A Matter of Time 07 - Parting Shot (MM)

by Mary Calmes

  My nurse—doctor? I wasn’t really sure yet—her eyes popped open wide like I’d shocked the crap out of her. And big scary Goran Begović made a noise in the back of his throat. When I glanced at him, he was absolutely ashen.

  I grinned. “Let me guess, do you happen to know Aaron Sutter?”

  I thought he was going to faint.

  Chapter 13

  HER name was Miranda, and she was, in fact, a medical assistant there at Buona Sera. She was very nice and gave me a local anesthetic before she closed the cut above my left eyebrow, five stitches in all, as well as the slice above my right nipple, which took six. My nose, amazingly enough, came through the assault unscathed, but my lip was cut and my left cheek rapidly changed color. I had blood on my shirt, my jeans were done for, and my shoes, which had been in fair shape before, were cut up from the gravel we had been fighting on.

  “I’m really worried about your head.” She winced. “Your pupils are huge and your neck is just raw. You need to take that chain off.”

  It was rubbing, and as much as I liked it, it did need to come off. But I had to wait for Aaron to do that. He was the one who could remove it, not me. It wasn’t my place. And not for any other reason besides the obvious: it would make him wonder if he got there and it was on the examination table beside me instead of around my neck. I never wanted him to doubt I belonged to him.

  I was sitting, being fussed over by Miranda, when Aaron charged in with Clay Wells and Goran Begović close on his heels. He was in front of me in seconds, hands on my thighs, gripping tight as he stared at my face.

  “Hey.” I smiled, reaching out, putting a hand on the side of his neck, staring into his eyes. “I’m okay.”

  He had no response, just kept his gaze locked on mine.

  I reached for him, but he gave me a slight shake of his head before he reached up for the chain. “I don’t want to take it off,” I said, “but….”

  “But it was used as a weapon against you,” he said roughly, his hands moving slowly, gently, over my skin.

  Once it was unlocked, he put it around his own neck and locked it, flipping the A to the D before moving his hands away.

  “What do you think?” he demanded gently.

  “I think I miss the feel of it for some reason, but it looks really good on you.”

  “The ownership thing is odd, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” I answered, my voice low and husky.

  He slumped against me, pressing his forehead to mine, and soaked in the closeness, same as I did.

  “We’ll be home soon,” I offered by way of solace.

  “Good,” he said and suddenly pivoted to face the two men.

  “Mr. Sutter, I—”

  “No!” he said flatly, and I could hear the tremor in his voice. He was furious.

  Goran sucked in a breath. “I had no earthly idea that this man belonged to you. I—”

  “Yes,” Aaron agreed. “You didn’t know… or you did.”

  “I swear! I would never attack you or test you in any—”

  “It’s not real,” Clay pleaded. “Mr. Sutter, he’s done it many—”

  “No!” he roared, and it was loud and I heard how incensed he was. I heard again what I had thought was anger but now knew was fear. There was nothing worse than making someone not only mad, but scared as well. People did surprising things when pushed to that extreme. Aaron Sutter was at the end of what he could take. He was tired of the uncertainty.

  Gently, I reached out and put my hand on his shoulder. He covered it with his a moment later.

  Clay cleared his throat. “Mr. Sutter, please—”

  “Mr. Wells,” he cut him off. “You will see Mr. Begović from your resort immediately, or I will simply leave here and direct my people to purchase this property by any means necessary and then raze it to the ground.”

  Clay Wells looked absolutely terrified, and it took him a moment to gather himself enough to speak. “Mr. Sutter, I can’t simply—”

  “Make your choice now,” Aaron said implacably. “Me or him.”

  “Mr. Sutter,” Goran began. “I—”

  “Mr. Begović, please advise your board that Sutter will no longer be joining with your company to purchase the previously agreed-on telecommunication companies in Europe. We will not be doing any business together.”

  “You—no, I—this is absurd! One does not conduct affairs in this—”

  “I do,” he cut off the older man, who was now turning red in indignation. “If you leave now and I never, ever, see you again, perhaps I won’t partner with Mihovil Cvetko and buy out your shares of your own company. But you have to go now.”

  “Mr. Sutter, one is business and one is—”

  “My heart,” he whispered, and I saw the slight shudder run through him. “You are on the receiving end of a great gift, Goran. I don’t have my phone. If I leave here, I’ll have it in minutes. The second I get it, your company is mine. If I were you, I’d run away.”

  “I—”

  “Scurry home.”

  “I’ll ruin you!” he almost-shrieked at Aaron. “Everyone will know of your—”

  “Everyone knows already,” he cut the older man off. “This is my partner you put your hands on, and the whole world knows who he is.”

  He fainted.

  “Holy shit,” I gasped. I had never actually seen a man faint, and it was weird. He went stiff, his eyes rolled back in his head, and then he was on the floor.

  Aaron Sutter had frightened the man unconscious.

  “Damn,” I muttered, grabbing Aaron and easing him around to face me. “You’re a scary motherfucker, Aaron Sutter.”

  I was hoping for a smile, but he was in too much pain. He looked broken.

  “Awww, honey, I’m okay,” I promised, wrapping my arms around him, pressing my face down into his shoulder.

  “Do not placate me,” he rasped, clutching his fingers into my hair. He massaged my scalp as his lips placed gentle butterfly kisses along my jaw.

  “You fucking liars.”

  Both our heads snapped up, and when I saw Clay’s face, I understood what had happened.

  “He’s not your boy or your slave or your possession,” he snarled, taking a step back toward a phone on the wall. “He’s something ridiculously ordinary. He’s your boyfriend, and you love him.”

  “And if I do?”

  I really needed to school Aaron Sutter in the fine art of deflection and plausible deniability.

  Christ.

  “Then that means you have no intention of letting me fuck him,” he accused Aaron. “And he has no intention of going into business with me.”

  But we had been doing so well….

  “Who are you?” he roared.

  “He’s a homicide detective from Chicago,” Aaron spat. “And you killed Evan Polley, and you’re not going to get away with it.”

  It was too bad he didn’t shake his fist at Wells too. That would have just completed the ridiculousness of the scene.

  Clay spun around and lunged for the phone, and thankfully, I was hurt but not dying, so I could leap off the table, grab him, and drive him face-first into the wall. He slid down it when I let him go, out cold as he puddled to the floor.

  Turning, I looked at Aaron and threw up my hands.

  “I don’t care!” he snapped irritably, gesturing at me. “You think I’m going to let this go on?”

  The scream startled us both, and poor Miranda, who had just stitched me up, spun around and pulled the fire alarm beside the door she had just walked through.

  Perfect.

  Aaron bolted to me, and I grabbed his arm and yanked him out the other door so we were together on the path outside the infirmary.

  “I cannot believe you just completely lost it like that,” I barked, tugging him after me. “What were you thinking?”

  “I want you to come home with me!” he returned, agitated and annoyed.

  “We’re going home right after this,” I volleyed, irrita
ted at him for ruining everything. “I can’t believe you just fucked the whole op by—”

  “Who cares? I don’t care! Fuck them! Fuck all of this!” he bellowed. “You got hurt!”

  “You can’t just say fuck the op when you feel like it! This is the Federal Bureau of—”

  “They can send me a fuckin’ bill! I will not have you hurt!”

  “I always get hurt!”

  “Not anymore!”

  I shook my head as I led him at a brisk clip back toward the security tower.

  “Don’t treat me like I’m naive,” he warned crossly. “I want you in one piece, and I want you living with me where I can keep an eye on you the second we get home!”

  “Oh?” I huffed out, a bit more sore then I thought I was, moving us along faster and faster. “I thought you didn’t move people in anymore.”

  His eyes were blazing, which was good because it meant he was focused on me and not on us getting shot, or God knew what else. We still had a chance to salvage everything if we could just get to the security room.

  “I changed my mind,” he fumed as he increased his speed, now jogging along beside me.

  “And when did you do that, Mr. Sutter?” I asked, hearing people yelling behind us as we turned the corner and charged down another path.

  “Back there,” he shouted. “When I walked in and saw you hurt. Everything changed.”

  “How come?” I prodded, keeping him diverted, seeing the tower far to the left.

  “I decided I want you in my bed and in my house and on my couch—I just fucking want you!”

  It was really very sweet. It was too bad his timing was for total shit.

  “Did you hear me?”

  “It impossible not to hear you,” I assured him, pointing. “We’re going there.”

  We ran together and the gravel we pounded over flew up in the air, plaster from the side of the buildings exploded, and then a light fixture burst close enough we had to swerve around it as we picked up speed.

  “Faster!” I roared.

  “Wait.” Aaron was trying to make sense of things even as he kept up with me. “What’s happening?”

  “People are shooting at you,” I snapped, reaching the tower door a second ahead of him, slamming the key card flat against the faceplate, and hearing the buzz as the door opened.

  We scrambled inside, shoved the door closed behind us, and stood there, leaning against it. I was panting, winded from the fight and the anesthetic, but Aaron was fine, just stunned.

  “What?”

  “People can’t shoot at me. I’m Aaron Sutter!” He was so indignant, and it would have been funny if, on the other side of the solid steel door, there weren’t bullets ringing off as they hit.

  “I think they want to kill you.” I burst his bubble. “Sorry, honey.”

  He studied my face.

  “What?”

  “I like it when you call me honey.”

  “Seriously, we’re about to be killed here. You get that, right?”

  “Not today.” He smiled wide, his eyes scanning the room. “But you go upstairs, see if there’s anybody up there, and I’ll find something to disable the key card entry with.”

  It seemed reasonable, so I bolted up the short, winding staircase to the second floor.

  No one was there. Since we hadn’t been shot at when we came in, I was pretty confident there wouldn’t be. But the wall of monitors on three sides was impressive. If, as we’d been told, there were fifty bungalows—adobe-style casitas, or whatever—then it looked as though each one had four cameras. Others monitored the grounds. Sitting down at the console, I saw digital controls for everything.

  “Aaron!”

  “I haven’t found anything yet to disable this door with!”

  “It’s okay,” I called to him over my shoulder. “I can do it from here.”

  He was up the stairs and sitting down beside me in moments.

  “Where’s the lock?” he asked me.

  I showed him the manual override, tripped it, and then flipped on the exterior camera so I could see the door. There were easily thirty men there, guns drawn, half with rifles, and they would certainly have stormed in if there had been a way for them to do so. But the door was seamless, and once triggered, it swung in, not out. It had no handle, and when I hit the override, metal bars slid across to secure the door from the inside. The outside of the tower was steel as well. Not one window anywhere, and basically, it was like being inside a submarine. We were safe. They couldn’t get in. Unfortunately, neither could we get out.

  “Check and see if there’s water or anything else in here,” I said, feeling my head start to pound.

  While he went to look, I tried to figure out where the search function was. I had to see what I could find on Evan Polley before Clay Wells figured out a way to get in. By the time Aaron joined me, I could barely see. Even the light from the computer monitor was painful, and I had more than a headache.

  “Hey,” Aaron said softly, returning with two bottles of chilled water. “There’s a small refrigerator downstairs, but there’s only water in it. And the storage room has cables and things like that, probably for the TVs and computers at the front desk. There’s also cleaning supplies and crap like that.”

  “Okay,” I sighed, squinting at the monitor.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Don’t give me that. Your color is for shit. You’re actually gray, and your pupils are just—baby, you need to lie down.”

  “I can’t lie down,” I snapped. “I have to—”

  “Let’s just trade places, and you can put your head down, all right? You can stay right here with me.”

  “I know more about this than you do.”

  He scoffed. “Oh, I doubt that. This is surveillance. I have corporate security, and I have spies who do some serious hacking.”

  I twisted around to face him. “Are you breaking the law?”

  “Yes.” He smiled at me. “Now move.”

  “That’s bad,” I said, sliding over into the other chair as he took my spot.

  He scoffed.

  I realized how lame I sounded.

  “That’s bad?” he repeated.

  “I’m dying,” I muttered. “Gimme a break.”

  “You’re not dying,” he said seriously. “But yes, it is bad. I promise to start being a much more solid citizen now that I have secured my place at Sutter, have controlling shares, and most importantly, have a hot boyfriend.”

  “Really?”

  “What?”

  “You are acting so weird.”

  He shrugged and then started typing seconds later. The weird B-movie villain laugh came shortly after that. “Oh, Keystone, my old friend.”

  “What’s Keystone?”

  “It’s a surveillance program we used to run at Sutter, before we upgraded to Você, that monitors all our in-house cameras, as well as all the devices in Sutter Plaza.”

  “You mean your program basically is on everyone’s computer at your company.”

  “Yes,” he answered, not looking at me. “Except mine, Levin’s, Miguel’s, and Margo’s.”

  “And do your employees know it’s on there?”

  “I’m sure they can guess, but you can’t see it. Even if you’re good, you can’t.”

  “You can’t just know all their private stuff.”

  “If they’re doing private stuff on my time, on my computer, I have every right.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  He grunted.

  “Aaron, that’s an invasion of privacy,” I chastised him.

  “They can have no expectation of privacy while they’re on my clock,” he replied, still typing, looking for Evan Polley in the database. “And by the way, there is no audio on this surveillance.”

  “Not that it really matters anymore but that’s good.”

  He typed furiously.

  “Okay, wait.” My brain hurt, and I put my head down on my fold
ed arms and closed my eyes. “You said all the devices at Sutter Plaza.”

  “I did.”

  “So just what’s on the premises, or what comes in too?”

  “You’re very quick, Detective.”

  I growled.

  “But yes, everything.”

  “So, cell phones too?”

  “The program checks all devices for any crumb connected to Sutter. So say, while you’re in my building, you even text a word about Sutter, the program is alerted and your device is scanned.”

  “How?”

  “Wi-Fi.”

  “It just accesses the device without you knowing?”

  “Yes.”

  “So my phone, because I have your number in there and I’m at Sutter, the program is basically hacking me to see what information I have about your company?”

  “No.”

  “But you just said that all devices—”

  “All phones belonging to law enforcement personnel are off limits to the program, Detective.”

  “I have sensitive information on my––”

  “Are you listening to me? We don’t scan any devices belonging to anyone in––”

  “And this program just knows that, does it?”

  “Don’t sound so snide.” He chuckled. “Of course it knows.”

  “How?”

  “I’m sorry, Detective; I think I’ll need to put you in contact with the people in my tech department if you need a full explanation of all the ins and outs of a program I did not, in fact, create.”

  “You know that’s bad, right?” I groaned, feeling the splintering headache starting to make me nauseous. “God, I think I actually have a concussion this time.”

  “What can I do?” he asked sharply.

  “Nothing.”

  He took a breath, and I felt his hand in my hair. “I have to do something.”

  “Just keep doing what you’re doing and talk to me.”

  “Okay.”

  “So how does the program work?” I changed the subject.

  “I don’t—”

  “Just dumb it down for me.”

  “I would never have to do that with anything.”

  “Yes, that’s very nice,” I placated him. “Just talk.”

  “Fine. It works sort of like a virus,” he began. “We had a couple of really great hackers try to get in to Sutter about three years ago. They were good, but our firewall held, and we were able to track them down to this tiny little ass crack of a town in Brazil—Caetés, Pernambuco.”