like Gio. He had no clue why. Until tonight, none of them had ever met the guy in person, just spoken with him over the phone when he called Laz. “Also, don’t think I didn’t see you two disappear after the auction. What happened?”
“I’m not talking about it,” Joker growled, eyes dark.
“Are you kidding me?”
“I’m not going to talk about it, so just fucking drop it.”
Jack stared at his best friend. He knew Gio was a sore point with Sacha, but Sacha told Jack everything, even things Jack didn’t want to know about. “Okay. I’ll drop it. For now.” He gave Joker a look that brooked no argument. Whatever the hell this was with Gio had truly upset him, and Jack wasn’t going to stand by and let him get away with shutting him out.
“Why would someone take photos of you and Fitz and send them to Frank’s computer?”
“Other than trying to make you jealous?”
“For what purpose? Yeah, I might get pissy—”
Joker arched an eyebrow at him.
“Which I apologized for.” Fuck, Joker was never going to let him live that down. “What’s the intended outcome? We’ve never let a guy come between us, and we sure as hell aren’t going to start now.” Several had tried, but it never ended well. They’d even had a few of Joker’s one-night stands propose a threesome, which had promptly resulted in Jack running far, far away and Joker never speaking of it again. Anyone who truly cared for Jack and wanted to be with him would never suggest Jack push Sacha out of the picture.
“Tell me about the night of the photo.”
“I went outside to throw a ball around with Chip. Fitz came to check on me.”
Jack whistled. “Brave.”
“Yeah, none of the other douchebags you dated would have done that.”
“Again, we’re not dating.”
“Again, whatever. We talked.”
Jack didn’t bother to ask him what they talked about. Joker wouldn’t tell him, no matter how close they were. He had a sense of honor when it came to certain things. If he believed someone needed to know something, he’d tell them. That still left one very important question unanswered. How the hell had someone obtained these photos?
“Judging from this angle, whoever took those photos had to be on a boat,” Joker said, pointing to the screen.
“That makes sense. Leo and I made sure no one could hack Colton’s security system. Even if there was someone out there better than Leo, and they managed to hack the cameras around Colton’s property, the photos of you two would have been from behind.”
“If someone had been hiding nearby, Chip would have alerted me. But several boats were out on the water that night. Some speedboats and a couple of yachts. Fuck. Anyone with a really good telephoto lens could have taken those photos.”
“True. But they had to send the photos from somewhere.” Jack turned his attention back to the monitor and started his software again. It finished scanning far quicker than it should.
“Do you know where it came from?”
“No. Argus came back with nothing. There’s never nothing.” He tried several other tricks, trying to trace the origins of the photos, an IP address, service provider, some kind of digital trail. There had to be something.
The photos and dialogue box disappeared.
“What the hell happened?”
“It’s gone.” Jack checked the entire system. “Like it never existed.” A chill went through him. “If someone sent this to Frank’s computer, they did so knowing I’d see them. Shit, that’s why Frank called me saying something was wrong. They were trying to get my attention.” Running a manual check, the only information that popped up was Frank’s security clearance being revoked by the system. “Frank couldn’t access his client list because his security clearance was revoked, but that just locks the system up, so they didn’t get any further. I don’t think they even tried.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. And the system shouldn’t have revoked Frank’s clearance. Only I can do that.” Jack jumped to his feet. Someone had lured him into Frank’s office and sent him these photos. Why here? Why now? His blood turned to ice. “I need to check on Fitz.” He sent several texts to Fitz asking him to call and meet Jack at his table. Leaving the office, Jack found Frank and let him know the system wasn’t compromised. Despite whatever weirdness was happening, no one had managed to breach any data. Jack had restored Frank’s clearance and told him he’d get to the bottom of whatever the hell was happening. The