his natural element, so it only made sense.
Touching The Boss (Billionaires In The City Book 5) Page 2