Handled: An Everyday Heroes World Novel (The Everyday Heroes World)

by Heather Slade

  “Not really.”

  He smirked. “What can I get you? Coffee?”

  “Bucketloads if you have it.”

  He handed me a cup with cream, no sugar. “Hungry?”

  “Famished.”

  He opened the refrigerator and leaned over to look inside, giving me a perfect view of the way his jeans stretched over his tight ass. The muscles of his arm holding the door open, flexed.

  “What do you bench press?” I asked.

  He turned around and put a carton of eggs on the counter. “Depends on what I’m training for. What about you?”

  “Same.”

  “Why’d you ask?”

  “You’re in really good shape.”

  His cheeks flushed, which surprised me. “So are you.”

  “You’re also really pretty.”

  Cope laughed. “So are you.”

  “Yeah, I kinda handed you that one.”

  I watched as he cracked ten eggs into a bowl. “I only know how to make them scrambled,” he said when he looked up and saw me watching.

  “Those better not all be for me.”

  “I’ve seen you eat. You can polish these off in a hot minute.”

  “Very funny. So…do you need to go to work or something today?”

  “Working from home, but tomorrow is a different story. I’ll probably be gone most of the day. I’ve, um, asked my mother to come over.”

  I rolled my eyes. “That’s sweet, but not necessary.” Not to mention, I didn’t feel right about getting to know Cope’s mother or anyone else in his family. Spending time alone with him like I was, was bad enough.

  “The nurse said you can’t be alone for more than a couple of hours.”

  “I’m sure she was exaggerating. I’ll be fine.”

  He shook his head. “I won’t be.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Instead of getting done what I need to, I’ll worry about you.”

  “I’ve been on my own for a really long time, I can take care—”

  He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the counter. His face was only a few inches from mine. “I’ll worry about you.” When his cell phone vibrated, he reached over and picked it up. “Rock’s here,” he said after setting the phone back down on the counter.

  “Rock?”

  “You’ll see.”

  When he opened the door of his apartment, the man standing on the other side of it could’ve been a stunt double for Dwayne Johnson.

  When Cope introduced him as Ritter Johnson, I wondered if he and his doppelganger were related.

  He set a bag on the counter. “I’m pretty sure this is for you.”

  I scrunched my eyes and looked at Cope.

  “Open it,” he prodded.

  I pulled out a box containing a brand new version of the same kind of computer that was taken from the apartment. I looked up at Cope a second time.

  “You need to work,” he muttered.

  “Where did this come from?”

  “I’m just going to wait over here,” said Rock, walking over to the windows.

  “I asked Rock to pick it up and bring it to you.”

  I looked in the bag and didn’t see a receipt. “How much do I owe you?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  My eyes opened wide. “You can’t buy me a computer, Cope.”

  “It was that or let you borrow one of mine, and that’s against regulations.”

  “Ha, ha.” I ran my hand over the white box covered in plastic wrap. I hadn’t let the idea of being “disconnected” settle in, but if I had, I certainly would’ve been agitated by it. “Thank you, but I insist on reimbursing you for this as soon as I have the energy to go get my wallet.”

  “We can work it out later,” he said, motioning with his head toward Rock.

  “Sure. Of course.” I shifted to stand, and Cope came around from the other side of the counter.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m giving you some privacy.”

  “We might need you.” Cope turned to Rock. “Do you have it?”

  He nodded and patted his pocket. “Right here.”

  “Bring it over.”

  Cope opened his laptop and inserted the thumb drive that Rock handed to him. I could tell that he played a video recording, but without my glasses, I couldn’t see much of anything other than shapes moving around on the screen. He hit the space bar and turned the computer toward me. “Is this the guy you saw in the parking garage?”

  I looked from the screen to him. “Without my glasses, I can’t tell.”

  “I’ll get them. Where are they?”

  “In my bag.” I didn’t like not being able to do something as simple as getting my glasses, but if he went, it would be much faster.

  “These them?” he asked, what seemed like seconds later.

  “Yes,” I sighed in relief. I put them on and sighed again when everything came into focus. I peered at the screen. The image was grainy and in black and white, but he did look a lot like the guy I’d seen in the parking lot of the courthouse.

  “He probably saw you leave with me,” Cope muttered.

  “What exactly happened over there?”

  “He was looking for something and wasn’t too happy when he couldn’t find it.” He turned the laptop back so he could study the image. “Any idea what it might’ve been?”

  “None.”

  “Ali?”

  “Yeah?”

  “No idea?”

  “Obviously, my laptop.”

  He leaned against the back of the stool. “Why, though? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Like you said, he probably saw me leave with you. Maybe he thought I knew something about Warrick’s trial.”

  He nodded and continued studying the image. “It’s plausible.”

  It wasn’t and we both knew it. However, there was more than one reason I couldn’t give him the answers he was looking for.

  Twelve

  Cope

  The entire drive from my apartment to the courthouse in Virginia, the same thing rolled over in my mind. Ali had lied to me yesterday. She was hiding something, and it pissed me the fuck off. Stella’s words echoed in my mind, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I should call Decker and have him run a check on her.

  She couldn’t know the real story about Irish. Of that, I was certain. So what was it? What could someone have been looking for in her apartment? It would’ve made more sense if they’d broken into mine.

  After Rock left, Ali and I had a quiet afternoon, the tension between us thick. She’d slept the majority of the day, which was the best thing for her.

  I spent the time pouring through everything Deck had sent over on the most recent names I’d given him. Without my asking, he’d also been able to get into some of the agency’s files I wouldn’t have been able to access from home, as well as some I wouldn’t have been able to access from anywhere. The man was fucking scary; now wasn’t the first time I was damn glad we were on the same side.

  I checked on Ali one more time after my mom arrived at the apartment and before I left for Virginia this morning, and she was still asleep. I longed to walk over to the bed and kiss her goodbye, but stopped myself. A wall had gone up between us yesterday after she hadn’t been honest with me. I was sure she’d realized it as much as I had.

  I’d just pulled into the parking garage when the cell rang with a call from my father.

  “Good morning, senator.”

  “Just checking in, Son.”

  “I’ve just arrived at the district courthouse.” I scrubbed my face with my hand. “Dad, when I can tell you something, I will. Please don’t ask.”

  “I’m worried about you.”

  “I appreciate that, but I’ve got this under control.”

  “Your mother mentioned something about a reporter staying in your apartment.”

  Here it came. The line of questioning I’d expected from my mom was coming from him instead. />
  “I don’t have time to get into it now, Dad.”

  “I don’t need to tell you to watch your back with the media, Sumner.”

  “How’s the reporter?” asked Hammer when I walked into the courthouse and found him waiting.

  “Fine.”

  Hammer leaned closer. “Somethin’ up your ass this mornin’, Cope?”

  Too many things, to be honest, but I wasn’t about to tell Hammer that. “You ready?”

  He shook his head, laughed, and stalked off in the direction of the meeting room, motioning for me to follow. “Showtime.”

  Warrick looked up when we walked in. “Everything okay, Cope?” he asked. “I heard there was an accident.”

  “Everything’s fine.”

  I heard Hammer sneer, but I didn’t have it in me. I knew I was supposed to act like Irish was pond scum, but was it really necessary? I was a CIA agent, trained to hide my feelings. It would be amateurish for me to act the same way Hammer was.

  I caught a look that passed between Irish and his lead attorney. Damon Church was one of the top federal defense attorneys in the country—and had absolutely no idea the man he was currently representing didn’t truly need his help. Unless what I had planned failed. If it did, he’d likely be my attorney too.

  The man seated directly across from me cleared his throat and rested his arms on the table. “Mr. Warrick has requested a private conversation.”

  “With?”

  “You.”

  I looked from Church to Irish and nodded once.

  “Cope?” I heard Hammer say, but I didn’t turn to look at him. I kept my eyes on Irish.

  “Clear the room.”

  “Fuck,” Hammer said under his breath and pushed his chair back. The rest of Irish’s team walked out, leaving Hammer and Church. Both were doing their damndest to be the one who closed the door behind them. I was beginning to think Hammer should consider a career in acting. Then again, acting is what made an agent.

  “Wait,” I called after them. “I want both of you to state, on the record, that there will be no surveillance whatsoever of the conversation Warrick and I are about to have.”

  Church grinned. “Why, Agent Copeland,” he drawled, “that would be illegal, Son.”

  “You both heard me.”

  “No surveillance,” said Hammer, taking a step closer to Church, a man close to a foot shorter than him and weighing in a good fifty pounds less, not that he backed away.

  “No surveillance,” he said, motioning for Hammer to leave the room first.

  Hammer bowed. “After you.”

  “Get the fuck out of here!” I yelled at the two of them. I settled my gaze back on Irish.

  “How are you holding up?” I asked once I made sure the door was closed.

  “I’ve been in worse situations.”

  His positive attitude surprised me.

  “Just tell me you’re getting somewhere while I’m sitting in jail with my thumb in my ass.”

  “I am.”

  He scrubbed his face with his hand. “Until we can wrap this up, there are still agents at risk, Cope.”

  “I know that, Irish.” Once again, I hated that no one knew this man the way I did. The majority of people believed him to be a traitor, and he was as far from it as he could get.

  “I dropped the bait; I’m just waiting to see who bites.”

  He nodded.

  “We need to talk about what’s going to happen when this is over.”

  His eyes met mine. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not going back.”

  “Back?”

  “I took leave. Listen, Irish, the woman who was hit was driving my car—that was no accident. It was done intentionally.”

  “Hammer told me.”

  “Decker’s adding another couple of men on the inside with you and Rage.”

  Irish nodded again. “Who?”

  I told him I’d leave that decision to Deck.

  “So you said you’ve been thinking about what’s going to happen when this is over.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you’re not going back to the agency. What are you going to do?”

  “I’m thinking about joining up with the Invincibles.”

  “They all despise me.”

  “They don’t have any idea who you really are, Irish.”

  When I returned to the apartment, my mother was in the kitchen, preparing lunch. Ali sat at the counter, setting up her new laptop.

  “You’re back early,” said my mom, looking at her watch.

  I nodded but had no intention of commenting on why to either of them. At least not until my mother left. I owed Ali a briefing, and I’d deliver.

  “Sumner, are you all right?”

  “Of course, Mom.”

  “You seem particularly tense.” She looked at Ali. “Not that he isn’t always.”

  Ali turned to me, cocked her head, and smiled.

  “You’re welcome to head home now…I mean, if you have things to do.” My mother looked surprised and maybe hurt, but I was trying to be nice, considering I’d asked her to be here every day this week.

  “You don’t have to go into the office?”

  “No.”

  “Very well, then,” she said, wiping her hands on a towel. “I’ll just leave this in the refrigerator for when Ali is ready.”

  The woman seated at my kitchen counter turned her head toward me and smirked. Yes, I had caught her mention that the food wasn’t for me.

  I walked my mother to the door. “She’s lovely, Sumner.”

  I nodded and kissed my mother’s cheek. That Ali was lovely—gorgeous really, not to mention hot as fuck—wasn’t something that needed to be pointed out to me.

  “You’ve a fan in my mother,” I told her, pulling out the stool next to her.

  “The feeling is mutual.”

  She said the words, but there was no feeling behind them. Even her eyes were hooded.

  “Did everything go okay while I was gone?”

  Her eyes scrunched. “Yes.”

  “I owe you a story.”

  She didn’t say anything. In fact, she turned her head away.

  “Ali? Would you rather wait until later?”

  “What I’d really like to do is go back to my apartment.”

  Even when she was angry with me—on the countless occasions she had been, in the short time we’d known each other—her mood hadn’t seemed as off as it did now. It had begun yesterday, when she lied, but that didn’t explain why she was mad at me. It should be the other way around.

  “Let me make a call.” I stood and walked into the bedroom, where I saw her belongings were all packed in the bag I’d brought over for her.

  “Ali wants to go back to the apartment,” I said when Rock answered. “Any issue with that?”

  “None.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “You want me to invent one?”

  I didn’t like the idea of her being over there alone, but that wasn’t the real issue. I wanted her here with me. Even if things were tentative between us, at least I could be near her. And how fucked up was that?

  I was sitting on the bed, still staring at my phone after I ended my call with Rock, when I heard her say, “Hey,” from the doorway. I looked up.

  “Hey.”

  “I’m sorry, Cope. I’m not used to having to rely on someone twenty-four hours a day. I’ve been on my own a really long time.”

  “You don’t have to explain.”

  She came over and sat beside me. “I feel like I should.” She took a deep breath. “My dad died when I was sixteen. Less than a year later, my mom suffered an aneurysm and died too.”

  “That must’ve been really hard on you.”

  She looked down at the floor. “It isn’t something I talk about very often.”

  “You don’t have to now.”

  She got up and went around the end of the bed to the other side. When she stretched out on it,
I did the same, as though our lying side by side was the most natural thing in the world.

  “My dad was in construction. Mainly commercial. The town I’m from is old, which means when property is renovated, they often find asbestos. They eventually realized it could cause cancer, but that was years after my father began working. He died of lung cancer.”

  “I’m sorry, Ali.”

  “It was really hard on my mom, as you can imagine. Especially since she had to fight to get the company he’d worked for to pay for his medical expenses. In the end, they settled with her, and she got a large payout from them, not just for the bills, but for wrongful death. It took a lot out of her.”

  “You said she had an aneurysm?”

  “I was sitting in the kitchen, talking to her. She opened the refrigerator door and then…dropped to the floor.”

  I turned on my side so I could look at her; she was staring at the ceiling.

  “I don’t know what I would’ve done without Desi. She was…so supportive.”

  “I’m glad you had her in your life.”

  She turned her head and looked at me. “You’re a nice guy, Cope.”

  I brought my hand to my heart. “Always the nice guy. They finish last, you know.”

  Ali looked back up at the ceiling. “I’m not used to being around people.”

  “Me either, to tell you the truth.” I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to ask. “Ali?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you sure you have no idea what someone might’ve been looking for the other night?”

  “I already said I didn’t,” she answered too quickly.

  Fuck, she just lied again.

  I sat up and turned so my back was to her. “Rock said they’re done over at your apartment. You can go back whenever you’re ready.”

  Thirteen

  Ali

  Cope stood and walked out of the room; he knew I was lying. Although it was more complicated than the question he’d asked me.

  Earlier, while his mother made my lunch, I received an email from Jessica, saying Money wanted to meet. With Cope or his mother watching me every minute of the day and night, I had no idea how I was going to manage getting away.