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His younger brother glared at him, but it was more fear and pain than anger. “And you forget that you are also a Gaoxing life that needs to be protected and cherished.”
West wrapped an arm across Jin’s chest and pulled him back so that his shoulders rested against West’s chest. Jin gasped, his breath leaving him, as West tightened his hold.
“That’s why it’s our job to cherish and protect his life above all others,” West declared.
Ming Tao might have relaxed and even offered a small nod, but being held in West’s arms like this in front of everyone was doing insane things to his heart. Who was this “our”? Was he talking about all the people assembled? Or was this a more intimate family “our” and West was including himself? His heart wanted answers, but this was a terrible time for those questions.
“What’s the name of this fishy tech person?” Max asked.
“You think she’s fishy?” Ming Tao replied, and part of Jin was glad they were pushing forward.
“So fucking fishy!” Alexei chimed in, wrinkling his nose and waving a hand in front of his face as if he could smell her.
Qin started typing on his ever-present tablet, likely pulling up Jin’s schedule. “Dianxia would have met with…Cai Li Na. Yes, she’s the one who’s been maintaining all our devices.”
“Can I see that?” Kairo inquired. He extended a hand toward Qin and his assistant actually clutched the tablet to his chest, wide eyes jumping to Jin’s face.
“Dianxia?” Qin cried out.
“Please, Qin. I promise he won’t break it or share our country’s secrets,” Jin said.
With a great deal of reluctance, Qin handed the tablet over. Kairo covered the little camera and set to work digging into the thing. Qin remained standing, his hands clutched in front of him as if he were worried Kairo was going to kill his precious baby.
Ming Tao jumped up and guided him back to his chair. “Here. I meant to give this to you earlier.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out something brown.
“What is this?” Qin unfolded it as he sat.
“A paper bag. I thought you would need it to breathe into.”
Qin might have given the prince a dirty look, but Jin had a feeling he’d be using it by the end of the night.
“Well, there is a shit-ton of spyware and tracking software on here,” Kairo announced after less than two minutes. “I mean, I get why some of this is on here, but a lot of it seems superfluous. Audio is being recorded and possibly even some video. It’s all being shipped out once a day.”
The paper bag crinkled and rattled in the room as Qin lifted it to his face and started hyperventilating into it.
“Qin is present in most of my meetings throughout the day,” Jin whispered.
“I’m not a spy! I swear I’m not a spy!” Qin cried, dropping to his knees in front of him, the bag still clenched in his fist. “I would never betray Gaoxing. During your boring meetings with the ministers of transportation and agriculture, I play games.”
Jin grabbed both of Qin’s arms and pulled him to his feet as he rose as well. “No one in this room thinks you’re a spy,” he reassured him while rage boiled within him. His tech specialist was supposed to be sweeping for spying equipment and protecting against it, not putting it in place.
“But-but-but—” Qin continued to stammer while Jin helped him into his chair.
“I know you’re loyal. Ming Tao knows you’re loyal. The emperor knows you’re loyal. That’s all that matters.” He lifted the hand still clutching the paper bag and Qin obediently resumed breathing into it.
“K, can you remove it?” West demanded.
While Jin remained standing beside Qin, West rose as well and wrapped an arm around his shoulders in silent support while they watched Kairo glance from West to Charlie, who frowned.
“I can,” he admitted and then scrubbed a hand through his curly, shoulder-length hair. “But if we remove it, the person is going to know we’ve discovered her. She could run before we have the chance to catch her.”
“What we know is that you have a spy. You don’t know who she’s spying for,” Charlie added.
West sighed, his arm tightening on Jin’s shoulders. “And we don’t know if she’s the same person behind the contract. If so, and then she runs, we could lose our chance to close the contract. If she’s not, we still have that problem to deal with.”
Kairo grunted. “The program sends its file at three in the morning. I’ve deleted everything the software already had stored and made it look like it suffered a glitch. It could be a few days until she notices there’s a problem.” Kairo carried the tablet over to Qin, who now stared at it as if it were a snake poised to strike. “If you’re forced to let her fix the tablet, just be sure to forget it conveniently outside of meetings or shove it down in the sofa or in a drawer so it can’t record anything harmful.”
