by Ravenna Tate
“God,” he whispered. “I can’t hold this in any longer.” He glanced around, but no one was near them. “Emma, I love you. I am so damn in love with you. This entire evening was so I could tell you that, away from work, away from that fucking article, away from everything that’s been worrying you for the past two weeks.”
She put a hand over her heart as tears stung her eyes. “Oh, Atticus. Oh my God. I love you, too. So much. I’ve wanted to tell you but I … my mind hasn’t been on anything else but that article. Thank you for this. Thank you so much. I love you so much!”
He pulled her close and held her while people walked past them. She barely noticed any of them. She inhaled Atticus’s clean scent, and pushed closer to his warm, muscular body. He loved her. He loved her!
Gone were the worries of the past couple of weeks, along with the fears that Leland would resurface. Even if he did, Atticus would take care of it. He would take care of everything the way he had since she’d started working for him. With grace, efficiency, and the confidence borne of power and wealth. She was in love with a Weatherman, and she knew what that meant by now. Her life would never be the same again. Emma welcomed it.
****
Dinner was magnificent. She’d never tasted food like this. They feasted on calamari, swordfish, and the best eggplant dish she’d ever had. She couldn’t get enough of the roasted vegetables. Atticus had asked for a second side dish of them just for her. For dessert they had strawberries and fresh cream, plus espresso. Emma’s face hurt from smiling so much. She’d never been this happy, or had such an enjoyable night out.
When they returned to Atticus’s apartment, Emma kissed him like it might be the last time she could ever do it. They clawed at each other, clothes dropping wherever they landed, oblivious to everything except each other. She was on her knees in front of him before they reached any of the bedrooms.
Emma took his dick out of his pants and wrapped her lips around it, right there in the upstairs hallway, with the carpet chaffing her bare knees. She didn’t give a shit. She loved this man so damn much she’d gladly walk around with carpet burns on her knees.
Atticus pulled out of her mouth. “Baby … I want to come inside your pussy.”
Emma turned around and knelt on the carpet, ass in the air. “Give it to me, love. Hard and rough. Fuck me into next week, Atticus. I want your cock to hurt me.”
“Oh, Emma…” He removed the rest of his clothing and smacked her ass cheeks, hard. She cried out in pleasure, not giving a shit if his staff was watching this time. She needed him right fucking now.
He reached underneath and grasped her breasts, hard. Then he slapped her pussy and fingered her clit until she thought she’d go out of her mind with desire. “Fuck me. Please.”
“Oh I will. I will fuck you until you beg me to stop.”
Finally, he shoved his dick into her pussy from behind, pushing her roughly onto the carpet so she lay prone. Emma raked her fingers against the fibers, moaning loudly with each hard thrust. He grunted and groaned behind her, tugging her hair and reaching under her body to roughly fondle her breasts. She never wanted it to end.
Her climax was powerful and swift, and she arched her back to try to get more of his cock inside. She couldn’t get enough of him tonight. He slammed into her even harder, and then he cried out and came inside her pussy, pushing so hard it did hurt but she didn’t care. She’d let him do it again and again if that’s what he wanted. Anything to have him next to her and inside her.
He lay on top of her, the sweat on their bodies drying and their breathing still quick, then scrambled to his feet as they heard footsteps on the stairs. Emma giggled, stood, and bent over to try to retrieve the clothes they’d removed up here.
“Leave them. Come on.”
She sprinted into his bedroom, then collapsed onto his bed with him, laughing.
“But the carpet … there are stains on it. I’m sure there are.”
He chuckled. “They’ll clean it.” Atticus pulled her into his arms and held her tightly. “Sleep. Just a little. Then round two.”
She grinned. “Where should we do it this time? The kitchen?”
“We already did that, remember? How about the sidewalk out front?”
She laughed again. “Anywhere. Anything. As long as I’m with you.”
He pulled her closer. “I love you, Emma.”
Emma was certain her heart would burst from joy. “I love you, too.”
Chapter Seventeen
The next two weeks lulled Atticus into a false sense of security. Everything was too perfect. Even the sex was better, and he hadn’t believed it could be. Every moment with Emma was like a breath of fresh air. Real air, the way he remembered it from the surface.
It had been a month since the article surfaced, and not one thing had happened. He hadn’t been able to find anything on any of Emma’s former coworkers that suggested one of them had written it, and he was almost ready to give up caring.
They had everything they needed now. The real names of the thirteen people on the snippet of conversation they’d pulled off the satellite, plus the real names and locations of the five hackers.
A few of the Weathermen wanted to wait until they’d found the locations of each of the thirteen people, but most did not. They were ready to move forward. Atticus didn’t want to wait until something else happened and they lost the hackers again.
One other thing in his life could no longer wait, as far as he was concerned. He wanted to marry Emma. She was everything he’d ever wanted, and he loved her with a passion he’d never known. To hell with the article and the hackers. If they were all going to die in these cities because no one could stop The Madeline Project, at least he’d have a few years with the woman he’d searched all his life for. He wanted those years to include Emma as his wife, not merely his lover.
He was on a call with all the others and it was wrapping up. He sent Emmett a PM and asked him to stay on the call with him after the others left it. Atticus felt closer to Emmett than to any of the others for the simple reason that Emmett understood Atticus’s fascination with gadgets. They made small talk for a few moments and then Emmett asked how the design Emma was working on was going.
Atticus chuckled. “She’s almost done. We’ll be ready to construct a prototype we can actually test in less than two months, or possibly sooner. I’ve never seen anyone work so hard, or stay so focused. She took my ideas and boom. Off she went. It’s exactly what I had pictured.”
“You’re lucky she came to work for you.”
Emmett’s grin told Atticus he realized there was much more between him and Emma. “Right. I’m lucky she walked into my life. Emmett, I want to marry her. That’s why I asked you to stay on the call. What do you think?”
“What the hell does it matter what I think? I say go for it.”
“I know Ace is blissfully happy, but are you? Is it really all it’s cracked up to be?”
“I’m thrilled to death being married. I mean that. Does Emma want to be married?”
“I don’t know. We never talked about it. But we love each other, and she knows that. What could be more natural?”
“You won’t get an argument from me, but I wasn’t sure that’s what I wanted until I met Liane. I’d at least bring up the subject, though, just to be sure. Bonnie’s asshole husband put her through a lot. She might be turned off by the whole idea for all you know.”
Atticus knew as much, but he appreciated Emmett saying it. It proved to him how true that could be.
“Do you have a ring yet?”
“No.”
“Talk to Addison. He has a few that his teams have found on the surface over the years. He can send you pictures and overnight one to you.”
“Great idea. Thanks.”
“Why haven’t you told the others?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’m afraid she’ll say ‘no’.”
Emmett smiled. “I doubt she will.”
Atticus went
to the only jewelry store in CentralEast one afternoon that week, but he didn’t see anything he liked. Emma’s engagement ring should be stunning. Special. Unique like she was. He finally called Addison one morning and told him what he was looking for.
Later that day, Addison emailed him three pictures of rings he had in the storeroom, and Atticus chose the perfect one. It featured a huge chocolate diamond surrounded by tiny pieces of dark brown jasper. It was exactly what he’d been hoping to find. He already knew her ring size thanks to some stealth moves on his part with a ring she wore on her right hand, and as Addison offered to have it sized before he shipped it, Atticus took care of that as well.
The only thing left to do was come up with the perfect place and time to ask her.
He struggled for the rest of the week with a way to casually drop marriage and children into the conversation, to gauge her reaction, but every time he thought there was an opening, the words that filled his mind sounded contrived.
His attention was drawn away from the ring and his plans for proposing on Friday of that week, when Barclay set up an urgent video call with all of them after lunch. “Sorry for the short notice,” he said, “but I’ve just heard some disturbing news from Denise and Patrick.”
Denise Francis and Patrick Leff were the contacts at HCS Barclay had known for years. They were also the two who had backed up the Weathermen’s plan to have first crack at the hackers. Bonnie was Patrick’s supervisor at HCS, and Dave Perry was Denise’s.
“And I have some bad news, too,” said Oliver. “But I’ll let Barclay give his first.”
“Denise and Patrick both called me this morning,” said Barclay. “Dave Perry and Bonnie Clough have been fired from HCS.”
Barclay waited until the uproar quieted down before he continued.
“This is all they both know right now, but I think it’s enough to piece together what happened. Dave wrote the article and tried to cover his tracks. I don’t know how his supervisor discovered it was him, but she did. Denise and Patrick are trying to find out because this might have far-reaching implications for all of us, depending on how Dave was outed.”
“What about Bonnie?” asked Ace.
“Hang on. I’m getting to that part. Dave tried to make it look like Bonnie had written the article, even going so far as to set up a fake email path that went back to her work machine. But he must have left footprints he wasn’t aware of in the code because what he’d done was discovered.”
“I thought Dave and Bonnie were thick as thieves?” asked Emmett.
“So did we all. Denise said they had some sort of falling out soon after Grayson and I met with the four in Central, and have been going at each other at work ever since. Patrick said he’d heard through the grapevine that Dave overheard Bonnie talking to some of her friends at work about what Leland had done with Emma, and Patrick believes that’s why Dave put the information in there about the police station and a person now working for us.”
“But that means Dave or Bonnie know Emma is here,” said Atticus.
“That wouldn’t be too hard to find out,” said Barclay. “Bonnie mentioned Emma by name, if what Patrick heard was true. All Dave or Bonnie had to do was search public records, or use their databases at work to track where she’d moved to. Be thankful Dave didn’t mention her by name in the article, or name Yates Industries as the place where she worked.”
“They weren’t his target,” said Grayson. “Bonnie was. He put that in there to throw us off the track, didn’t he? He wanted us to think it was Bonnie or Leland.”
“That’s what I believe,” said Barclay. “And based on what Denise and Patrick know from inside HCS, that’s the way it looks from their point of view as well.”
“With them both fired, things will only escalate,” said Dominic.
“That’s not the worst of it,” said Oliver. “I found an email this morning from Sam Preston. He’s quit, and I have no fucking clue where he’s gone. I’ve done what I can from my end to block his access to company systems from an outside computer, and my IT team is looking for any hint he copied files before he left, or where he might have gone.”
“Son of bitch!” Grayson banged his fist on his desk. “I knew we should have fired them all as soon as we found out.”
“Does Dante still work for you?” asked Barclay.
“As far as I know he does, but remember he and Sam have been friends for a long time.”
“What about Mindy?” asked Kane.
“She’s still here,” said Barclay. “What do you want us to do? We have four of them still, plus most of the thirteen. If we wait any longer, they might all bolt.”
“Blaine and I know people who can pick them up within a few hours, as soon as we say so,” said Viggo. “You tell us where to take them and it’s done.”
“Where isn’t an issue,” said Barclay. “Denise and Patrick both have told me about a building that HCS no longer uses. It’s in Central and looks like an abandoned warehouse from the outside. We’d need our own security team, but I’m sure among the twelve of us we can take care of that.”
“What do we do with them once we have them?” asked Damien.
“We need to figure that out before we do anything else,” said Addison. “This shit has gone on long enough. We have to act soon or they’re all gone.”
“Who else do we tell this to?” asked Ace.
“I say we let our wives and fiancées in on it,” said Emmett, “because we might all be traveling to Central very soon.”
The others agreed. Viggo and Blaine assured the group they’d set things in motion. Then once the call was finished, Atticus asked Emma to come to his office. She took a seat, and he outlined everything that had happened on the call.
“Holy shit. Do you think Dave is connected to this somehow? Wasn’t he one of the original programmers on The Madeline Project?”
“He sure was. I hate to say it, but I don’t know why else he’d do this to us. I know he didn’t want us going gangbusters on the hackers, but I always assumed that was because he likes to do things by the book, not because he’s involved in this. None of us would have believed that of him. We trusted him. We didn’t like him, but we trusted him.”
“How come his name never came up in all the searches each of your teams has done?”
“Good question. Either he’s hidden himself that well, or we’re wrong and he’s not involved. Or he might be involved but only on the fringes.” Atticus ran his fingers through his hair. “Hell. I don’t know what the fuck his game is. I only know he’s the one who wrote the article, and now he and Bonnie are gone from HCS. That’s going to make them both pissed off as hell because they’ll blame us for it.”
She put her arms around him. “What can I do to help?”
“Stay safe. I’m going to put my security team on you at all times now. You won’t know they’re there.”
“Okay.”
“Thank you for not minding that. And I need you to understand that I might have to leave for Central suddenly.”
“I understand, but Atticus, this is scary. I don’t want any of you hurt over this. I don’t mean more bad press. I mean physically hurt.”
He pulled her closer and stroked her hair. “Don’t you worry. I don’t intend to start busting jaws.”
“But you all don’t have a solid plan about what to do with them, do you?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
“Well, I know you’ll figure it out. You always seem to do that. I’ve never seen a group of men so dedicated to one cause, and so resourceful. You’ve all had so much shit thrown at you over the years but you just keep going anyway. You really are our last hope to save the planet.”
Atticus was beyond flattered by her words, but if she knew the truth of how fucking terrified he was, she might not be so in awe of him. “We still have the hope of reversing those fields.”
“Time to test that, isn’t it? Then you all won’t need to go to Central and bust heads or jaws.”
<
br /> He couldn’t help but smile. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”
“But then the hackers will have gotten away with it.”
“They have anyway unless we can figure out how to stop this.”
They held each other for long moments before he told Emma to return to work. She didn’t want to go, but he finally persuaded her he was okay and had a lot of planning to do. After she left, he took the ring out of the box where he’d placed it in his desk drawer.
It had arrived this morning, and he still hadn’t figured out how or where to ask her. Now, it seemed more urgent than ever, but he hated the idea of doing this with the newest wrinkle in their plan hanging over his head. Still, he wasn’t about to leave for Central and take on this crazy vigilante scheme—whatever it turned out to be—without first knowing Emma would one day be his wife.
She meant everything to him, and God forbid if something happened to him, he wanted to know she’d be cared for and comfortable, at least materially, for the rest of her life.
Chapter Eighteen
Emma woke Saturday morning to more clues left in the apartment by Atticus. She loved that he was doing this, because they’d stayed up talking late last night about the video call the day before. He knew how worried she was that their half-assed plans would go wrong and they’d all end up hurt, or in trouble with some government agency.
Atticus had done his best to reassure her that when Viggo and Blaine set up an operation like this, they didn’t do it half-assed, and they would plan for every contingency. He reminded her that they’d been the ones to set up the stealing of Rob Marin’s laptop, and to this day, no one knew who had really done that.
She’d asked what had happened to Rob, and Atticus said as far as they knew, he was still posting on the same message boards and oblivious to the fact that the Weathermen had discovered his friend, Dante Herrera, was one of the hackers.
“Will Viggo’s and Blaine’s associates pick up Rob, too?”
Atticus told her they’d discussed that and were still debating whether he’d be of any further use to them.
