AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My smirk grew into a smile. “It’s so much more than that.”
Max’s eyes lit up, his thirst for knowledge clear. Dio laughed beside me as he spread his arms theatrically. “Prepare for your little minds to be blown.”
I huffed and rolled my eyes at him. “Not the time, Dio.”
“Just spill it already,” Damon snapped, getting impatient. “We’re gaining enemies as quickly as we’re running out of resources. We don’t have any time to waste right now.”
“Gaining allies, too,” I asserted. “The Network has had its eyes on you for a while. All of you.” I explained everything I had already told Dave as quickly as I could. Damon had much the same reaction as Dave did the other night. He grinned. It wasn’t a peaceful smile, though. This one promised mayhem and chaos.
“So you’ve been part of the Network and working undercover all along?” Damon asked, and I nodded.
“Can you contact them with everything that’s down?” It was the same question Dave had immediately asked, but this time, it came from Max.
“With your help, I’m pretty sure I can.” Max was a tech genius. If he couldn’t get me back online, no-one could.
“What do you need? Tell us and if we don’t have it, we’ll get it,” Damon growled.
“It’s called the Network because that’s what it is. Each person has contact with one other person, who can contact someone else. It keeps them hidden and ensures if someone’s cover gets blown, the whole web doesn’t go down. There’s a failsafe if someone goes dark, which my primary has, but my failsafe is my gramps’ farm.
“He had a hidden system, and I don’t think my little brother knows about it. Gramps had no plans to bring him in. It should still be there as my failsafe instructions stayed the same even after gramps died.
“It will take a couple of days to travel there by road, which is risky right now but doable. It’ll be much quicker if we can get fuel for the Blackhawk, though. We used most of ours to get here. We’ve got enough fuel left for maybe one short flight, but not enough to return. Is there anywhere nearby that may have helicopter fuel?”
“Dude, you have a helicopter? I thought I heard a helicopter fly over not long after we got back to the house when Maia went into heat. You guys said I was crazy,” Hunter gloated, and Max whacked him on the back of the head. “Not the time, Hunt.”
“There’s actually a small helicopter sightseeing company that takes people up to the mountains near here. I looked them up one day as a date idea for Max,” Leif said.
Max turned to him with his mouth open. “We never went on a helicopter date.”
Leif looked embarrassed. “Yeah, I chickened out. I was worried you would think it was weird. We’ve never gone on a date before. We were in the military when we met.”
Max grabbed his hand. “I would love to go on a date with you.”
“If we can get the fuel, Sam and Max will need to fly to his gramps’ farm. You can tag along, Leif, and call it a date. Sam will pilot the helicopter so you guys can make out as much as you want in the back,” Dio piped in.
“No date,” Damon growled, “if we’re going to your gramps’ farm I’m coming. I want to chat with Ben, your little brother. Is that going to be a problem?” he asked, giving me a hard stare.
Leif, Hunter and Max all tensed at the mention of my brother Ben. The anger rolling off them was intense and had my senses on high alert. Damon had hinted at trouble with Maia and Ben when I arrived, implying he had betrayed her somehow, but I hadn’t had time to hear the entire story from Maia.
From Damon’s tone, and the amount of dominance I could feel pummeling me, I didn’t think the chat was going to involve a lot of talking. “If Ben needs a chat, I’ll be doing it. You’re welcome to come along and watch. I need to hear Maia’s story from her, though.”
Damon clearly didn’t agree, but didn’t waste time arguing either. “You need to talk to Maia, then. I want to try for the fuel this afternoon. Max, Hunter and I will go, and if we get it, I want to head to the farm tomorrow.”
I nodded in agreement. “That works for me. I’m expecting intel from the Palace and I’ll need your help with that, too, Max. I’m hoping it will be here in the next day or two.”
“What intel?” Max asked, sitting up from where he had slumped slightly in his chair, with his arm around the back of Leif’s.
I looked at Dio, and he looked at Dave, raising an eyebrow. “You can trust them with your friend. Nobody here is going to betray him,” Dave said.
I swept my eyes over the group of men in front of me, trying to convey how serious this was for me to divulge. “We have a friend, Pala. He’s undercover at the Palace. He’s risking his life right now to download information from their secure, encrypted, military server. The one the Palace uses to communicate with the highest levels of the military.”
I shifted slightly to look directly at Max. “Those secure fire walls and scrubbed files. Pala’s about to get you past them.”
Max’s eyes lit up. “Hot damn, I knew there was more. What I found out about Maia was bad enough, but there were holes. I knew there had to be more systems there. I just couldn’t find them.”
I ground my teeth. There was only so much I could take today without losing my shit, and I’d already come close. “What you found out about Maia?”
Max suddenly paled and looked at Damon, who nodded at him.
