Merciless Hunter (Dark Syndicate 4)

32

Aiden

“We’re going to have to leave it to Gibbs. His team will hopefully be able to open it,” Dominic says with a ragged sigh.

His blood shot eyes are evidence of the time he’s spent trying to hack into the file on the email.

I look from him to the flat screen computer on his desk and I still can’t believe he can’t open it.

He showed me what he’d been doing, even revealing crazy ass techniques I don’t know, that government agencies and military intelligence use to hack files, and nothing worked.

“Jesus Christ,” I scowl, resting my elbows on my knees, then straightening when the pain from the wound I got last night pierces through me.

“You good?”

“I’m alive.”

There was fucking trouble at the warehouse again.

Like I thought, Jude sent stronger people. It’s what I expected because of who I am.

One fucker came at me with a knife and sliced me. It was when I was fighting another guy, so I didn’t get out of the way in time.

There were ten of them and they came to question my men like we’re people who sit around and talk. I got called in from the club with Maksim and Ilya.

That’s when the fighting began. We took down most of them but some escaped. They killed more of our guys though and that’s what rubbed Maksim the wrong way. Me too.

What irked me more was what he said about Olivia.

Hand her over to Jude or kill her.

Both sound like the same thing to me.

“You said you guys got attacked last night,” Dominic says leaning his head to the side. “Jude sent men from the Order.”

“Yeah. Things have escalated. But he doesn’t know we’re hacking his ass.”

“No.”

“If I’m not careful he’ll find out why she really came to L.A. I was hoping we’d find something on Aleksei by now, but maybe there’s nothing to find.”

I was sure there was, and I still am.

“We’re just going to have to keep looking. You know how shitty this part of the job can be.”

Yes, I know. I’m just impatient because I seem to be doing all the wrong things.

“I feel like I don’t know what to do, Dominic,” I state. “And now Pearson’s out of the picture, I’m grasping at everything, like this email. It might have nothing useful inside.”

“I know,” he agrees. “It’s just curious they’d have a separate code for something else. I’ll do what I planned to do today and wait to hear from Gibbs. I’m looking through these old files.”

He clicks into Jude’s system and opens one of the folders dated from ten years ago. I’m currently looking through one of the other folders in the same file.

The one Dominic is referring to is called “Objects” on the list. He clicks into it and sure enough there’s over a hundred folders inside it.

“There’s a shit load here.” He makes a show of running the mouse over the screen, but one of the files catches my eye when he starts to scroll down.

“Wait.” I stop him. “Go back up.”