East Bound by Nana Malone (best value ebook reader .txt) 📗

my mate asked me to look after his sister, so I have. I should have looked out for her brother better."

That was a tough one to swallow because, yeah, we all should have looked out for Toby better. And as much as we tried to rectify that, it was always going to be a sore spot. We had failed him. And Bridge felt like he was failing Emma.

"Mate, I know Toby was our friend, but just in case you did have a thing for Emma, which you don't, obviously, but if you did, I'm pretty sure there's no one he'd want to be with her more."

"Are you daft? Are you forgetting I'm already engaged?"

We all knew that was the magical word that meant shut the fuck up.

Bridge had a blind spot when it came to Mina. There was a part of me that thought she could be good for him. And in the beginning, he’d been obsessed with her. He’d thrown himself headfirst into the relationship, and something about her had calmed him down.

He'd been less angry, less closed off since he’d met her. And so we'd celebrated her sudden appearance in his life, his sudden establishment of her as the woman he wanted to be with. We accepted all of it, but it had never felt like something that should be happening. It had never seemed like something that was on point.

And then we’d discovered the one thing that would be guaranteed to split them up. But he was happy, so I’d fought Ben on telling Bridge the truth. But in hindsight, that was the wrong way to go.

"Right, Mina. Of course."

Bridge scowled at us. "You lot have got to let this Mina thing go."

Ben put up his hands. "We've let it go. We didn't say anything about Mina, okay?"

Bridge changed the subject. "Can we get back to the task at hand? Jameson?”

I guess that was that. "I'm on it. I’m trying to find a way in. Maybe a remote camera if we can get a workman to smuggle it in. I'll ask Telly for help."

Drew clutched his hands to his chest. "God is real. If you're going to ask Telly for help, what has this world come to?"

I rolled my eyes. "Ha-ha, very funny."

Still chuckling, he shook his head. "I could do this all day."

I looked to Ben. "If you can't shut him up, I will."

He laughed. "I hate to say this but maybe Lucas is the one to go in."

Bridge laughed. "You know full well it won’t be simple and that he won’t be contained. He’ll rob Jameson blind."

I laughed. "Yeah. But, it would be brilliant to watch."

Bridge nodded. "Yes, but it would bring a slew of complications. But hey, who wants to do anything easy?"

Drew raised a hand. "Me, I like it easy."

We all chuckled.

"Jameson will be a problem,” I muttered.

Ben’s voice was low, "Yes, but this is the in we need. Besides, Jameson elder and younger were always in the crosshairs. Any connection to Warlow just speeds it up."

East

An hour later, the team was all together, and we were reviewing the map of the grounds on Ben and Livy’s massive coffee table.

And the woman I loved suggested she draw the short straw to get us the image from inside Jameson’s office. "I don't like it." I stared at the plan. "I have no idea about their security. This is bad. This is a bad plan."

Bridge clapped me on the shoulder. "Oh yes, East, forever our worry wart. Relax, Thanks to Telly finding out the security company and working her contact there, we know all camera placements. We know the pitfalls."

I scowled at my mate. "I'm sorry, are you the security expert? No, right?"

Bridge just laughed. "No need to be so testy."

“I just need more information. No offense, Tel, the information is good. It’s just not complete. It’s a bloody closed system. I can’t hack it unless I’m inside. We sneak on the property and we’ll be blind. Like how many, in what locations, and what are they pointing at?"

"I knew he'd be like this." Drew muttered to himself.

"Like what? Trying to keep everybody alive? Pardon me if that's the whole purpose of what I'm doing."

Nyla watched our exchange back and forth. "This is a delight. I love to see other people giving him shit, not just me."

I grumbled under my breath, "This is not funny."

"No, of course, it's not funny. I'm the one who’s breaking into a state-of-the-art secured compound. None of this is funny. Matter of fact, this is all downright dangerous. But you will help keep me protected."

"Yes, but the point is, this is so much harder than it needs to be."

She shrugged. "Well, it is what it is. We need access to that photo if we hope to ever have a good lead on Henry Warlow."

The shitty part was, I'd seen that image the last time I'd broken into Jameson's office. But Warlow hadn’t been on my radar then, and I couldn't remember any of the other names.

Telly stepped forward with her laptop open. "Okay, East, what is it that worries you the most? Is it the fact that we'll have to actually search the office physically, the security protocols that we don't know about, or the fact that we have to also be super close to the buildings so that we can hack in?”

"All of the above. It just seems reckless."

Ben nodded. "So noted. Now, if we had nothing to lose, how would we do this?"

Nyla sat up. "Okay, we need access to the photo. East you’ve seen the photo?"

"Yes, but it’s in the heart of the compound in Lord Jameson’s office."

“Bryna, you and I will monitor from here." She pointed the egress route that we'd taken that night we'd gotten hit by sprinklers.

Don't you mean the night she rubbed herself all over your cock and you had blue balls for a week?

Yeah, good times.

"Okay, so it would seem that the room you were in is here." Telly pointed