Page 40 of The B-Team

“You were doing great until the falling part.” Megan tried to reassure her; after all, the woman probably had a concussion. “He looked really close to falling for your wiles.”

Violet narrowed her eyes and winced. “Are you lying to me?”

“Would I do that?” Megan asked solemnly. “We’ve got to think of something else to do to help, seeing as the flirting was a bust. If we don’t, we’re stuck relying on the people who aren’t locked up to get us out of here. Do you really want to depend on Claire? I love my sister, but all she’s thought about for years is Grunt and babies. I’m not sure how much help she’ll be.”

And just like that, Violet was back to growling.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Julia took three thousand years to use the bathroom. In that time, Ryan had eaten two sandwiches, drunk a cup of coffee, and checked on Sarah—who was sleeping like a baby on one of the guest room beds. He’d been in two minds about waking her for Julia’s big reveal, but the dark circles under her eyes had swayed him to leave her to sleep. It would be easy enough to fill her in later.

Julia’s glacial walk back to the bed was watched with ferocious attention by everyone present. If telekinesis had been a thing, the intensity of the brain activity in the room would have made Julia levitate to her bed. Unfortunately, they had to settle for watching her inch her way toward it.

“For the love of Prada,” Rachel said, “someone pick her up and shove her in bed.”

Once again, the Queen of the Damned had said out loud what everyone else was thinking.

“I’m okay,” Julia said as she concentrated on her path to the bed.

Rachel threw her hands in the air. “You’re only two weeks further along in your pregnancy than I am, yet I’ve crossed this room ten times since you came out of the bathroom.”

“Every pregnancy is different,” Claire said with the superiority of a woman who’d birthed a football team.

“Nearly there,” Julia said, oozing upbeat determination.

“She reminds me of Callum when he was getting used to his jazzy new prosthetics.” Isobel looked wistful. “Brave little soldier.”

“I’m going to puke,” Ryan muttered.

At last, Julia climbed into bed—with the help of Belinda and Beast—and settled under the covers. She pulled her laptop toward her and tapped the keyboard.

“So,” she said, “I think this is what I was looking for.”

Ryan grinned. This was why he liked Julia—there was never any beating about the bush or pausing for dramatic effect.

“About a week ago, Elle sent me a news item about the Metropolitan Police.” Julia looked up at them. “I can’t believe I forgot it when it was only a week ago. I’m so sorry. It’s probably because the story was so disturbing…” She waved a hand and took a deep breath. “Anyway, the article says that the police have made a deal with the government of the country that houses our secure server, allowing them access to the facility for a limited period of time to search one particular server.”

“Not ours?” Isobel sounded shocked.

“If it was our server,” Rachel said with long-suffering, “we would have been told about it.”

“No,” Julia said. “Not ours. The facility hosts lots of servers. Up until now, it’s been a really secure site with a great reputation, although I wasn’t too sure reputation was enough to go on.” Her brow furrowed. “I talked to Elle about it when she was looking for a location for our information, but she assured me that this company’s known for not allowing anything awful to be stored on their servers. It was hard to confirm that, though, because they wouldn’t give us a list of their clients.”

“Of course not,” Rachel said. “The whole point of a facility like that is anonymity and security.”

“Well.” Julia straightened her shoulders. “Ethics and morality should be part of the criteria too.”

“Not sure that’s how the world works, Jules.” Ryan ran a hand through his hair. “But you’re saying the cops have been granted access to one of the other servers?”

“Yes.” She looked crestfallen. “It turns out that the company running the facility wasn’t as morally upstanding as Elle was led to believe. A child pornography ring was using their services.” For a second, it looked like she might cry again, but she pulled it together. “We were paying to keep our information safe in the same place as people who do… that. It isn’t right.”

There was silence in the room before Belinda spoke. “No, it isn’t. And I’m sure that as soon as Elle’s out of the custody suite, she’ll look for somewhere more ethical to house our server.”

Julia nodded. “She’d already started searching for an alternative site. She was furious about all of this, but she said it’d take time to move everything.”

“What’s this got to do with the team being arrested, Julia?” Ryan asked, but his brain was already making connections. “You think the Met’s going to try to hack our server while they have access to the facility, don’t you?”

Isobel gasped. “Can they do that?” Wide-eyed, she glanced at each of them.