Black Dawn

by Cristin Harber

  “Got some woman problems to drink away,” he offered, hoping reject boy would take the bait.

  “Me too.”

  That was easy. The bartender put a cheap beer in front of Phiber. “Thanks, man.”

  “Tab?” he asked.

  “Yeah, a tab works.”

  “Another for me,” the man slurred.

  The bartender nodded. “Sure thing, Matt, long as you don’t cause a problem tonight.”

  “I never cause problems.”

  The dude had problems written all over him and needed a friend. Phiber held up his beer in toast. “I blame women.”

  Matt drunk-laughed. “Amen, my oriental friend.”

  “Not sure that’s the right word, asshole.”

  “Asian. Amen, my Asian motherfuckin’ friend. Cheers to fuckin’ stupid cunts. Let’s drink to that.”

  The guy would be a piece of cake. “Cheers.”

  They raised their beers, and Phiber took a long pull while Matt guzzled.

  “What’s wrong with your woman?” Phiber asked.

  Matt’s eyes hung at half-mast. “Computer girl found her nerd hero, and fuck them.”

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “Fuck ’em.”

  They drank and watched the sports replays on the hanging TV. Well, that actually bored the shit out of Phiber, but he didn’t want to rush the guy.

  When a commercial hit, Phiber bounced the bottle between his hands. “Computer girl for you? Can’t see it.”

  “Lexi… always got her nose in her computer. Playing games. Working.” He used air quotes around the last part.

  “She wasn’t?”

  “Hell if I know. But I do know that bitch fell face first into my boy’s lap. Damn nerd boy thinks he’s some kind of computer Mozart.”

  “I could use a new laptop. Get back at the girl. Sell her shit to me, make a couple bucks.” He reached for his pocket, ready to entice Matt with easy, revengeful cash.

  But Matt threw his head back. “You know what’s funny? She left her ring and took the computer. What kind of stupid woman does that?”

  Shit. The smart kind. “Where?”

  He shook his drunk head as though this all should be clear as day. “To the damn nerd’s place. Shit.”

  Phiber had gotten a glance at the guy who’d tossed Matt clean on his ass. The guy was a big dude, and he didn’t look anything like what Matt called him. If anything, Phiber was taking far more offense to nerd comments than the oriental one. Well, actually, fuck him for both.

  He needed to get back to where he’d come from. “Alrighty, buddy. Take it easy.” Matt nodded, and Phiber threw down a twenty while waving at the bartender. “Heading out.”

  Time to head back to Silver’s new place. His head pounded. Abducting someone wasn’t easy for him. He was nervous and trying to make it happen in a way that wouldn’t make him rot in hell. Grabbing Silver at the grocery store hadn’t been an overly fruitful idea. What, he was just going to sneak her out of the back of the store to his waiting car? Stalking her at home hadn’t yielded much. Honestly, abduction wasn’t his talent. But the Taskmaster said jump, so he was ready to try again.

  He climbed in his car and checked his bag. Laptop, a couple cells, chargers. Nothing to jimmy open a window. He might have a lock-picking kit in his glove box… maybe. He leaned over to check.

  “Shit, yes.” Phiber made the quick drive back.

  All the lights were on. He drove around the block a few times, but no lights went out. They weren’t going to bed. Then again, if Silver was face first in the guy’s lap, they’d be distracted. They’d fuck and pass out. Then he could grab the girl, right? Sneak in while they were occupied and just wait it out. Kind of creepy, but it was a solid plan.

  What if… Phiber pulled over and searched his bag for anything that might help. Score. A mini electro-jammer. Instant power outage. The happy fuckin’ couple could go to bed, do their distracted thing, and he could slip in. He’d grab whatever laptop looked like Silver’s, which would be a bonus, and the girl when they were both passed out. Simple.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Time to talk? Oh boy. Lexi’s mind tumbled. “Um…”

  Parker moved around her, sliding his hand onto the small of her back. “Into the kitchen, sweetheart.”

  Silently, she let him guide her into place. Before she knew it, she was sitting at a table that held a dog-eared technology magazine while he wandered the kitchen—also known as the scene of their first kiss—doing who knew what. “Um…”

  “Beer, bourbon, or…” He opened the fridge and made a you’d-hate-it face. “Muscle milk.”

  “Um…”

  A half-smile curved his lips. “That’s about all I’ve got.”

  “Beer it is.” Which she could totally use right about now. “Thanks.”

  He pulled two longnecks from the fridge and made his way back to the table. He put one down, cracked it open, and slid it over for her. Parker flipped a chair around and straddled it. He opened his bottle then folded his forearms over the back of the chair. His fingers toyed with the two bottle caps, flipping them over in constant, dexterous motion. “I’ll start with what I know, and you fill in the blanks.”

  Biting her lip, she watched his gaze drop to her mouth. The butterflies swirled in her stomach, and her teeth released. No way could she talk about anything he wanted to know while her insides were doing the mamba. Mindlessly, she reached for her beer then gulped a sip while she tried to find the right words.

  “Matt’s a dick,” he offered.

  She snort-laughed, taking the beer away from her mouth, and giggled while slapping her other hand over her mouth.

  “Cute.” He grinned. “About time you laughed tonight.”

  “Yeah, super cute. All snorty and stuff.”

  But the laughter on his face faded away. “Your turn. Say something.”

  “Matt’s a dick. That pretty much sums it up.”

  “I saw him choke you before. He played it down, and you”—Parker’s brow furrowed—“went back.”

  “Like I said, that was a mistake. I had a bagbiting plan to save Bacon, but—”

  “Bagbiting?”

  “Oh.” Her eyes went wide that he picked that up. “It means—”

  “I know what it means. Your plan didn’t fail; you just didn’t keep yourself safe.”

  Wariness ran over her. He even thought in the same terms she did. “Right. So faulty strategy. I was stupid.”

  His head shook slightly. “Nope. I don’t buy stupid.” Parker grabbed his beer and drained half of it. “If you need to go to the cops or whatever for—” He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “For anything he might’ve done, I’ll be your ride. I’ll… be whatever you need.”

  “Oh …” She had fanatical notes. Everything was written in code, so only she could understand it, but it was there. She had saved a couple of selfies that showed bruises, blood. But showing those humiliating pictures to anyone… she just couldn’t process that. “I don’t want to. I’m not ready for everything that comes with that.”

  His jaw flexed as if he wanted to disagree. “You change your mind, you let me know.”

  “Alright.” Because what was she going to say? She’d stayed with a man who hurt her. The floor was suddenly the most interesting thing in the room. She couldn’t tear her stinging eyes away as a knot tied in her throat. The hopelessness and loneliness that had strangled her before seemed ridiculous, especially when there were people in the world like Parker, but… she squeezed her eyes shut. Slowly, she pushed through the bevy of emotions choking her and locked her gaze on Parker.

  “What do you do again?” he asked, completely off topic.

  “Website testing.” Her standard answer.

  “What else?”

  More than he could comprehend. Her standard thought. Yet maybe not. But she didn’t trust him enough to even start an explanation. “That’s about it.”

  “You won’t leave an abusive home without your computer—”
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  “It’s my livelihood.”

  “Your dog’s name is Bacon Byte.”

  “She’s tiny as a postage stamp, fat as a hog. We both love bacon.”

  He smirked. “I saw her collar. Byte. With a y. You’re not making a play off an appetizer there.”

  Defensive, she pushed her shoulders back. “What’s your point?”

  “You speak hack and text inarticulations, you recognized bells and whistles in my office, you almost died for a computer. You do more than web security.”

  Even as he called her on things that most never noticed, she couldn’t say the words. She wasn’t confident enough in herself to share her true colors with an outsider. Matt had broken her down to this point. Instead of agreeing, she shrugged. “I like the idea of hacker culture. That’s it.”

  And that was true.

  Parker mulled her words over and nodded. “I get that.”

  They sipped their beers, her dancing around sharing too much and him likely trying to figure out all of the pieces that put her together. Though why he pushed, she didn’t understand.

  He ran a hand over his face. “I’ve never been able to get you out of my head. Before today. Before all this.”

  Her head pulled back, shocked, on its own accord because she was too busy trying not to pass out. “What?”

  Parker’s tongue ran over his top lip. “What I don’t know is—you.” His forehead furrowed. “And why you’re hiding that from me.”

  “I don’t mean to.” She sucked down a breath as though it might fortify her soul. “And I’ve thought about you—”

  As if Matt had ears in the room, the lights went black. The quiet hum of appliances slowed and silenced. Fear bled into her veins. Matt wasn’t leaving Parker’s house without her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “Nope, screw this.” Parker shot up from his chair. The chair clattered on the floor, and he grasped Lexi’s arm, pulling her close. The top of her head came to his chest, and when he bent his chin to touch it, the scent of his shampoo in her hair teased him mercilessly while he listened for incoming danger. “Nothing’s going to hurt you. God, that fuckin’ drunk-ass dick.”

  But just because Parker wouldn’t let Matt hurt her didn’t mean the guy wouldn’t try. When Parker got his hands on Matt, there’d be no question about where the line was and how far Matt was to stay away from it.

  “Parker,” she whispered, her voice tinged with fear.

  “Give me a second.” His ears ached as he listened to the point he could hear his heartbeat. Maybe hers. “One more second.”

  No sounds.

  But this wasn’t a regular power outage. The timing was too perfect. This was a drunk dude ripping wires out of his breaker box, though even the act of doing that would trigger an alarm to Titan. What gnawed at Parker’s chest was that the backup generator hadn’t kicked on. The breaker box and generator weren’t together, which meant Matt had to have been hunting around his property. Dude was further gone than Parker initially realized.

  As his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, he walked with Lexi to a wall, then carefully, he peeked outside. His gaze ran up and down his neighborhood. The street lights were on, and a few houses had porch lights on or windows lit. Confirmation that this wasn’t a power outage.

  He needed to assess if there was an immediate incoming assault. Was Matt gonna firebomb his window with a Molotov cocktail? Was he going to shoot at the bedroom windows? What was that asshole going to do?

  “Stay put a sec.” Parker swiveled to a nearby bookshelf and ran his hand under it, removing a Glock.

  “Why do you have a gun in your bookshelf?” she whispered.

  He held the weapon down, his finger itching to feel the Ghost trigger, and he moved back to the petite woman shaking in the dark. “Occasional hazards of my job.”

  “Are you kidding me?” But she clung to him. “Parker—”

  “Sweetheart, I need you to give me a quiet second. Okay?”

  With no immediate offensive to prepare against, he changed tactics and headed to stash Lexi in the safe room. Then he could pull up the video feedback and disengage the alarm system. Whatever was about to happen didn’t need to involve the cops, and he could explain the alerts to Boss Man later. This was between him and Matt.

  Click.

  Parker pivoted toward the breath-of-a-noise at back of the house. Was Matt picking his lock? If so, then awesome. The doors had a built-in security feature that handled petty moves like that. If any door was forcibly breached, the security protocols snapped into effect. The first of which would happen any second.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  They bounded up the stairs and crested the top one when Parker heard a cry of male pain. Matt had disabled the last tumbler in the back door, which meant volts of electricity had shocked him.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  “The door’s wired to give an electrical shock under breach protocol.”

  “Why does your house—”

  He tucked the 9mm into the back of his waistband and snagged a flashlight from the hall closet. “In you go.” He scooted her into the reinforced space masquerading as a guest room and turned on the flashlight. “You’ll be fine, but I’m locking you in.”

  “What?” She shook her head. “I don’t want—”

  “Safest place.”

  He pressed a kiss to her lips that slowed the spinning world. The seconds his lips seared hers, her fingers dug into his shirt, and he went from shoving her into the safe room to backing her against the wall, kissing to their tactical, strategic detriment.

  He broke away—surprised that his body had taken over when his mind would never have allowed a slip like that—and every fiber of his being rioted at their distance. He cupped her face and spent a tick of a second longer than he should have sliding his fingers over her skin and down her neck. “Damn, Lex. You’re dangerous.”

  Then he hurried away before he shut them both in the safe room and kissed every inch of her, from behind her ears to the tips of her toes.

  “Focus,” he growled. As he hurried toward his office, he couldn’t get the taste of her off his tongue. Clearly his self-lecture hadn’t worked.

  Parker booted up the monitoring system that ran off a centralized battery, cancelled the alerts, and quickly moved through the feedback. A figure who had hidden his face—clearly Matt knew where the cameras were, so the asshole wasn’t that drunk—headed to the breaker box, then disconnected the generator, and finally headed for the back door. Asshole. The footage showed Matt falling backward then crawling away from the door and running off into the dark.

  Pussy. Still, he wanted to check the exterior and reconnect the generator while Lexi was safe. Parker stormed across his bedroom—stopping for a nanosecond to take in his mussed sheets where Lexi had been in his bed—then snagged a backup weapon, just in case. If Matt was still there, Parker would make it clear he wasn’t playing games.

  He moved through the house to the back door and disarmed the lock. The night was silent as he stepped outside and waited for Matt to bum-rush him from the shadows. “Show your face, asshole.”

  Silence.

  Parker pulled the door shut, engaging the lock from the exterior side, and slid around his home. His body anticipated sucker punches and attacks. He listened for the swish of clothing or a step in the grass. Still, he didn’t hear anything other than expected neighborhood noises. He moved past the bushes to the electrical box. The small metal door had been left open.

  He glanced in, expecting to see cut wires, but they were intact. Squinting in the dark, Parker angled to keep an eye on his surroundings and still study the box. His wires weren’t cut, switches weren’t thrown. A tingle of uncertainty fell over him. How had the system gone down? He used the flashlight app on his phone to study the breaker box. Nothing abnormal caught his eye—except. He peered closer. What the—?

  A tiny electro-jammer was secured to the back interior wall. He ran his finger over it,
confirming that it was exactly what it looked like. He scratched his thumb over it, popped it off the back of the metal box, and crushed the tiny device. The lights on his house blinked and illuminated.

  A strong current of apprehension ticked at his thoughts. What was Matt doing with technology like that? The guy was a blow-it-up-question-later kind of guy. Nothing like this. Confusion and concern at what he was missing racked Parker’s brain.

  He moved back inside, locked up tight, and re-engaged the security system. Then he hit the stairs, taking three steps at a time. After opening the panel hidden in the wall, Parker punched in the code, and Lexi’s steel-enforced door unlocked. He twisted the door knob and—ducked as a flash of motion came toward his head. When he looked up, Lexi, nightstand lamp in hand, jerked back, ready to smash it against him again.

  “Easy!” Parker stepped to the side, hands up. “Lex, sweetheart, it’s me.”

  She blinked, eyes peeled wide. “Tell me what happened.”

  “Your ex is an asshole.” He tugged her hand, dragging her downstairs behind him. “And we’re not staying here.”

  “Parker.”

  “Jamming my power and breaking in my goddamn door.”

  “Jamming?” she repeated, pulling up beside him.

  “Since when does that prick know shit about technology?” Parker mumbled, more pissed than making conversation.

  Her face fell, all the color fading. “What? Why?”

  “There was a—” Fuming and confused at the attempted breach, he shook his head. “Never mind.”

  “No, tell me.”

  Then his eyes narrowed on her. He thought about her vague familiarity with technology. “Do you know what an electromagnetic jammer does?”

  She nodded, her face saying she was absolutely familiar with the term. “Maybe.”

  “Well, Matt apparently does too.”

  Lexi slowly shook her head. “There’s no way.”

  “It didn’t get in my breaker box on its own, Lex.”

  Her face darkened, lines pinching her sweet face. “I’ve caused enough of a headache here. Can you drop me at my sister’s house?”