Chapter Twenty
Four days he’d made it. Four long, grueling days Knox had kept his shit centered and his hands off Darya. His focus shifted off the suspicious log entry on his main screen to the server room security feed on his left and gritted his teeth so hard a sharp twinge pierced the spot where his jaw hinged. Vance was a good kid. One of the best server guys he’d ever hired.
But if he didn’t stop touching Darya soon, he was gonna be minus both arms.
His office door clicked open and Beckett’s heavy footsteps lumbered in. “Hey, man. Jace and Axel called. The rest of the guys are hangin’ at Crossroads tonight. You wanna go?”
Shifting his gaze back to the task at hand, Knox punched in the IP address listed in the most recent hit against their mail server. “Not sure. Got someone who’s started pinging our servers last night.”
“Brother, the last thing I’m worried about is anyone getting past your traps.” He pulled out a chair and made himself right at home. “And what’s with the shit mood anyway?”
“I’m not in a shit mood.”
“Uh, yeah. You are.”
“Nope. I’m good.” Fuck. Now he wasn’t just lying to himself, he was lying to Beckett, too. “Just wanna know who’s knocking so I can shut ’em down.”
“Thought you said those honeypots and triggers you set up blocked ’em automatically.”
“They do. Usually.” Except the number of attempts had been twice as high in the last twenty-four hours, which made him itchy.
“Good, then finish up your cyber God routine this afternoon, and we’ll meet back at our place after close. Danny’s gonna meet up with us, too. It’s Friday. Time to work out the kinks.”
Movement in the server room feed caught his attention, and he caught the backside of Vance following Darya out the door. She’d work late. He’d bet last year’s earnings on it. But then Vance probably would, too. And what the fuck was she doing hanging around with Vance anyway? The last time he’d checked in with Katy, Darya had been knee-deep in some low-priority code defects.
Beckett’s deep voice boomed a little louder. “Yo. Earth to space cadet.”
Goddamn it. Hell of a time for him to get caught eyeballing Darya. Though, Beckett was a little out of his direct line of sight. Maybe he hadn’t caught the slip. “I don’t know. Let me see how this goes for the next few hours and I’ll let you know.”
“You’ll let me know.” Beckett’s deadpan mimic had more than a little sarcasm to it. He rested one forearm on the edge of Knox’s desk and drummed his thumb against the chrome surface. “The only time in the last six years you’ve ditched your brothers when you didn’t already have something to do was when three servers went down and you felt bad about letting Vance fly solo.”
“So?”
“So, I wanna know what’s wrong.”
Knox slid his hands away from the keyboard, let his eyes slip closed and rolled his shoulders to work out the tension in his neck. He loved Beckett. Loved all his brothers. But right now, he needed time alone to make sure his emotional game was packed up good and tight. Not to mention, the usual pickup routine they’d all expect of him at Crossroads gave him the scratch. He swiveled his chair to Beckett and met his heavy stare head on. “I told you. Someone hits us this many times in one day, I want to know who’s behind it.”
“Bullshit. Someone hands you a puzzle, you get a boner. Not stressed out or pissed. And, brother, I’m very aware you’ve been one or the other all week, so what’s really eating your lunch? You not sleeping?”
“No less than normal. Got a solid eight a few nights ago.”
Beckett grinned and snickered the same way he had when they’d scored their first Playboy. “That the same night you disappeared over at Darya’s place?”
Motherfucker. “You tracked me?”
“Why the hell not? The beauty of GPS and all that, right? Besides, you do that shit to us all the damned time. Don’t get your panties in a wad when we return the favor.” He shrugged, reclined in his chair and kicked one foot up on the edge of Knox’s desk. “Get pissed if you want, but you weren’t answering your phone. Just wanted to make sure you were someplace safe.”
Tucked up next to Darya and sleeping like a damned baby, yes, but safe? Yeah, that was debatable. He still hadn’t been able to shake how good waking up next to her felt. “Yeah, Mom. I even made sure to double check the windows and doors.” He was just about to tack on a smart remark about missing his blankey when voices sounded in the hallway.
Darya’s voice. That animated tone she used that made everyone feel like they were the center of the universe, tinged with her sweet accent. The only thing he hated was Vance’s goofy laugh wrapped around it.
They walked past a second later, both casting surprised glances at Beckett and Knox. A reasonable response considering Knox never left his door open unless he knew someone was coming.
“Hey, boss!” Vance waved and shoved his thick black glasses back up on his nose. Why the guy never got around to sizing the things right, Knox couldn’t figure. “I’m taking JJ over to Wing Bucket. You guys want anything?”
Bigger than Dallas, the memory of Darya licking her fingertips when she’d helped herself to a plateful of ribs at the Bikes and Blues rally hit him out of nowhere. So not an image he needed to remember right now. Especially knowing Vance would be eyeballing the same thing if she got a serving of wings. “Nah, I’m good.” He shifted his gaze to Darya. Hell, maybe he should go out with Beck and the guys. God knew he’d be up to no good hanging here with her. “Don’t let him talk you into the 19th Sauce.”
She smiled and, swear to Christ, he felt it everywhere. Like she’d somehow reached inside him and unhinged all his tension. “Okay.” She shifted her attention to Beckett and waved, but he’d swear the lost connection hurt her as much as it did Knox. “See you later.”
“Yeah, JJ,” Beck answered back, easily using the identity they’d all agreed she’d be wise to keep in public. He chin-lifted to Vance. “Take care of our girl.”
The metal door latched hard behind them, the brutal sound echoing up and down the hallway with way too much finality.
Knox spun back to this keyboard just in time to watch Vance usher Darya to his white Jeep Wrangler.
“So that’s it.” Beckett’s statement was packed with a whole lot of aha and even more gotcha.
That was okay. Knox was used to Beckett sniffing and could play shit off with the best of them. “What’s it?”
“Why you’re in a shit mood.”
He glanced over his shoulder at Beckett and feigned an incredulous expression. “At Vance?” He scoffed for good measure and put eyes back to this work. “No way.”
“Not at Vance. At Darya with Vance.”
Knox shook his head, all too aware that if Beck got a straight-line view of his face, he’d see the glare aimed at his computer screens. “It’s not like that.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
In one smooth move that shouldn’t be possible for a guy with Beckett’s kind of bulk, he dropped his foot, sat up and crossed his forearms on Knox’s desk. “You sure? ’Cause you were sporting the same nasty look yesterday when you walked in and found me and Darya sparring in the workout room.”
Yep, that had pissed him off. Especially when Beckett had thought it’d be a good idea to spend extra time teaching her how to break out of a choke hold—an exercise that had put him up against her way too damned long.
“Come to think of it,” Beckett said, “Danny got the same look Wednesday afternoon when you busted her hoppin’ off the back of his bike.”
That hadn’t pissed him off. He’d just been jealous as hell. At least Danny didn’t paw her nonstop. “No harm in her makin’ friends with my family.”
“Nope. Though I gotta wonder why she doesn’t show the same affection for you that she does with everyone else. The way I figure it, you’re either a horrible fuck and she doesn’t want to encourage you, or you drew an ironclad boundary and told her to keep her hands off outside of sex.”
“Stop diggin’, brother.”
“Who says I’m digging? Maybe I’m just thinkin’ out loud.”
“Well, think with your mouth shut.”
Silence boomeranged back at him, but Beckett’s stare pressed as steady as a gun muzzle at his temple.
He opened a new command screen and started typing. “Don’t you have something to do?”
When Beckett spoke, his tone had taken on a whole new range. The one saved for when he was either scared shitless or focused on something that meant the world to him. Considering Beckett had been afraid maybe twice in his whole life, it had to be door number two. “Nothing more important than me figuring out how to get my brother to pull his head out of his ass and see what everyone else in his family saw inside of ten minutes.”
All the frustration Knox had buried lunged to the surface and he spun fast enough Beckett actually flinched. “What? That she’s great? Yeah, I get that, too. But you know where my head’s at with relationships.”
“Yeah. I do. Like I said, your head’s stuck up your ass. And worse, you’re an idiot to boot, because you’re so wound up in those bullshit rules you hold yourself to, you don’t see the way she looks at you when you’re not looking.”
“I’m her boss, that’s it.”
Beckett snapped closer, his face heating with a rare display of anger and nearly going nose to nose. “She doesn’t look at you like you’re her boss. She looks at you like you’re the goddamn holy grail.”
Knox jerked his head back, the reality of Beckett’s statement as potent as a bitch slap. Surely she didn’t feel the same way he did. She couldn’t. If she did, then that meant...hell, he didn’t want to think about what that meant.
Beckett huffed out an ironic chuckle and shook his head, all the tension that had ridden his big body seeping out in one rush. “Jesus, you really are an idiot. Knox, you need to listen and listen good. Fate, the universe or God almighty is raining all kinds of goodness on you, and you’re so fucking whacked out by your past, you’re throwing it away with both hands.”
He stood, pushed his chair back where he’d found it then leaned in close. When he spoke, his voice was serious as death. “Do yourself and her a favor. Wake. The fuck. Up.”