mostly empty when you gave it to me, wasn’t it?”
“I refreshed it,” Kir said. “There were only OS and basic application files. You had a terabyte of free storage.”
The same message popped up.
“Well, apparently, I don’t anymore.”
Kir stood and came around behind her. When a few clicks of the mouse wouldn’t give him what he wanted, he took the whole machine and sat back down at the table. In less than a minute, he stopped typing and frowned, looking up. “Someone’s partitioned the hard drive. The primary was left with almost no storage. The other is completely full of data.”
Sergei uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. “What kind of data?”
Roman stood and rounded the table, planting himself squarely behind Kir.
Kir scanned the screen, his fingers moving wickedly fast atop the keyboard. “Hard to tell for sure, but it looks like...financial data.” His gaze cut to Bonnie. “Where did this come from?”
“I don’t know. The only thing I’ve ever used it for is surfing the web and email. Except for when I tried to do that iMovie thing and almost chucked the whole computer out the window.”
Everyone around the table got eerily silent, waiting for Kir to figure out what the heck was going on.
Olga stepped into the opening and scanned the lot of them. “What is wrong?”
“Uncle Kir is fixing Aunt Bonnie’s computer,” Emerson said. “She broke it.”
“I did not.”
“Well, it’s not working.”
Evette tapped her son on the shoulder. “Emerson, cool it. Give Kir some quiet to work.” She shifted her attention to Olga. “Everything go okay with the men?”
“Yes, all the food is gone.” She held up a phone and looked to Bonnie. “But Miss Bonnie left her phone on the counter. It has been ringing for half an hour.”
“My phone?” She scooted her chair back and hurried to retrieve it. “My phone never rings anymore.”
Before she could wrap her hand around the casing, Roman beat her to it. He thumbed open the screen. “Not a call from your contacts.” Not waiting for any direction or permission from her, he punched the accept button. Whoever was on the other end answered mighty quick because Roman all but barked, “Who is this?”
He frowned at the floor, listening, then slid his attention to Bonnie. Slowly, as though he wasn’t sure of the wisdom in handing the device back to her, he murmured, “Jennette Simpson.”
Her brother’s girlfriend? That was seriously weird. “How’d she get this number?”
Roman twisted for a direct view of his brothers. “A good question.”
“I’m on it.” Leaving Bonnie’s laptop behind, Kir rose and strode from the room.
Evette leaned over and whispered something into Emerson’s ear. He nodded and left the room without a backward glance.
Bonnie stared at the now empty entry for a solid handful of seconds, then lifted the phone to her ear. “Hey, Jennette. What’s up?”
“It’s your brother. We gotta talk.”
Her heart kicked hard enough it hurt and her knees got weak. “Right. Okay. Um...” Roman must’ve figured out she was close to keeling over, because within one strained breath, she found a chair pushed behind her knees and her ass solidly planted in it a second later. She let out a shaky exhale. “What about him?”
“No, not on the phone. Come to the place I work—Froyo Fruitti over on St. Thomas Street.”
“Wait—what? Since when do you work there? I thought you were working at the Sonic in Dad’s neighborhood.”
Jennette paused a beat, then answered, “Oh, no. Got me a new job. Cleaner and easier, that’s for damned sure. Now are you comin’ or not?”
From the stern glare on Roman’s face, she was thinking not. At least not without an army alongside her. “Um, sure. Roman and I can be there in maybe thirty minutes.”
“You mean that big guy that was at your house? Oh, no. I ain’t talkin’ to him. Or anyone else but you. Just you, okay? I’m only callin’ as a friend. I don’t want in the middle of Kevin’s shit any more than I already am.”
Now that was an odd thing to say. How the heck was Jennette in the middle of anything? And an even bigger question—how the hell was she ever gonna talk to Jennette without muscle in tow? “Is this the best number to reach you?”
“It’s the shop number, so yeah. But I’m only here until six.”
“Okay. Let me figure something out, and I’ll head that way.” She ended the call and stared up at Roman. “She says she knows something about Kevin, but she didn’t want to talk about