bChapter /bb278 /b

    Hacker

    Besides nearly getting killed when I told Striker and Cyra that the money her mother left her is a ridiculouslyrge amount, I feel on edge. when we pull into their packnds. I haven’t seen Wendy since Alpha Leo’s court, not face to face. Since that time, it feels like she and Nav gotten closer. I know Hijack is interested in her as well, but I feel a possessiveness towards her that I’m unused to fealing about anyone.

    When we get out of the car, I’m a bit disappointed that she isn’t waiting for us. I was hoping that maybe she was as desperate to see me as i am to see her. If I’m reading this wrong, I need to dial myself WAY back. I won’t do anything to jeopardize the Tech Team and if my attention is unwanted, I won’t push it.

    We’ve just opened the truck to start unpacking when I hear feet rushing toward us. I turn and there she is, all beautiful long Brown bwavy /bhair and dark green eyes.

    She stops, staring at me, her cheeks going pink.

    “Dad waited to tell me you were here until you had already pulled up,” she says. I don’t bother fighting the grin. I’m happy that she’s excited

    to see me.

    “Did you tell them what we found?” she asks excitedly, rushing to hug her brother.

    “I did. Your brother nearly ran the car off the road,” I say, watching as she looks up at her brother,ughing at him.

    Damn, I can’t see that sparkle in her eyes through the camera. I nned on giving her one of theptops that I brought, since it’s got added security on it, but now I’m really d I am. The camera on it is MUCH better than the one on her currentputer.

    She goes over the hug Cyra as the rest of the family walks out to greet us.

    “Good evening, Alpha Warren, Luna Yara,” I say, greeting them.

    “Mom, Dad, you remember Hacker, right?” Wendy says,ing to stand beside me.

    “How could I forget the man who has helped my son and daughter–inw with so much,” Luna Yara says, walking over and pulling me into a hug. My eyes go wide and I look at Alpha Warren to make sure he’s not going to punch me.

    “Mom’s a hugger,” Yorick and Wendy say together.

    Yara pulls back and looks at me. “You’ve done so much for our family, you feel like family already.”

    “Thank you, Luna.” She reminds me of my own mother, loving and kind, and no one ever feels like a stranger in her home.

    “iYou /ihaven’t met my youngest children yet, have you?” she asks.

    “No, ma’am.”

    “Such a respectful young mani,/ii” /ishe says so softly I’m not sure I was meant to hear it.

    “Mom mumbles to herself a lot. You get used it,” Wendy says quietly.

    “This is my daughter, Yana,” she says introducing me to a female version of Alpha Warren. Unlike Wendy who looks takes after her father, although her eyes are lighter like her mother’s where Wendy’s are darker with brown flecks in them like bher /bfather.

    mother, Yana

    “Hey, Wendy’s told us all about you,” Yana says in an obvious tease to Wendy. From the corner of my eye, I can see Wendy’s lips press btightly /btogether as she res at her sister. ol start="1822"liThu 14 Aug L /li/ol

    Chapter b278 /b

    b“/bbOnly /bthe good things, I hope,” I say, teasing her right back. Ie from arge family too, bso /bbbrothers /band sisters teasing rachou mercilessly is very familiar to me.

    “ording to Wendy, there’s nothing bad about you. I’m Yvonne,” the youngest daughter says. This one looks more blike /bbWendy /band thei

    mother.

    “Yvonne!” Wendy groans making me chuckle.

    “I’m Wade, Yvonne’s twin,” he says, stepping up to me and shaking my hand. He may be the youngest son, but the look he gives bme /bbis /bbno /bless protective of his sister than Yorick’s.

    “I’m Hacker.”

    “Is that your real name?” Yvonne asks me.

    “No, it’s a codename. In our line of work, it’s better

    ople don’t know your real name. It makes it harder for them to find you.

    Both Yana and Yvonne turn to Wendy. “Do you

    know his real name?”

    She looks at me like she’s not sure how to answer. “Uh…”

    “Sphinx is part of our Tech Team. She may not be at the Academy yet, but she’s already been epted. As a junior member of the team, she’s given ess to confidential information that others aren’t,” I say, making Wendy stand a little taller and smile proudly.

    “So, what’s this I hear about my son nearly running off the road on the way here?” Alpha Warren asks.

    “Dad, Hacker and I found the money!” Wendy says excitedly.

    He blinks at her, staring before responding. “And you didn’t think that was important information for your father to have?” he asks, his voice

    stern and disapproving.

    “It’s appropriate to tell the requestor the results of our investigations before telling anyone else who may have ess to that information,” I say, once again jumping in to defend her.

    “Already so protective of my daughter. What a nice young man,” Luna Yara says softly, cutting the tension in the air. I look at Wendy again, not

    sure if that was intentional or not.

    “Mumble,” she mouths to me.

    How very curious. The woman is intriguing but she’d be terrible with ssified information.

    I see Alpha Warren noticeably rx as he pulls his mate into his arms and kisses the top of her head. “Shall we head inside? Apparently, I have some information that I need to hear, and I think you’re going to have a busy weekend, Hacker.”

    “I’m prepared, sir.”

    “Is all of this for this weekend?” Wendy asks, turning back to the car.

    “Most of it. Three of theptops are staying here. One for each packhouse and one for you,” I tell her, making her bsmile /bbat /bbme /bagain.

    Damn, my new favorite hobby is making this woman smile at me.

    “Can I help?” Yana asks.

    “I need to see what I’m working with first, but there’s plenty of work to go around,” I tell her. Wendy looks a little disappointedb, /bbbut /bbshe /bdoesn’t realize yet that I mean what i’m saying. I could have used Hijack this weekend, but I wasn’t willing bto /bshare bmy /bbtime /bbwith /bbWendy /b

    b1828 /bbThu /bAUS

    Chapter b278 /b

    b“/bbHow /bbabout /byou show Hacker to his room, Wendy. Then you can take him on a tour bof /bbthe /btwo bpackhouses /bbbefore /bdinner, Alder that Ha byou /bcan decide if you want to get started tonight or tomorrow.”

    “Thank you, Luna.”

    Wendy, Yana, Yvonne, and Wade all grab boxes and help me carry them up to the room where I’ll be staying. bThey /bbput /bme on the Estation which is good. I might struggle if I was sleeping in a room next to Wendy. Being iin /ithe same packhouse with her, spending the weekend with her is already going to try my ability to remain professional. Unless, of course, she acts like she wants more, if she does, I’ll bhappily /bshow her that a Hacker’s kiss isn’t something that she’ll ever forget.

    I pull the twoptops that I intend to leave here out of the box and turn to Wendy. “Okay, I want to see everything so I can bget /bay of thend, literally, but for now, why don’t you show me where the security equipment is.”

    “And, I’m out. If you need any more help with lifting, let me know. But I’m more like Yorick, I’d rather spar than sit in front of ba /bbputer /bbany /bday,” Wade says.

    “Yeahi, /ime too,” Yvonne says. “See you at dinner.”

    “See you then.”

    “I’d like to stay if that’s okay?” Yana asks. I can tell Wendy would rather she didn’t, but I do need the extra hands. And since nothing that bI’m /bdoing is illegal, it’s perfectly fine if Yana helps.

    “Like I said, I could use the help. Although sometimes our work is really boring, but it has to get done to make sure everything is set up properly,” I say.

    “Okay, lets start with the security system,” Wendy says.

    She leads me back downstairs and I take the opportunity to get to know Yana. If she’s interested in technology, she could end up on our team

    when she’s older.

    “How old are you, Yana?”

    “Fifteen, almost sixteen,” she says excitedly.

    “And are you interested in tech like Wendy is?” I ask her.

    “It seems really interesting. Wendy’s always at herputer these days,i” /ishe says.

    “Sphinx is a sponge with information, absorbing it as fast as we give it to her,” I say proudly. I’m rewarded with another huge smile.

    She knocks on a closed door and when I hear Striker tell her toe in, I realize this must be the Alpha’s office.

    “Hey, Hacker wants to see the security system in here. Is it okay if wee in?” she asks.

    “That’s why he’s here. Do you need us to leave?” Striker asks.

    “No. You won’t bother me as long as we won’t bother you.”

    “Yana?” Alpha Warren asks.

    “He said I could watch, Dad. I asked,” she says defensively.

    “If you have another techy in the making, I’m happy to encourage her excitement,” I say, grinning at bAlpha /bWarrenb. /b

    He frowns at his daughter. “You’re interested in technology? Since when?”

    “Since Wendy started talking about it non–stop.”

    “I don’t tell them anything confidential,” she rushes to tell me.

    “I know,” I say, and I do. We’ve tagged her phone to alert us with keywords or phrases so we can monitor if she slips at all. So for she’s been perfect.

    She frowns at me, obviously wondering how I know. I lift my phone up and wave it.

    1 watch understanding dawn on her face. “I want to know moreter,” she says softly.

    “Okay.”

    When she opens the panel to show the security system, I see right away that there’s a problemn.

    “Uh, yeah, this isn’t a security system,” I say.

    “What do you mean?” Striker asks. He and Cyrae over to look. “We have monitors that watch the borders.

    “Yep, you do and that’s all they do. You have a monitoring system, not a security system. If someone breached your borders, you wouldn’t know it until your patrols alerted you or they reached your packhouse. This though…” I say, looking at what is most definitely a security system. “This is a security system.”

    “For what?” Cyra asks.

    “Wendy, can you go get the small toolkit in my room. It’s in one of the boxes. It will have the equipment I showed you that measures power and where it’sing from. You know the one?”

    “Yep, I’ll be right back.”

    “I’m guessing this is the security system for your inte protection, but we’ll see here in a few minutes,” I say, answering Cyra’s question.

    When Wendy returns, I hook up the device to the wires and set it to track the destination. A momentter, theputer on the desk pings..

    “Bingo. It’s the inte protection. We knew your father had it, that’s why Hijack had to hack into hisputer. He was smart enough to know that he needed to hide information from others.”

    “That is fire!” Yana says, excitedly.

    “I’m more than just a pretty face,” I say, making her giggle. Since Wendy obviously doesn’t like me giving her sister attention, I put her to work testing the other lines just to make sure I’m right about them going nowhere. While she does that, I set up theputer that I will leave in this packhouse:

    “Okay, Yana, you’re up,” I say once theputer is ready and Wendy is done confirming that the other lines have no security protocol.

    “What do you need?” she asks excitedly.

    “I need you to watch these lines as they connect. Periodically, the system will ask you if you want to continue. Always say yes. As the security system starts activating, these lines will go from red to green. If any of them turn yellow, we’ll have to fix them. I’m going to take Wendy to bthe /bother packhouse and get this started over there. When Ie back, I’ll need to know how many are yellow and how many stayed red.”

    “You got it!”

    I smile at her, then grab my tools and the otherputer.

    “Let’s go straight to the other packhouse. We can do the pack tour tomorrow. If that security system is bas /bbbad /bbas /bbthis /bbone/bb, /bbit’s /bbgoing /bbto /bbtake /bba /b

    18:22 Thu b14 /bbAug /b

    while to get things started and we can let the system drone through it overnight,” I say to Wendy.

    We walk outside to an SUV simr to the one we drove in to get here. Wendy hops in the driver’s seat and I get into the passenger seatb. /bbOnce /bshe turns on the car, I turn to her.

    “Finally, I get you all to myself,” I purr.

    I hear her soft gasp as her cheeks begin to turn a lovely shade of pink.