Finally he lets me go. I stumble backward, over the threshold, breathing hard.
“Are you really here just to get a look at me?” he asks in a rough whisper.
“No. I’m here for the money,” I answer honestly. “I need it.”
I hear his sharp inhale. The clouds shift and moonlight catches the outline of his shoulder, broad and muscular.
“But I kissed you because I wanted to,” I say before closing the door.
Chapter 8
She touched me.
Of course I’ve been touched before, by any number of women. Women that other people would claim are more classically beautiful than Tess. They’d be wrong.
Illuminated in that cage of light at the dinner table, she owned the space. Her topaz eyes fucking pierced me, and she couldn’t even see me.
I sink against the basement wall, staring at the rumbling generator. The lights have come back on, which means I should be upstairs and back at work. My business empire can’t run itself, and since I can’t leave the house for the immediate future, everything has to be done by email, which takes twice as long. I don’t understand why people can’t answer emails at midnight, but I’ve accepted that they won’t.
I run my hand over my face, taking the same path Tess’s hand did. She wasn’t at all afraid, at least not of me. She just reached out and found me.
I didn’t realize how much I needed that until she did it.
The concrete of the wall is cold and hard, the chill seeping into my spine. I welcome the discomfort, the ache in my ribs, the throb in my broken fingers. It reminds me of everything at stake, everything I’ll put at risk if I draw Tess deeper into my world.
But as hard as I try, I can’t make myself regret that kiss. My balls are tight just remembering the feel of her mouth on mine.
I need to get out of my own head. I need to check the safe.
I surge up out of my office chair and head upstairs, taking the steps three at a time. Behind me, my bedroom door locks with a heavy clunk, the bolts snapping into place. The alarm gives a warning beep, then quiets when it sees it’s me.
“Open the safe.”
There’s a moment while Gulizar processes. “Your voice is different,” she says.
I should have given that thing a more robotic voice. It’s not quite human but close enough to be deeply unsettling.
“I’m pissed,” I say. “Open the safe.”
“Voice recognized,” she says in a flat tone. Great, I’ve managed to trip the pouty subfunction in my AI.
The painting on the wall swings open, revealing the safe door. The panel on it lights up, the computer telling the two dozen bolts individually to open. They’re all on separate circuits, the better to prevent any break-ins.
As the heavy safe door swings open, I hold my breath. I’ve done it since the break-in, waiting for the moment that the safe is revealed to be empty. Waiting to see that whoever’s coming against me has won.
I exhale. The notebooks are still there. I grab one, leaving the other.
I walk over to the desk, kicking the chair out of the way. The notebook hits the desk with a thud. It’s an ordinary lab notebook with a brown cover and stitched and glued binding, nothing special. I’ve filled hundreds of these with my notes, although this one wasn’t written by me. I toss myself into the chair and open the book.
I can’t read what’s inside, of course. The writing is neat, blocky, and covers each page from margin to margin. The sight of Ira’s familiar handwriting makes my chest ache.
The letters themselves might be familiar, but I have no idea what the arrangement of them means. It’s in a code I’ve never been able to break. One of Ira’s little jokes. Or more likely an intellectual exercise. He was always setting up puzzles for us, things he said would keep us out of trouble. He said we weren’t bad kids, we just needed our brains stretched.
I wasn’t a kid when I met Ira, but he always referred to me as one. I was young though. I’d made it to med school before I hit twenty—my parents wouldn’t expect anything less—and it wasn’t for me. It so wasn’t for me I was drinking my way through it. Passing all my classes, acing them actually, but I was a high-functioning drunk. I hated every second of it, I hated that I was so good at it, I hated that I was taking a spot from someone who’d actually give a damn, and I especially hated my parents.
An early death was looking good to me, and I was on my way there when I got called into the dean’s office. I can’t remember what for; maybe I’d puked in a trash can in class one too many times. I got read the riot act, told that if I didn’t stop drinking I’d get kicked out no matter what my grades were and that this was so hurtful to the dean because he was such good friends with my parents.
I told him to fuck off and walked out. And right into Ira.
He was there to talk to somebody in the bioengineering department about direct neural interfaces. Ira wasn’t a doctor, didn’t know anything about biology, but he was fascinated by the idea that computers might one day think. Not exactly as humans did but in new, unique ways. He overheard me telling the dean he could take my grades and his school and shove them. Preferably up my parents’ asses.
I have no idea what Ira saw in me, but he sorted things out with the dean and got me interested in AI and neural networks. I was so into programming that shit that I stopped drinking. I held on to med school a little longer, but as graduation approached, I cared less and less. My grades were excellent up until the very end, and I could see why medicine would be a calling for some people, but it wasn’t my calling.
Ira was the one who encouraged me to quit. He said I wasn’t meant to be a doctor; I was meant to build AIs. And he was right.
The rest of them had similar stories. Cassian was in his third stint in juvie and about to graduate into the adult criminal justice system. He’d been running scams, really sophisticated ones, involving email phishing. Ira managed to redirect Cassian’s talents into something more useful and profitable.
Gage was getting into fights daily, and his parents were kicking him out of the house monthly. He was living on the streets. Bishop had been in and out of group homes and labeled “emotionally unstable.” No one in the world wanted him or cared for him. Archer had a family more like mine, perfect on the outside and busted on the inside. He was keeping it together but about to fall apart, spectacularly.
Six boys on the cusp of becoming men, all ready to implode into something useless or destructive. Until Ira gave us all a purpose.
As for Tynan and his story… I don’t let myself think about Tynan.
My fingers run down the notebook, Ira’s legacy to me. That and the money he left me, which I used to start my company. We were all left very well off by Ira’s death. Which was ironic enough to choke a fucking horse.
Ira took us in, gave us direction, and when he died, gave us the freedom and power to chart our own destinies. And he still managed to leave us each a notebook filled with a coded puzzle, one last exercise to stretch our minds.
God, I still miss him. So much. And it was all my fault. All our faults. But mostly mine.
Oscar, Ira’s best friend and business partner, tried to fill the hole that losing Ira had left in our lives, and he did his best, but it wasn’t the same. Nothing was ever the same after that.
I shut the notebook. It’s useless to keep going over it. I tried to break the code at first, and I never got anywhere. I didn’t ask if anyone else had figured out theirs or if they’d even tried. Anything to do with Ira was too painful at first, and then as time went on, we got on with our lives.
But someone’s decided that it’s time to drag these things back out again.
I put the notebook back into the safe, next to the other one.
The safe door swings shut with a weighty thunk, the bolts immediately snapping back into place. The alarm beeps softly as it rearms. I push the picture frame back into place and double-check the panel on the wall. Everything’s as it should be. Everything’s secure.
<
br /> But I can’t shake the sense that the intruder stole something, something I haven’t even noticed is missing yet. Once they try again, and I catch them, I’ll figure it out. I might not be able to bring back Ira—or Tynan—but I can do at least this for them.
I’ll keep it up even if it’s the last thing I do.
Chapter 9
Victoria calls as I’m eating breakfast in the kitchen of my temporary prison.
“Hello?” I say between bites of strawberries and yogurt. The strawberries taste like they came from heaven’s own garden and the yogurt from the happiest, fattest cows on earth. Of course a billionaire would stock the best-tasting strawberries and yogurt I’ve ever had.
“You’re still alive,” she says with obvious relief.
I swallow. “Yep, still kicking. Honestly, I don’t think he’s going to stuff me into a suitcase or anything.”
“Mmm. I’m going to keep being skeptical. I talked to Rustem this morning and got the list of things you need for today.”
“Wow, he works fast.” I look at the clock on the stove. “It’s not even eight. Um, did he approve the knitting supplies?” He said he would, but I still haven’t gotten my yarn.
“You’re trapped in a billionaire’s castle and you’re worried about your knitting stuff?”
I scoop up more strawberries. “I agreed to work on-site, so I’m not technically trapped. And we’re going to make lots of lovely money from this.”
Victoria snorts. “Yes, he approved your knitting, you degenerate. Along with everything else. I’m handing all of it over to him in about thirty minutes, so you should have it… I don’t know? Today at some point? I have no idea how long his check will take.”
“Thank you so much,” I say. “I know this is all strange and awkward, and yes, kind of creepy, but it will be so worth it once it’s over.”
“If you say so.” Victoria’s tone shifts. “So, how was your first night there? Did you finally see him? Did you find the chamber where he keeps all his former wives?”
I run my fingers over my mouth. “Not exactly.”
“What?” Victoria has snapped to attention. “What happened?”
I really don’t know if I should tell her. She’s worried already, and if I tell her, she’ll go nuclear. But she is one of my closest friends. And I don’t know how long I can hold this secret inside me.
“I kissed him. Or he kissed me. Or… we kissed.”
The silence that follows is deafening. “You did what?” Victoria whispers. “You saw him and then he kissed you?”
“Well, I didn’t see him. It was dark. And then the power went out.” The more I tell the story, the more unbelievable it sounds. But it really did happen. It wasn’t a dream, although parts of it felt that way.
I hear Victoria exhale slowly. “Tess, I’m worried about you. First you take this job, then you kiss the client? And you haven’t even seen his face? This isn’t like you, and even if it was like you, it’d be concerning. To put it mildly.”
She’s got a point. I should probably tell Wolfe to take this job and shove it and get out of this place. What was I thinking last night?
Well, I wasn’t, which might have been the problem.
And then I remember my parents’ mortgage. And the second mortgage. And the deadline looming.
My heart thuds like it’s hammering something into place so firmly it can never be budged. I can’t say no to this.
“It’s fine,” I say. “I won’t do it again. I have my own separate house here, and he doesn’t want to be seen. I’m going to get this job done, get our money, and get out of here.”
“Do we really need the money that bad?”
“We do,” I say bluntly.
“Okay.” That’s reluctantly dragged out of her. “Just promise you’ll be more careful? Forget about trying to see him or figure out what happened—stay clear of him.”
It’s great advice and definitely something I should do. I just don’t know if I can. I don’t know if I want to, which is scariest of all.
“Sure,” I say. “I can do that.” I’m lying, but Victoria’s already worried enough.
“Look, with what happened to you before…” Her tone is heavy. “I worry about you. This really isn’t like you, and I wonder… what’s happening there?”
She’s right, and she’s got reason to worry—she was my rock before when everything happened. It turns out that when you attract a psycho who lies about sleeping with you to everyone he knows, you need a rock to help you through it.
I was just a young soldier, trying to get through my enlistment. Victoria was my commanding officer, doing her best in her first command. And he was a captain, son of a full-bird colonel, who I pissed off when I told him some order he’d given me couldn’t be carried out. I was as diplomatic as possible since he was an officer, but he was also a complete idiot.
He decided to teach me a lesson, so he began sending me messages online, anonymous ones, but with just enough info that I knew it was him. And then he started spreading rumors about how we were carrying on a torrid affair but couldn’t be public because of Army regs.
The entire time he was doing that, I hardly ever saw him. It was all online messages and in-person whispers from mutual acquaintances. It made the entire situation surreal but no less upsetting and terrifying.
The brass wouldn’t help me at all. It would have been career suicide to do so, so they didn’t. Victoria was the only one who helped me, fought for me, and when she got nowhere…
I wasn’t planning on staying in the military forever, but she was. The Army was her life. After what happened to me, she left it all behind. I owe her more than I can ever repay.
Once I was out of the Army, I guess he decided he’d punished me enough because the messages and rumors suddenly stopped. I haven’t heard from or seen him since. But it made an unbreakable bond between Victoria and me, so silver linings in awful, awful storm clouds and all that.
I won’t—can’t—let her down. Any more than I can let my family down.
“I know what you’re worried about,” I say. “But it’s nothing like that. I promise. I’m completely fine. I’m totally focused on finishing this job and getting that paycheck. I would never lie to you.”
“I know that.” Her voice is thick with emotion. “I don’t think you’re lying… just that you’re too close to whatever is going on that you can’t see what’s really happening.”
I stare out the window at the massive house Wolfe is holed up in, the layers of glass and metal looking like they’re rising up out of the earth. “The problem is that I’m not close to anything. And I still have no real idea what’s going on. But I’m going to do what I came here to do.”
“Ooh, that gave me the shivers the way you said that. So determined.”
I laugh because I didn’t mean to be so dramatic. “Anyway, everything is fine, I won’t lose my head again, and you don’t have anything to worry about.”
“I’m going to expect updates every day anyway,” Victoria says with a healthy dose of skepticism.
“Yes, sir.” I drop my empty bowl in the sink. “Thanks for getting those parts to Rustem. And a huge thank-you for the knitting, which will keep me busy. I’ll call you tonight.”
I hang up and get on with my day. Before I’ve even finished breakfast, Rustem’s knocking at my door, handing over the parts. And then I’m walking up to the house, my heart pounding.
Light floods the ground floor, and there’s zero sign of Wolfe. Not that I expected there to be, but I still bite my lip with disappointment. Instead of lingering on that, I get to work repairing the security panels in the main room.
Hours later, I’m totally in the zone. I exhale deeply, as steady as a sniper as I sink into my pulse, drop into stillness. The soldering iron in my hand arcs through the air in slow motion as I bring it to the control panel. I’ve got the chip into place, the solder wire in my other hand, and now I’ve come to the trickiest part.
I’v
e got to apply the smallest amount of solder, just the barest bit, or else I’ll completely ruin the chip. And then I’ll lose a day waiting for Victoria to bring Rustem a new one.
Squinting, I judge the angle of my soldering iron, adjust it a hair. Okay, it’s good. I need to just do it—
The front door swings open. I drop my arms, open my mouth, ready to tell Rustem to give me some privacy, but it’s not Rustem coming in.
It’s a man, someone who’s vaguely familiar. I tense, readying myself for whatever he might do. And then I recognize him.
Gage Cannon. One of Wolfe’s billionaire buddies. He’s the military contractor one and probably the source of the handheld scanners Rustem had. He’s thinner than Wolfe, sharper in the face. In the pictures of them together, Wolfe usually has a smile while Gage always looks serious. He looks very serious now.
I don’t think he’s supposed to be here. And damn, I need to fix that gate alarm pronto. Along with installing some proximity alarms on the grounds.
Before I can yell for Rustem, he comes in behind Gage. “He’s not going to see you,” Rustem rumbles.
“The hell he’s not,” Gage mutters. His gaze swings toward me. “He’s got a woman here?”
I pin him with a stare as sharp and hot as the tip of my soldering iron. “I’m working.”
Gage raises an eyebrow. “What the hell happened to all the panels?”
“I’m fixing them.” I wave the thread of solder in my hand. “Or I would be if I hadn’t been interrupted.”
I’m acting way feistier than I really feel, because Gage is… something. Not as much of a presence as Wolfe even though I can actually see his face, but he still commands attention. I need to push back against him in a way I don’t with Wolfe. Or at least in a different way with Wolfe—when I’m talking with him, everything in me wants to pull him closer.
Primal Bargains Page 6
