Luke shut everything out as he and Billy walked to his car. When he’d gotten in, Luke placed a call to his brother.

“Yo.” Zach didn’t sound like he’d been sleeping at all.

“I need a safe house. You have something I can use?”

It wasn’t unusual for officers or agents from other jurisdictions to use a safe house, or even a jail cell overnight, when they were passing through cities or towns. But Luke wasn’t in a position to call the local PD and ask for help in this scenario. He needed someplace he could stick Billy and someone he trusted to watch him. That meant Zach. As much as he hated to put his brother in the position he was about to stick him in, it had to be done.

Zach was quiet for a minute before answering. “Not anything off the books. Come to my place.”

“Is Shauna there?” It was bad enough he was putting Zach in this position. He wouldn’t put his brother’s girlfriend’s job in jeopardy, too. Shauna was a detective for the state of Connecticut, clearing cold cases in a specialized unit.

“No. She had to run to New York to chase a lead. Won’t be home until sometime tomorrow,” Zach answered.

“Can you take off for a few days? I need extra eyes right now.”

“You’re working without backup?”

“Without backup, without a net, without a damned thing. And there are . . . complications.” Most notably, his feelings for a gorgeous woman and her incredible girls. He couldn’t let Lyra get hurt in all this. “See you in five.”

Luke hung up and started the car, glancing at Billy. Sure, Luke could take him to the commander. But right now, Luke’s priority was to clear Lyra. He would close down the auction, too, but he planned to protect Lyra and the girls first. The Commander would consider Lyra expendable and worry about whether she was innocent or guilty later. To hell with the consequences to her girls or her life in the meantime.

It’s what Luke would have done at one time, too. Collateral damage couldn’t always be helped when you were up against the kind of shit they fought against. But, apparently, sometime in the past eight years—or, hell, maybe in the past two months—his priorities had shifted.

Billy was looking a little bug-eyed and Luke knew the kid had to be freaking. He’d played a dangerous game, and he’d lost. To his credit, he was standing up and doing what needed to be done now. It wasn’t much but it was something.

When they arrived at Zach’s place, his brother opened the door as they approached and glanced outside when they entered. Luke pulled him aside and gave him a three-minute rundown of the case he’d been working under the radar. His brother’s eyebrows met the sky, but he didn’t comment. Luke had a feeling he’d be hearing some shit later, but that could—and would—wait.

Zach leaned against the doorjamb, taking in everything even as he looked for all the world like he was simply standing casually. One shoulder held the wall up, but Luke knew his brother was ready to move the instant it became necessary. It shouldn’t. Billy was too motivated to protect Lyra at this point to try something stupid.

“Let’s start with whose dumb ass idea this was and who’s involved,” Luke said, putting a recorder out on the table between he and Billy. He wasn’t detaining Billy. The kid was free to go if he wanted to, so there wasn’t any need right now to worry about rights or lawyers or shit like that.

“It was my idea, but this wasn’t how it was supposed to be.” Billy’s eyes pleaded, but Luke just waited for him, neither absolving nor judging, for now. “It was supposed to be a way to get other people to hack shit for us. Me and Damon aren’t hackers, but we were able to get all these people to tell us backdoors and secret weaknesses of their companies.”

“Tell me who else was involved. Who set up Lyra?” Luke saw Zach’s gaze flick to his, then back to Billy’s.

“Damon. Damon Taylor.”

Luke saw Zach take out his phone and begin to text. “Off the record, Zach,” he shot to his brother who answered with a nod, not looking up. Luke looked back to Billy and nodded for him to continue.

“Damon and me went to school together. He’s wicked smart, but no one realizes how smart he is. I guess I didn’t either. I never thought he’d fuck with my sister like this.”

“Was Joel involved?”

“No. He didn’t know anything about it. We knew he wouldn’t have the stomach for it. Or he’d blab about it to Lyra and she would have flipped.” Billy glanced away. Maybe he should start using whether Lyra would flip or not as his criteria for what to do in life, Luke reflected.

“When did Damon start setting up the auction?” Luke knew the answer to this but wanted to see how much Billy knew.

“I don’t know, man.” He raised his hands, palms out, to stress his innocence. “Honest to God, first I found out about it was the train thing. As soon as I saw that, I knew. I just knew. I recognized it from the groups.”

Luke shifted in his seat and avoided looking at his brother. He would never get past the role he played in that. It had been necessary. That he knew. But it would stay with him.

“Soon as I saw that,” Billy went on, “I called Damon. That’s when he told me he wasn’t taking the information to the companies like he’d planned.”

“And Damon locked you out of things?” Luke asked.

Billy’s nod was miserable. “Yeah. I can’t get into anything. Joel tried, too, but he couldn’t get in either. Joel owns a company that works with computers and programming and all that shit, but he doesn’t know all that much as far as that shit goes. His dad just funded the company. I think his dad even told him what to do, said computers would treat him right, or some shit. Turns out, the business was actually making a go of it.”

“So how did Damon succeed in setting up Lyra?” Luke picked up the papers Billy had printed out and looked through them again. They weren’t good.

“He used the computers at Joel’s office to remotely log in to Lyra’s computer.” He gave a nod to the papers. “I’m hoping we can prove she was someplace with witnesses when these things happened. Maybe I can clear her that way.”

Luke nodded. “So, Damon has enough computer knowledge to do that? To set things up in Lyra’s name and to get into Joel’s computer?” Luke asked. Something wasn’t adding up about that.

Billy shrugged. “He said he was handling it. He must have because I didn’t do it. I swear I didn’t set her up. We both had identities in the room so we could talk to the people and milk them for shit. Get them to talk. Damon was the one that killed it at that, though. He’s good at fucking with people’s minds. He made them feel like what they were doing was safe. He’d tell me what to do most of the time, like if I should act like I was giving up info or whatever with one of my fake identities so one of the people in the room would get more comfortable and start to open up. Once they saw someone else doing it, it became easier for them to spill their secrets. Or sometimes he’d tell me to taunt someone a little or something while he played the supportive card, or whatever. Damon knew all that. I guess I didn’t want to see it, but the more I think about it, the more I realize if he’s fucking with peoples’ heads, he’s happy.”

Luke looked to Zach. “Any chance we can get someone to help us with the computer side of things?” He lowered his voice. “Maybe Sam can help?”

Zach nodded and stepped into the kitchen. If his brother could get ahold of Samantha Stone and enlist her help and the help of her husband, Luke would feel a hell of a lot better about this. Samantha worked for a local company, but she was also one of the top hackers in the nation, if not the world. She often did freelance jobs for federal agencies, and had clearances to match. Her husband, Logan, was a former SEAL. He and Luke hadn’t known each other on the teams, but they’d met several times since retirement, and Luke would trust Logan with his life. As backup went, the two would be hard to beat.

“How do you think Damon got into Joel’s computer?” Luke looked back at Billy, knowing there was something they were missing here.

Billy shrugged. “That part was easy. Joel was never very careful with anything. Damon and I both have the alarm code to the building his offices are in and his computer passwords. We have for years. It would have been easy for Damon to use Joel’s computer to access Lyra’s home network.” He lowered his head. “I never thought he’d try to put this on Lyra. Never.”

“And you’re sure Joel didn’t help him?”

“No. He was shocked. He’s pretty afraid his business is going to be implicated and he’ll take the fall for some of this, but he had no idea. When I showed up there earlier, he was clueless.”

Luke chewed on that. Was it possible Damon had pulled Joel in without telling Billy? Would Joel have wanted something to hold over Lyra’s head? Maybe he thought he could come in and save her at the last minute, and win her heart that way? Maybe he didn’t bet on Damon using the information before he did and things got out of control? Or maybe he planned to use the information to exert pressure of his own on her. The thought stoked the fire raging through Luke. He’d tear the asshole apart.

Billy’s phone chimed an alert on the coffee table and Luke leaned in to pick it up before Billy could. What he saw when he swiped his finger across the screen took him a minute to process. It seemed like his head was fighting it, wanting it to be wrong so badly, it threw up roadblocks against the information. But there was no fighting it. His gut clenched and his heart seemed to stutter before locking up in his chest.

A picture had been sent to Billy. A picture of Lyra and the girls. And what Luke saw in the picture sent him over the edge. He was on Billy in a heartbeat, a growl building from deep inside him as he erupted.