Bind (Manhattan Lux Book 1): Manhattan Lux

by Olivia Devon

  But Malcolm walked up behind Aiko. “It’s hardly Shakespeare,” he said. “But as a call to arms, it’s as good as any.” He grabbed Aiko’s fist in his and lifted their arms together. “Fuck it indeed comrades. Let us proceed!”

  Aiko shook her head and flashed him a grin. “You are so weird.”

  “Pretty sure the night vision is overkill, sport.” Jinx smiled and patted Wyatt on the cheek.

  “Hey.” He smiled back. “A SEAL is always prepared.”

  “Thought that was the Boy Scouts?”

  “They stole it from us.”

  “Whatever you say, cowboy.” She leaned in, pressed a soft kiss to his lips, and backed away to join the others. They were all lined up, staring at him. He knew he was a pretty sight. Body armor, firearm, blade, a few smoke bombs, respirator, and of course, some zip ties. The lights were on in Aaron’s place but Wyatt hadn’t been able to resist the goggles. It was just so fun getting all geared up. He almost wanted to giggle.

  After they’d figured out that Kristie was not only the traitor but currently engaged in thievery at Aaron’s place, they’d hightailed it over to his building and set up a makeshift command center in a maintenance room on the floor below Aaron’s pad.

  Of course everyone, literally everyone, had wanted to storm the castle with Wyatt. That was a very bad idea. Kristie was a slip of a thing, this was true, but the first mistake a SEAL makes is underestimating their enemy. Kristie had proven herself capable of great deceit, so for all he knew she was also hiding some serious Krav Maga skills, or a weapon. There was no way in hell Wyatt was going to allow untrained civilians into a danger zone. Even if that danger zone was a swanky penthouse on the Upper East Side.

  “Alright,” said Wyatt rubbing his hands together. “Everybody clear on their job?”

  The row of heads nodded.

  “Good. Do not deviate from the plan unless I instruct otherwise. Do not enter the apartment until I give the all clear.”

  “You sure you don’t want to sneak up on her from the service entrance?” Aiko asked for what seemed like the tenth time.

  “Nope.” Wyatt shook his head. “My knee can’t take the stairs. We’ve got eyes inside, we can see she’s not covering the elevator.”

  “True, she’s still in my office,” said Aaron, looking at his phone.

  “It’s okay if she hears me coming. Maybe she’ll give up. The objective is to confront her, Aiko. To end this.” Wyatt patted her arm reassuringly. “I don’t need to sneak up and surprise her to do that.”

  “Just seems like more fun.” Aiko pouted.

  “Probably.” Wyatt nodded. “Tell you what, when this is all over, I’ll take you to play laser tag. Okay?”

  Aiko nodded and grinned. Wyatt patted her on the head and heard Jinx sigh heavily behind him.

  “Let’s go already,” she said impatiently.

  “‘I’ll go with you to the elevator,” Aaron said, opening the door to the maintenance room. “It needs a passcode.”

  “If it needs a passcode, how did Kristie get up there?” asked Bryce.

  Aaron frowned. “She stole the keys out of my suit pocket during her attempt to seduce me. I’ve got a key fob that bypasses the need for the password. Handy for when your hands are full. All she had to do was wave it at the elevator and it let her right in. I’ll be switching to more secure verification after this adventure.”

  “Yeah good idea,” said Aiko. “What are you thinking? Retinal scan? Actually no, don’t do that, people could still break in if they ripped your eye out first.” The room silenced, and all attention shifted to Aiko. “What?!” she said, scowling back at their stares. “It’s true!”

  Wyatt kissed Jinx on the cheek, opened the door to the maintenance room, and strode with Aaron the few short feet to the elevators. The rest of the gang—a band of misfits if ever he’d seen one—watched from the doorway, a mixture of expressions flashing over their faces as the elevator doors closed with a chime.

  When they opened again, the lights were out and Aaron’s penthouse was smoky. Wyatt pulled the goggles down over his eyes and patted them affectionately. Aaron’s foyer came into view. Thank God for overkill. The smoke was weak, already dissipating. Probably some cheap hobby canister she got at a dollar store. Something meant for parties. Good. He wouldn’t need his respirator.

  “Jesus,” Aiko’s voice sounded in his ear. “I swear she literally just did that, I didn’t even have time to warn you.”

  “It’s okay,” Wyatt answered. “Shush now.”

  “Who drops a smoke bomb in a penthouse?” Aiko continued. “I mean honestly. What a fucking drama queen.”

  “Shut her up guys,” Wyatt growled into the mic. He heard a scuffle and then Jinx picked up the line.

  “Done. Let me know what you need,” she said simply.

  “Quiet for now. But keep me informed of what you see on the cameras. She still in the office?”

  “That would be a negatory!” Aiko’s voice again, distant and tense. “She has disappeared. I repeat, we do not have eyes on the subject, her current whereabouts are unknown!”

  Wyatt stifled a laugh, drew his weapon, and edged quietly along the wall of Aaron’s foyer.

  “Will someone get the kid a valium please? This is not Black Hawk Down, I promise.”

  He heard whispers and more movement, but this time it was coming from both his earpiece and locally.

  “Quiet,” he hissed into his mic.

  Down a hallway, someone laughed.

  Greeeeaaaaat, thought Wyatt. Chick’s got a taste of the spy life and thinks she can rope me into a game of cloak and dagger. I so do not have time for this shit.

  “Kristie!” he yelled down the corridor. “I’m not doing this. We’re not doing this. Enough with the cat and mouse routine, come out and chat with me like a big girl.”

  “Or what?” Kristie yelled back. “Gonna get your kinky girlfriend to come in here and tie me up?”

  “Oh, she did not just bring me into this,” Jinx said in his ear. “She is so fired.”

  “Yeah, kitten,” Wyatt said. “I kind of figured that, what with the corporate espionage and breaking into Aaron’s place, and—”

  “Don’t get cute with me SEAL, get the job done.”

  Wyatt eased his shoulder around a corner and smirked to himself. “You are too sexy when you’re bossy, babe.”

  “Wyatt,” Jinx warned.

  “Stop talking in my ear—it’s distracting.” He crouched, wincing when his knee complained, covered the shadows with his weapon, and tiptoed softly over the marble floor, opening his mouth to still his breathing so he could hear better.

  Soft rustling sounds off to the right. Aaron had showed Wyatt a floorplan of the apartment on his phone. Wyatt pulled the image up in his memory now—foyer, office…over to the right down a side hall, there was a powder room and laundry, so she was probably—

  “You know she and Jack fucked right?” Kristie yelled. Her voice was closer now. Much closer.

  “We did not!” Jinx hissed in his ear.

  Wyatt didn’t answer, Kristie’s voice was close enough there was a risk of her hearing his response. In fact, the apartment was so quiet, and Jinx’s protests were so furtive and loud, there was a real risk of Kristie hearing some of that squawking coming from his ear piece. He reached up slowly, felt for the volume and pushed it way, way down.

  “She’s a hot piece of ass, your girlfriend,” Kristie continued. “I’ll give her that. I don’t blame Jack one bit for hitting it, even if he is her boss. Hell that didn’t stop him from fucking me. Right?”

  Wyatt made his way down a short hall, putting distance between him and Kristie’s voice. He slid around a large Ming Vase and into Aaron’s dining room. Jinx was still in his ear, her voice low and pleading now. Clearly she was taking Wyatt’s radio silence as proof that he believed Kristie’s claims.

  He cupped his hand over his mouth and mic and whispered, hoping he was loud enough for Jinx to make him out,
because there was no time to repeat himself.

  “Stop,” he said. “It’s bullshit.”

  “Wyatt?” Jinx’s voice was soft and distant. “Jack and I never—”

  “I know. Stop. Get your head back in the game. Be my eyes. Talk to me. Location?”

  “Right,” she stammered, and Wyatt hated that, hated that his strong girl was hurting over this amateur’s clumsy mind games. He’d fix it later, give her a big hug…actually, now that he thought about it, it kind of boded well for him that his ordinarily tough-as-nails kitten with a whip was letting Kristie’s nasty talk go to her head so easily. She wouldn’t be so upset if she didn’t care. A lot. Yep, that had to be a good sign.

  “Status,” he said. “Quickly.”

  “She keeps walking in and out of the office, down those back corridors, tiptoeing out and around and setting up smoke cans.”

  “Hey Wyatt!” Kristie shouted again. Her voice was close, but fading—she was walking away from him. “Did you see those videos tonight? Your slut girlfriend really gets around.”

  “She’s back in the office Wyatt,” said Jinx.

  “What’s she doing?”

  “She keeps checking something on a little laptop she has that she hooked up to Aaron’s desktop.”

  “Can she get anything off there? Ask Aaron.”

  Aaron came on the line. “The minute my system detected unauthorized entry, a protection protocol began. She thinks she’s downloading my entire hard drive. Actually she’s downloading all twenty-seven seasons of the Simpsons and 248 years of the Encyclopædia Britannica.”

  “So it’ll be a while,” said Wyatt.

  “Yeah, couple minutes. Give or take.”

  Kristie shouted again. “Can’t believe you’re okay with strangers watching your girlfriend fucking some other guy!”

  “And you’re not concerned that she’ll actually get ahold of something sensitive?”

  “No. She got in, sure, but she’s not getting out with anything. Maybe if she had more expertise, more time—”

  “We won’t be giving her anymore time. I’m ending this now. I just needed to know what she already has her hands on.”

  “Nothing,” Aaron reassured him. “Even if she’s been uploading to someone else remotely as she’s been downloading, all they’re gonna get is a lot of digitized books with outdated information and Homer Simpson whining about donuts.”

  Wyatt chuckled. “Great. Give me back to Jinx.”

  “I think she still has a thing with that guy!” Kristie shouted, and this time Wyatt could clearly hear the strain in her voice. The stress was starting to get to her. Cloak and dagger isn’t so fun when you start to realize there’s no way out. “I saw her video chatting with him a few months ago. I bet they’re still fucking. You’re such a chump.”

  “Why is she bothering with all this nonsense?” said Jinx. “It’s insane.”

  “Because she’s trying to stall. It’s amateur shit, stuff she learned from bad movies. Which tells me that somebody put her up to this job but didn’t train her very well.”

  “Just for the record. Yes, that guy and I are still friends. But he’s married now. We were Skyping about his new baby. That’s all.”

  “No need to explain, babe.”

  “Wyatt?” Jinx said, her tone full of concern. “You’re in pain. Need back up?”

  “How can you tell I’m in pain?”

  “Because you’re always in pain, but when it’s worse, your face changes and so does your gait.”

  “Quit checking out my ass babe, and don’t worry about my pain. Just keep me posted on her movements.”

  “Stubborn,” Jinx mumbled, then paused. “Wyatt? I don’t see her.”

  A noise, off to his left, a hinge creaking, the soft pad of footsteps.

  “I’ve got it,” he whispered, pivoting to face the noise. Something flew through the thin smoke directly towards his face, Wyatt ducked, felt the object glance off his goggles and did some quick mental math on the trajectory.

  Kristie had pulled the ole’ throw and run, trying to give Wyatt the impression that she was somewhere other than where she really was. Rolling his eyes, he took a deep breath and finally bellowed, the response Kristie had been trying to provoke out of him since he arrived.

  “Alright, this shit is just not that interesting, honey. Whaddya say we wrap it up?”

  Something was making a terrible scraping sound. Wyatt sprinted out of the dining room just in time to see Kristie dragging the Ming vase down the hall, a chalky line on the hardwood floor evidence of its short trip.

  “I agree!” Kristie said, pausing in her retreat to tip the vase upright. It toppled, wobbled a bit, and a bit more as Kristie began trying to maneuver it.

  “Really?” Wyatt said, when he caught what she had planned. “Straight outta Indiana Jones huh? You’re gonna roll a vase at me? Real big scary badass you are, lobbing ceramics at people in hallways. Jesus, they just don’t make spies like they used to.” He grinned, pushed his goggles down his face to hang around his neck, did a little shoulder roll, and walked straight towards Kristie. If she wanted Indiana Jones, he’d give it to her, no sweat.

  Except….

  He’d forgotten about the bum knee.

  It went like this. Kristie pushed the vase over and heaved it down the hallway like the world’s most ungainly bowling ball. It rolled slowly. Embarrassingly slowly. Deceptively slowly. So slowly that hubris had plenty of time to take over Wyatt’s better judgement. The vase was nearly as long as the hallway was wide, so he couldn’t slip around it, he’d have to go over. He probably should’ve just stepped over, but he didn’t. Nope. Instead he did a little run/skip/hop thing that pre-kneetastrophe would’ve been perfectly fine.

  Fine did not happen.

  There was a crunch so loud it echoed off the vase and the floor and the walls. Then he felt something snap. White hot pain erupted above his knee and everything below it went dark. Numb. Nothing.

  When he put his foot down, it all went to shit. Two hundred and something pounds of solid muscle avalanched to the floor.

  Kristie approached him cautiously. Through the stars chasing the edges of his vision he could see her smile. Snide and twitching with triumph.

  “Well, well, well,” she said. “Gosh, that knee looks painful.” Kristie kicked Wyatt’s knee with the toe of her shoe. Fresh pain bloomed, and he lunged for her, tried to get a hand around her ankle, but she slipped away.

  The pain wasn’t a problem for long. Training kicked in. It always does. Wyatt pushed all the pain into a little box, and tucked the box away on a shelf in the back of his mind. It disappeared. He’d pay for it later, tenfold, but for right now, the pain would not get in the way of the job.

  Unfortunately that didn’t matter. Because the leg was non-functional. He would not be rising from this spot without assistance. He needed backup.

  Kristie slipped away and retreated out of sight, her laughter echoing from inside Aaron’s office.

  Wyatt spoke low into the mic. “Jun,” he said. “I need you. Bring rope.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  When Kristie returned, she had something in her hands. She tossed it it back and forth, palm to palm as she walked toward Wyatt.

  “You know,” she said, looking down at him thoughtfully. “I really thought you and I were gonna hook up.”

  “Really?” Wyatt asked. If she wanted to chat, he’d let her. All the more time for his baby to get here and put the kibosh on this bimbo.

  “Yeah,” Kristie frowned. “When you first showed up at Glow. Remember, we talked at my desk for a while. Flirted.”

  “Oh that!” Wyatt said. “You mean when I was waiting to go in for the interview with Jinx, and you asked if I wanted coffee, and I said sure, and then you brought me some and bent down real low to hand it to me, and like the top six buttons of your shirt were open, and I could see all the way to North Dakota, and then you batted your eyelashes, pranced away, and glanced back over your should
er to see if I was checking out your ass?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “No,” Wyatt said. “That wasn’t us flirting. That was all you.”

  “Really?” Kristie asked, tilting her head to gaze at him thoughtfully. “You weren’t interested?”

  “Not for a second. Although I can understand why you imagined so. I played the part, since it suited my aims. Much the way you’ve played a part, to get what you wanted.”

  “You didn’t feel anything for me at all?” Kristie asked, ignoring the other implications of Wyatt’s words. “Nothing?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Well.” Kristie stopped tossing the black object, raised it up and squeezed. A thin blue light crackled in the air and she smiled. “Maybe this will help you…feel something.”

  A shadow slid across the end of hallway. Wyatt sensed more than saw it, and was careful not to let his gaze drift away from Kristie’s. Jinx was gliding up behind her, a length of rope stretched taut between her hands.

  “I’m gonna have to decline on that offer,” Wyatt said, shrugging with feigned regret. “See my girlfriend and I, Tasering’s kind of our thing. It’s special to us.”

  Kristie’s brow rose. “Tasering is your thing,” she said. “Your kink?”

  “Yeah sorry. She’d be pissed if I let another woman do that to me.”

  “Tasering?” Kristie said again.

  “Yup. You know Jinx, she’s intense. We like to keep it edgy.”

  “Edgy?” Kristie dropped her hand to her hip and narrowed her eyes. “Okay I’ll bite. What other edgy kinks do you guys have?”

  Wyatt had just opened his mouth to speak when Jinx appeared behind Kristie. She was a vision, a dark angel, his baby coming to the rescue in his moment of need. Several coils of rope…he squinted, nope…electrical cord—probably the first thing handy in the maintenance closet—snaked around Kristie’s torso before she knew what hit her.

  Kristie bucked in surprise. Jerking her head back, it cracked against Jinx’s skull, and the two women stumbled, both scrambling for dominance. Wyatt heard the Taser crackle again, and he pushed to one knee, trained his weapon on the shadows and barked a warning. But it was an empty threat. Kristie had a handful of Jinx’s hair, and their bodies were locked in struggle, intertwined. There was no way he would risk a shot that could put his woman in danger.