The server room you want should be there. Use the code breaker to get in, but keep your head down.”
“On it,” she said.
“Good. Keep me updated.” Elias nodded and turned on his heel like a fucking general commanding his troops.
What an asshole.
Isaac waited until the door closed to begin his own pacing.
“Hey, I’m headed your way now,” Jo said through the comms.
He didn’t respond.
What the fuck was he going to do? What the ever loving fuck? How was he going to cover his ass on this one?
God damn Giovanni for putting him in this position.
Elias’s voice started up, droning on with his conversation with Torres, providing a constant layer of noise to Isaac’s thoughts.
He should go. Run now. Get out while he still could and leave these two lovebirds to figure it out themselves.
Fuckity fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
He blew out a breath.
This place was a security company. They had to have enough security to stop this mad plan. Right? And in the grand scheme of things, he’d rather deal with building security over anything Giovanni would throw at him. These people worked within the bounds of the law. Giovanni did not.
“Almost there, Isaac,” Jo said.
He shook his head and stalked toward the door.
If he bailed, Giovanni would find him. Isaac needed to have faith in the plan.
The hall was clear of people. One good thing about the holidays was that there weren’t a lot of employees putting in hours. He didn’t run into more than one girl, too busy staring at her phone to notice him on his way downstairs.
He briefly considered walking out the front door again, but if he did that he could also risk angering Giovanni that way.
Isaac was screwed. If he followed directions and stuck close to Jo and she was FBI, he could become a pawn in her game. If he looked after his own hide, he could run afoul of Giovanni, and contrary to what a lot of people liked to think, the man was not lenient. His jovial personality was an act. He was a cruel, ruthless bastard formed by the two families who’d birthed him.
“This fucking sucks,” Isaac muttered as he opened the north exit.
A lumpy form darted inside.
“Took you long enough,” Jo snapped back.
He frowned and watched her shrug out of the coat. She wore slacks and a blouse with her hair tied up. Dressed like that, she almost looked like an employee.
“East stair?” She dropped the puffy coat on the ground.
“Uh, this way.”
“Elias’ really good at this,” she said softly.
Isaac grunted.
The guy knew how to spin his wheels. So what?
“Here, look at this.” Jo opened a notebook and showed him a blank page as they walked.
“Uh, what am I looking at?” he asked.
She flashed him a smile. “A prop.”
“Okay...”
“Have you seen them? Dion, I mean?” She glanced over her shoulder as they reached the stair.
“No, Elias did.”
“Shoot. Okay.”
They didn’t speak as they climbed the stairs, which was fine for him. He was still wondering how this would play out.
“This is us,” he said and reluctantly opened the door to the second floor.
“Move. Quick. Dion might be ahead of us.”
“We can’t run,” he said, trying to sound logical.
Why him?
He dragged his feet the fifteen or so yards to the server room entrance, praying that any second they’d get caught. But they didn’t.
Jo pressed the end of the code breaker to the display and it began the cycle. Unlike movies and TV, the process wasn’t instantaneous.
“This darn door,” Jo fussed, still playing into her role.
Isaac shoved his hands in his pockets. If Dion caught up to them, would he take this morning out on Isaac? Why had they moved in so fast like that? Weren’t they supposed to hang back?
“Got it,” Jo said in a triumphant whisper.
She opened the door to the server room.
Inwardly Isaac groaned.
THURSDAY. EAGLE TECH, Seattle, Washington.
Jo could hardly believe they’d gotten this far without incident. The whole plan had sounded far too good to be true. But here they were, in the damn server room. She was going to owe Elias so big after this. He was the rock star that made it all happen. There was no way they’d have gotten this far without him.
She hovered behind Isaac as he picked away at the keyboard.
“Find it yet?” she asked, anxious to be out of here. From what she could hear of Elias’ side of the conversation, he was starting to scrape the bottom of the bucket to keep Torres talking.
“I’m working on it,” Isaac snapped.
She bit back her