Niko(Love Me Harder #2)(47)
Every head left Hale and turned to Aran. He would give the orders and they would follow.
“We pay him a visit tonight. If he is created, then our odds will not be increased, but we lessen the chances of prying eyes. If he is a human being used as a distraction by the created, then the chance of him hurting himself when we pay him a visit will have gone down. Either way, it is a plus for our side.”
They all stood. One by one, they slipped away.
“Where did they go?”
“To prepare. They will be back here in an hour and then we will leave.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Although we rarely use a weapon, we will each carry one in case it is needed. They will recheck the security in their homes. They will change into an outfit that was made for the purpose of tracking and hunting and they will reassemble here.”
“Why here? Why not at Aran’s? Why will they recheck their security?”
“They will reassemble here, because you tracked down the lead. So you will be given the honor of being the third on this. We will all recheck security, because you never go into battle unless you are sure your home base can’t be compromised.”
He held out his hand and led her to the security room. She sat at her desk and toyed with her laptop while he began to run a security program. One, she realized, he ran every few days.
“You take this seriously. Have there been any attacks before this one on earth?”
“No.”
“Then why do you have so much security?”
He continued to tweak his sensors, before finally turning around and speaking.
“Tell me, kitten. What do you value?”
“Other than you?”
“Yes.”
“My car.”
“Do you take care of it? Do you fill the tank with gas, make sure the tires are fit?”
“Of course I do.”
“What if I asked you to go someplace of unknown distance with tires that were bald and a gas tank bordering on empty?”
“That sounds like a suicide mission.” She thought of deserted roads and snakes and men with guns. She shivered, so not happening.
“Now, what if I gave you a government mission and you left without securing your own borders only to come home to find that mission standing in your living room?”
“How’s our security system?”
“It’s fine.” He went back to tweaking his sensors.
They were paranoid all of them, but she understood it kept them alive. Now that same paranoia would keep her alive.
“Niko, what if more like this one comes?”
“Then we will take care of them.” He turned and left the room. She sat and watched her computer run through a program she had created to link the company funds together, so she could see them as a whole.”
She waited impatiently for the program to stop running. When she had the raw data before her, she began crunching numbers. She looked over at the credit cards to see that there were eight cards when there had only been seven several weeks ago. Had Aran given Rena a credit card?
She began to pull up the cards checking the name on each card and the date of issue. When she got to the last card, the name read Vance Baal and the date of issue was three weeks ago.
Had he been authorized to receive a card? She went to find Niko to ask. She walked away and then turned around and came back. She had a feeling that leaving her computer on would not go over well.
She walked upstairs and found Niko, barely. He was wearing a material that she had never seen. It blended in with the surroundings. She saw him, because he wanted to be seem.
“I was doing some more digging and I saw that there was an eighth credit card issued to the company. The name on it was Vance’s. Did you know that he had a credit card?”
“No.” He gave a slow shake of his head. “That was not approved.”
Why would Vance have a credit card? He was the innocent victim here, but could he also have been stealing funds in a different way?
She had watched Vance from the beginning, always surprised by the choice to make him the supervisor. There were many in her office she would have supported over him.
Again, she let it go, She was not the one making decisions. He could have had special skills she hadn’t seen.
“I do agree with you.” She raised her eyes to look at Niko. “He wasn’t the best choice for the job. The best choice is standing in front of me. I needed time and he was a filler. Not a good explanation, but it’s all I have. With everything that had gone on with Aran, Rena and you, I needed to wait before I sprung something else on you.”
“Yet you thought it was ok to spring both yourself and your world on me?”
“I convinced myself that you needed both my world and myself in your life as much as I needed you in my life. I needed to be a part of you, so I justified my actions.”