Wicked as Lies (Wicked & Devoted #3) - Shayla Black Page 0,82
even though they thought he was guilty as fuck. Zy was really starting to resent these assholes. “On it.”
“Good.” Hunter shot him a biting smile and gestured him to his desk.
Jesus. Tessa had lost her father, but she’d seemed to gain a handful of overprotective daddies.
Glowering, he made his way back to his corner of the building, threw himself into his chair, and bit back a curse.
Trees sipped his coffee and looked up from his screen. “Tessa okay?”
“She’s fine, but something is wrong with everyone else around her. They’ve turned into fucking hens.”
His buddy laughed. “Would you like some good news?”
“Fuck, I could use it.”
“I did some digging this weekend. Madison has a friend who’s a reporter at the local rag, and her beat is covering city politics. Apparently, Tessa’s ex spent Friday night in the hospital and the weekend in the county jail.”
Zy froze. “No shit. He couldn’t muster the money for bail?”
“He was denied bail—at his uncle’s request.”
Seriously? “Even though he weaseled Cash out of trouble after he smashed Tessa’s window?”
“Yep. When word broke that Cash had threatened to beat and rape his baby mama and that Councilman Bennett had allowed his nephew to get off scot-free once, the women of the community—led by his own wife—had a collective shit fit and demanded Cash spend the weekend in the clink. The rest of the city council seemed to agree. Bennett issued a statement that said he hadn’t seen the harm in helping his wayward nephew when Cash had stupidly broken a window while drunk, but the councilman drew the line at his nephew being violent with the woman who’d given him a daughter.”
Thank God for politicians and appearances. “So where is Cash now?”
Trees smiled. “He’ll be seeing the judge in less than an hour. The consensus is that he’ll probably be shown to a court-mandated rehab facility.”
Rather than prison. Zy would prefer to see him go down, but if the asshole got some help and he learned a lesson or two—primarily to stay away from Tessa—he’d count it as a win. “At least that would get him out of her hair for…what? Sixty days?”
“Something like that. Depends on what the judge decides.”
True that. “Thanks for the info, buddy.”
Trees clapped him on the shoulder. “What are friends for? By the way, in case you need to blackmail Councilman Bennett into being harsher with his nephew, I hacked into his computer and printed out a complete history of his porn habits. That’s some sick shit, man. I’ll never look at vegetable shortening and barbed wire the same again.”
Zy didn’t want to know.
“Thanks, man. Unless I need it, keep that shit to yourself.” They laughed as Zy sat and booted up his computer.
“You haven’t been on assignment lately. What do the bosses have you working on?”
Damn. Trees was observant, and he’d been purposely evasive. He should have seen this question coming. “Um, just some background for a potential new client.”
Trees frowned, and Zy did his best not to wince. He felt like shit for lying to the friend who’d had his back through thick and thin. Eventually, when he proved Trees wasn’t their mole, he hoped the big guy would forgive him.
“Sure,” Trees said dismissively, then focused stubbornly on his screen.
“Look,” Zy dropped his voice. “They gave me an assignment I can’t talk about yet, okay? I’ll explain as soon as I can.”
And he would.
The promise appeased Trees a little. “Sure.”
But as his friend focused on his work again, Zy merely stared at his own computer. What the hell could he do to prove his friend innocent when Trees was sitting a mere six feet away? Everything One-Mile had said on Friday evening swirled through his head.
“Hey, I got a question… How secure is our network here? Is it pretty hack proof?”
“That came out of nowhere. Why do you want to know?”
Shit. How the hell was he supposed to answer that?
Zy shrugged. “Just curious since you were talking about hacking the councilman’s shit. I know you usually like to put your two cents into whatever cybersecurity you work with. We good here?”
Trees raised a brow. “You hiding the fact you’re into Crisco and barbed wire, too?”
“Fuck no.”
His friend laughed. “Good to hear it. We’re safe. Right after I hired on, the colonel and I put our heads together and shored up the internal firewall. He’d done a decent job, but you know I like to put my touch on everything.”
That should make EM’s network a hundred times harder to break into