Page 98 of Maximus

“I’ll give you my cloud information for you to give to Tex.”

Zane made a noise like he was stifling a laugh, and sure enough, when I glanced from Eva to him, he was wearing a smirk.

There were a few options as to what put the annoying grin on his face. My first guess was because I was holding hands with Eva. My second guess was because Eva had offered to give Tex the login information to her cloud.

Which was cute she’d offer, but Tex didn’t need her password to get into her online storage.

Zane’s gaze dropped to our connected hands, then his eyes came back to mine. The smile dimmed and I braced.

“We’ll get this shit done and out of the way as quickly as possible.” And with a jerk of his chin, he turned to leave but stopped and looked back over his shoulder. “Kyle packed your shit up from the other house. He and Anaya will be over later, he said he’d bring it. And you should know this place is available to you for as long as you want it.”

“Actually, that was what I called you about this morning. I wanted to get the lease moved—”

“No need. Call it a job perk.”

“’Preciate it.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Zane was already out the door when Eva called his name.

“Yeah?” he asked and leaned back so he could look back into the room.

“Tell your wife to keep up the good work,” Eva told him.

And that was when I knew the hard-as-nails Zane Lewis liked Eva. His tough-guy exterior melted away, his head tipped back and he laughed. Which still wasn’t something I was used to seeing, and it had been years since he’d met his wife and she’d done the unimaginable—proved my boss was human, not just the animatronic warfighter we’d all thought he was.

“Yeah, Eva, I’ll tell her.”

“What was that about?” I asked.

“Let me check on the boys, then I’ll tell you.”

Eva rolled up on her toes, and in an all-too-brief press of her lips, she kissed me before I let go of her hand and she strutted out the door.

I didn’t follow.

Not because I thought she’d be coming back, but because I needed a moment alone.

There was still no fear. No apprehension. No second thoughts.

This was happening.

* * *

Thankfully, Zane left not too long after Tex called to tell us he’d listened to the recordings Eva had made of her conversations with Tracy and Malcom. I couldn’t remember a time I’d ever heard Tex so excited, but he sounded downright ecstatic when he announced, “Tracy’s fucked.” He also told us he’d been in contact with the authorities in Alaska and they’d offered Eva immunity.

The second piece of good news Tex had to offer was, he’d found the private investigator Kenneth Eklund had hired. And since Kenneth was an attorney and not a world-class hacker like Tex, Eklund’s network security was no match for my friend. Tex had found Kenneth’s client list.

Other than Heritage Plastics, which included Kenneth’s representation of Colin Wright and Sean Kassamali, the rest of his client list was a who’s who of Juneau’s criminal underbelly. Strange bedfellows—Juneau’s largest corporation, drug dealers, prostitutes, and even a rapist.

It didn’t take long for Tex to connect the dots—James George was awaiting trial for manufacturing and distribution of narcotics. At the time of James’s arrest, he also had a small stable of women. He was looking at some serious time. Tex had found that the drug dealer wasn’t business savvy and hadn’t laundered money, therefore when the government seized his assets he was left penniless. Yet Kenneth Eklund was named as counsel on the court documents, not a public defender.

Finding one criminal led Tex down the scumbag rabbit hole, and from there he found the source of the contract to put an end to Eva’s life. Tex being a man of action already had one of the many teams of mercenaries he had in his back pocket en route to intercept the hitman.

All of this would be over in a few days and Eva and her boys would be safe. Things could go back to normal and we could get down to the business of moving on.

Now that she’d agreed to stay in Maryland, I was looking forward to normal. Not that I had a clue what that actually meant, but it sounded good.