Heedless (The Hellbound Brotherhood #4) - Shannon McKenna Page 0,7

else, that would come across as an affectionate gesture. Gil’s handsome, chiseled face was solemn as he pleaded for compassion and humanity from whoever had stolen his wife.

Was she the only one who saw the cruelty in his eyes? It was obvious to her. As if Gil had horns sprouting from his forehead.

There were only three videos with Josh. From that point on, Gil had sadly told the interviewers that Josh was unwell. He was in a facility now, being treated for an emotional breakdown. He’d cracked under the stress of his sister’s abduction.

Eight months, her little brother had been in that monster’s grip.

She had the means to take that lying, murdering bastard down in her goddamn pocket. She had a weapon that would destroy him—but he had Josh.

Stalemate.

Gil loomed over her little brother in the video, fingers angled toward Josh’s throat, smiling. His nonverbal message drowned out every other thought in her head.

Don’t. You. Dare.

3

Nate took another slow pass through the dining room of Bluff House, and then through the ballroom, one last time, smoothly dodging the catering team. The device in his hand looked like a smartphone, so no one could tell he was bug-sweeping, looking for any audio or video devices that Kimball might have planted since Nate’s last pass through this place. They’d already done the bomb sweep earlier.

The wait staff were probably wondering what he was doing wandering around underfoot, staring at his phone like he was hunting freaking Pokémon.

The device in his hand was of his own design, and it combined all the bug-sweeping capabilities a security professional might need, all boiled down to the smallest and sleekest possible size. Spectrum analysis to sort out every RF signal, whether audio or video. Frequency hoppers. Burst/packet. Spread spectrum. Non-linear junction detectors. Near-field detectors. Infrared. There was even a thermal imager to scan for temperature inconsistencies. And it fit in your pocket and looked like an innocent smartphone. No one watching would know he was sweeping.

He’d partnered with engineers at Eric’s company, Erebus, to develop it, using their cutting edge nanotech. A patent was pending, and he stood to make some serious money when it hit the market. But later for that. He wasn’t hurting for money.

At the moment, he had bigger fish to fry.

He’d swept Bluff House many times since it was chosen for the reception venue. This was the final go-through. He would compare today’s results with all the previous ones, and if Redd Kimball had planted any surveillance devices here, his new software would swiftly analyze the discrepancies and pinpoint their locations.

Elisa gave him a disapproving look. She’d been barking orders like a drill sergeant as her crew put the finishing touches on place settings, and he was enjoying the spectacle. That stern, no-nonsense look in her eyes was a total turn-on.

She looked great today. She and her crew had opted for a single solid color shirt rather than the caterer’s usual black, and her silky, ruby red shirt looked awesome with her luminous skin and those big, mysterious eyes. Her hair was twisted up on top of her head in a big, thick coiled bun, and she was wearing more makeup today than he was used to seeing on her. It looked good, her lips a gleaming hot red. Snug black pants showed off her perfect ass to excellent advantage.

The look on her face had become a glare. Damn. Caught gawking. Meathead.

The high-pitched beep of the app on the phone demanded his attention. The software had just completed its comparative analysis of signals, and had thrown up a map of all the room’s thermal and RF inconsistencies in relation to previous sweeps.

He quickly discounted the ones coming from the sound equipment and the place where all the staff was congregating, zeroing on all the random spots where a sensitive bug might be concealed. One anomaly was in an air vent. Another corresponded with a smoke detector, probably a video camera. And here, next to a wall sconce….he glanced at it, and looked swiftly away, having spotted the tiny bug, mounted on the neck of the lamp. Kimball spared no expense, so it could probably overhear conversations three tables around. A good sound sifter would make it possible for Kimball to listen to every last word.

That fucker planned to virtually attend Demi and Eric’s wedding reception, if they let him do it. Allowing it was counterintuitive, but that was the strategy he’d pushed to the Trasks. They hated being watched, and who could