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Chapter Thirty
“Aspen.” Niko draggeda hand down his face and wondered if he sounded as exhausted as he felt. The call from one of his top people had waylaid him while he’d been in the middle of trying to spring Shale.
Now he was in one of the hospital’s small conference rooms with Aspen’s pretty face twisted into an angry scowl. Next to him, furiously working a micro-pc, Grady was pounding away at the keys. There wasn’t a keyboard, per se—he wore specialized gloves, fitted to his hands that communicated with the computer as well as an eyepiece in his glasses that read commands simply by following the direction of his gaze.
Nobody could talk to tech the way Grady could.
At least not in Niko’s territory.
Aspen was good though. She’d been the one to call when they’d been about ten minutes away, alerting him. She still needed to update him on her trip south, but had told him this was priority.
Now she looked up from her own tablet, gaze slightly unfocused. She blinked, her eyes clearing as she met his.
“Prime?”
“You said this was urgent. What is it? Summarize.”
A line came together between her brows as she looked from him to Grady. “It’s a lot of information, Prime.”
“Summarize. The important details. The past thirty-six hours have sucked and the next day or two won’t be any better. You’re here so you know about Shale.”
“Of course, Prime. I’m sorry I... well, Grady is the one who made the connection. We’ve been staying in contact... ” She grimaced. “Anyway, you know we tag-team a lot of the tech shit. He unearthed some info, thinks this is connected to the assassination of the former Prime.” She swallowed, her pale golden skin working with the movement. “Your father.”
He bit back the urge to snap at her.
He knew who the former Prime had been. But that would just make him sound like more of an asshole than he already was.
And it was nothing more than smoke anyway, a chance to distract people so he didn’t have to think about his failures. As the Prime’s second-in-command, as his son, Niko’s job had been to protect his father at all costs. He’d failed. In so many ways, he’d failed.
Rising from the chair, he paced to the window and looked outside. His phone vibrated in his pocket. It was the third call in less than ten minutes, but he’d been caught up with Aspen and Grady and hadn’t had a chance to answer earlier. He almost pulled it out to throw it on the floor and smash it. Instead, he slid it out and looked at the screen, saw that it was Boone.
He answered immediately, fear a pulse in his throat.
“Boone. What’s wrong? Is Zee okay?”
“She’s fine, Prime.” Boone’s voice was thick with annoyance. “She’s probably heading in your direction, too. That’s one of the reasons I’m calling.”
“Prime?” Grady stood and turned around, his tablet in hand. His eyes no longer had that unfocused look.
Okay, now Niko was annoyed.
“Hold on, Boone.” He leveled his eyes on Grady.
Grady immediately averted his eyes, shuffling nervously on his feet and dipping his head. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for interrupting and for taking so long—I think I know why the data isn’t coming together as it should, though. I left a key file at home.”
Niko’s scowl deepened. “What?”
“I’m sorry, Prime. Some information is too delicate to store in a cloud-based file without encryption and this is information of that sort. I thought I had everything saved on the drive in this computer, but apparently, I don’t and I need that data key to unlock—”
“Fine,” Niko cut him off. “I assume you know where it is. Go get what you need. I may not be here, though, so put in a call to the big house. One of the lieutenants will know where I am.”
Grady bobbed his head and dashed out. Aspen was on her feet, staring after him with a scowl.
She turned toward Niko, but he held up one finger and went back to his call.
“Boone, I’m here. What’s going on?”
Boone didn’t reply right away. It was only a short pause, perhaps two seconds. “Who was that?”
