Chapter 26: Oliver: Chapter 26

From her peripheral vision, Samantha watched as Daniel moved forward, stopping to stand beside Hylar.

Oliver had understood. He’d gotten rid of the eyes watching her.

Now she had to act.

Samantha’s fingers moved quickly over the keyboard. She could move them much faster, but she didn’t. The possibility of giving herself away was too great. Of alerting her captors that she was no longer doing what she was supposed to.

She didn’t need much time. A minute, tops. But who knew how long the men would be distracted?

Samantha had taken a cyber security course at university, never actually thinking she would need to use any of it. It was there she’d learned about certain security flaws…ones that allowed attackers to leverage Bluetooth connections and take control of devices.

That’s what she intended to do now.

She’d detected the Bluetooth signal less than an hour ago. Someone in the area had left it on. She wasn’t sure who. Hell, it might even be someone in another building. Someone unconnected to all of this.

She didn’t care. She had it—and she could use it.

God, she was glad she had a near photographic memory. Usually, it meant she remembered too much. Useless information she’d never use. Right now, it meant she could recall the coding commands.

Opening a command prompt window, Samantha typed the first code: “hci scan”.

Immediately, “scanning” appeared on the screen.

It took a few seconds for the sequence to appear: 00:0A:4T:7S:27:33.

Yes! That was the Bluetooth address for the device.

Samantha quickly initiated the pairing of her computer to the device and switched on interactive mode. Sweat beaded her forehead.

She was in. She had full control over the phone.

Speedily, Samantha typed in a line of code to retrieve the GPS coordinates of the phone’s location. It didn’t take long. Once she had that, she typed the last command—the one that allowed her to send an email to Marble Protection. It was an email address she’d memorized the day Tori had accepted the mission from Hylar.

Samantha punched in the coordinates and hit send.

Once it was done, she pressed the command to delete the email from the sent folder. Then, before anyone noticed, she disconnected the device from the computer.

Done.

Her heart rate was slightly elevated, and her hands were clammy, but no one had turned to look at her. If they did notice she was slightly out of sorts, hopefully they’d assume it was from Hylar’s words.

She shot a quick glance at Oliver. He wasn’t looking at her, but she hoped by simply looking up, he would know she was done.

His team needed to be as good as Hylar described. That was the only way they’d defeat these guys. She didn’t care about her own life; they’d already tortured her enough that nightmares would plague the rest of her days.

She couldn’t let them kill Tori. The only person left in the world she cared about.

Kye rubbed his eyes. He’d barely slept in the last twenty-four hours. Frustration gnawed at his insides. So did anger. And an overwhelming sense of being powerless.

Oliver and Tori had been taken right in front of him. And he hadn’t been able to do a goddamn thing about it.

He scanned the laptop screen. Wyatt’s laptop. The guy had been on it since they’d arrived back at Marble Falls. Searching for anything that could tell them where Oliver or Tori had been taken. Kye had managed to convince him to take a break. Shut his eyes for at least an hour.

The guy wouldn’t be away long. Hell, he’d probably be back within the hour.

The team was scattered around Marble Protection. They’d used every resource they had to find the couple…business footage, street surveillance, airline bookings. They even had the CIA working on their end.

So far, they’d found nothing helpful.

Where are you, brother?

He could still see the desperation on Tori’s face as she was carried out of that house. The memory haunted him. He hated that he hadn’t been able to get to her. To save Tori or Oliver before they’d been taken outside.

Kye and Wyatt had been outnumbered. They were never going to win that fight.

Footsteps neared the office moments before Bodie stepped into the room, taking a seat. “Anything?”

Kye shook his head, no words leaving his mouth.

His friend scrubbed a hand over his face. “This can’t be happening.”

“We’ll find them.” We have to.

“We can’t lose them.” Bodie’s voice was tortured. As pained as the rest of them felt.

“We won’t.”

There was a brief silence before Bodie finally sighed. “What’s next?”

Kye turned back to the screen. “Evie’s out there with Luca, doing another search on Tori’s friend Samantha. She thinks Hylar wiped her past, which is why we haven’t found anything on her. I’m still searching through street surveillance.”

He was just clicking out of a surveillance video when an email notification popped up on the screen. Kye clicked into it immediately. Maybe it was the CIA with a lead…

The contents made him frown. “What the hell?”

Bodie straightened. “What is it?”

“GPS coordinates.” Literally just that. No words. No explanation. He did a quick Google search on the coordinates. “It’s a location on the outskirts of Killeen, Texas. A multistory office building, to be exact.”

Bodie pulled out his phone and sent a text. Seconds later, the entire team was in the room, as well as Evie.

Kye and Bodie were already standing, Wyatt taking Kye’s place behind the screen. Evie moved to sit beside him, alternating between watching his screen and her own.

After a minute of typing, they both stopped, and Wyatt was on his feet. “It’s Hylar.”

Kye tensed. “How do you know?”

Wyatt was already moving toward the storage cupboard. Pulling out weapons.

It was Evie who answered. “The top five floors are being rented under the name of a Tanya Hoffman.”

Tanya. Hylar’s half-sister. A woman who’d been dead for months.