by S. M. Butler
I fell asleep on the sofa downstairs, after hours of staring at the ceiling, at the wall, anything to take my mind off what happened. I slept in fits, waking over every little noise. By the time morning came around, I was frazzled, but I’d almost gotten myself calmed down enough to walk back up the stairs to the room.
He had slept without a shirt, in just a pair of boxers. It shouldn’t have been hot. I was in the middle of a crisis, but my body responded when he rose from the bed to go use the bathroom down the hall. I sat down on the bed, scooting back against the headboard and crossing my legs. When he returned, he came over and flopped down in front of me, facing me in the same position I was.
“I don’t know what the fuck happened last night. I’m going to guess that you’ll shut me out of that, too. But if you do want to talk about it… I’m here. I’m not going to hurt you. I’ll even stay on the other side of the room if you want. Okay?”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I’d never had a man offer such a thing to me before. It had always been about sex with them. I’d made sure of it. Even with Dylan, as soon as it started being complicated, I was trying to run in the other direction. I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out.
He sighed heavily when I didn’t say anything and stood up. He grabbed his jeans and slipped them on. “I guess I’ll go down to breakfast.”
Inside I was screaming to get it out, but I wasn’t brave enough. It just kept getting stuck in my throat. Finally, it tore from me like Tourette’s. “Jack called me sweet pea.”
Dylan stopped, his T-shirt in his hand. He turned back to face me, probably surprised to hear me at all. He sat down on the edge of the bed, his torso turned to face me. “Go on.”
“Jack wasn’t just my partner. We were having sex, too.”
“He was your lover.”
Was that what it was? Didn’t you have to be in love with someone for them to be your lover? Wasn’t that a rule? Or was your lover just someone you fucked regularly? I wasn’t sure how to define it. “Yeah, I guess.”
Dylan didn’t say anything more. He was leaving the ball in my court. He did sit quietly while I collected myself. The NSA knew what Jack did to me. But they didn’t know that I had been intimate with him. They didn’t know that I’d fallen for my partner, idolized the older man. Thirteen didn’t either, because Stephen Collins didn’t ask those kinds of questions. He only cared if you did your job or not. But it wasn’t a hard thing to figure out. I’d been weak. I’d let the man seduce me, and…
“One morning, I was in the shower. I could hear Jack moving around, but I didn’t think anything of it. I got out and had a towel, but I’d left my clothes in the room. Anyway, I walked in and got a bullet in the chest. I fell, but I managed to pull myself up. Jack stood over me, told me I should have stayed down, and then shot me again. Then he took my money, my clothes, my guns, everything I could have used to get somewhere safe. And he took my laptop, which had tons of information on all kinds of government movements, and the CD I had created for the report to the NSA. He knew all my encryption programs back then, so he could have opened every file on that laptop.” Except the one he wanted, because I’d left a present for anyone who opened it that wasn’t me. It hurt, knowing that most of the information that the Giroux Enterprises had gained about the government was because of me, because I was stupid and naive.
Dylan stayed silent for a long while, his elbows resting on his knees and his hands clasped together, lost in thought. What did he think of me now? It wasn’t hard for him to put two and two together. Three years before now, Dylan and his team had led a strike on the compound where I was held to rescue me, because of the secrets I held in my head, and because of the encryption program I’d written into that laptop.
Finally, he cleared his throat. “So, this other laptop you had, the one Afonso took?”
“I’d guess Jack is hoping for the same thing again. Alex Giroux is looking for more intel on Lucky Thirteen, because you guys have managed to bring most of the family down. It’s why he targeted Addison. It’s why he’s laying low now while he builds a new Giroux empire. Jack knows I keep files on everything. He needs Lucky Thirteen files.”
“And do you have files on Thirteen on that laptop?”
“No. It’s a dud. I’ve learned not to keep sensitive files on such a good target… and to always keep a backup.” I crawled over to my bag and unzipped a compartment inside the main part of the bag. I pulled out a small hard drive. “This is what he wants. The security plans and briefs of every Lucky Thirteen operation in the world. I wiped the hard drive on the laptop while we were on the cruise from Florida.”
“How do you have all that?” Dylan asked.
“It’s my job,” I said. “I’m the tech. That’s why Collins wanted me.”
“Why did you come here?” he asked. “Be honest with me. What is the real reason why you’re hunting Jack Allen?”
Well, as long as I was being honest. “I’m going to kill Jack.”
~*~*~
Dylan
Stunned doesn’t cut it sometimes. Sometimes you just need a stronger word, and maybe that stronger word doesn’t exist yet. I listened as Cadence laid out her whole past. I listened to her while she talked about how Jack seduced her, made her feel safe, and then tried to kill her. The fact that she wasn’t dead from being hit in the chest twice was a miracle of itself. There were so many organs in the chest. It was hard to not hit something important.
At the end of it, I was torn. I wanted to take her in my arms and hold her forever, and I also wanted to hunt that son of a bitch down and make him hurt. And now, she was bent on a revenge angle that wouldn’t give her any more peace than she’d been able to achieve on her own in the last few years. It physically hurt to hear the whole story. I couldn’t imagine how she felt. No wonder she called me Bambi. She’d had a lifetime of heartache compared to me.
“You haven’t said anything in a while,” she said. Since she started talking, the anxiety and panic she’d displayed had slowly waned. Now she was still on the bed, but her legs were out straight, crossed at the ankles. I sat on the edge still, processing the story she’d just told.
“It’s hard to find something to say when you’re so incredibly pissed off you can’t even think straight.”
“At me?”
“No!” I said, sliding closer to her. I sat beside her, but facing her at the same time and took her hands. Her fingertips were icy. “I wish you’d told me all this before.”
“I don’t like talking.”
“I know. But I’m always here if you need to talk.” I paused. “That makes me sound really unmanly, doesn’t it?”
She chuckled. “A little.” She glanced down where our hands were joined, frowning. “Remember what I said… before I flipped out last night?”
“About fucking me professionally?” I grinned, hoping to get a smile out of her.
She giggled, an honest-to-God girlish giggle. I’d never heard such a noise from her before. And the smile was beautiful on her. “Yeah.”
“I could never forget it,” I replied. “It’s one of my new favorite things.”
“Well, I meant it. I know I’m being really hot and cold sometimes, but after feeling what I felt last night, experiencing that fear… I realized how much power I’m giving that man. How much control he’s exerted over me, and I didn’t even know it.” She shook her head. “No more. I’ve kept you and everyone else away because I didn’t want to fall victim again. But it’s not living, what I’ve been doing. It’s just surviving.”
I swallowed hard, listening to the words she said. They were beautiful, and exactly what I’d hoped to hear. I scooted closer to her, and placed a palm on the other side of her so I could lean over her body. “I want to make you feel things, Cadence.”
“Jack knows I’m coming for him. I can’t afford the distraction of you. Not yet.”
“Tell you what.” I paused, thinking through the situation. “Let’s end this, and then
let’s go back home, and start something new.”
“What? I can’t just let him go, Dylan. I’m too close.”
“I know. I mean, let’s finish it with Jack Allen. But I want more than just sex with you, Cadence. I want you to give us a chance. A real one.”
“Really?” She frowned. But if I didn’t help her with Jack, she’d go after him anyway, and then she’d potentially ditch me again. She was safest with me nearby to help her.
“If he has power over you, let’s end that. And even if he has a dud laptop, we should maybe get that back too.”
“You mean it?”
“Absolutely.”
She grinned. “Then we should get moving. I know exactly where to go first.”
“Oh?”
She let go of me and stood up, dashing to her backpack. I stood also, and turned as she shrugged on her holster. “Yes, I have a contact in the south end. It’s not too far from here. Maybe an hour back into the city.”
“Okay,” I said. I’d made the decision to stick by her, and that was what I was going to do. I was determined to show her that not everyone was Jack Allen.
CHAPTER TEN
Cadence
The Boudin lands, maintained by the Valonian crown for the Boudin family, were gorgeous in the mornings. Hell, they were gorgeous at any time, but there was a certain quality to them at sunrise that wasn’t there the rest of the day. Maybe it was the way the light shined, or the sleepy rays of sun sneaking through the clouds.
We walked back toward the train station that would take us into the southern transportation hub of the capital. It wasn’t nearly as large as the international one, but it would get us where we needed to go. Dylan slipped his hand into mine as we walked. I glanced at him.
He shrugged. “It’s our cover, right? Newlyweds?”
“You just wanted to touch me,” I poked at him.
He grinned and squeezed my hand. “Guilty.” That shouldn’t have made my stomach flip like it did, but I was experiencing all kinds of new emotions where Dylan Urban was concerned.
When we reached the station, we found the one heading back to the capital and boarded quickly. These trains weren’t like the sleeper trains. They only had the seats of four with a table in-between. It was fine with me. We didn’t need a lot of space.
Dylan sat across from me so we had eyes on both exits, because we were paranoid government workers. It was the way we worked, and I loved that we didn’t even need to communicate that it was what we were doing.
I wasn’t a huge fan of trains. It was too easy to get pinned down. It was cut off from the rest of the world. You could get lost on a train. A year ago, Hardy had gotten shot on the train. It had taken us longer than necessary to get to him. He’d almost died. But unlike me, it wasn’t someone he loved who had shot him. It had been a mobster trying to get back at Hardy’s sister.
Still, getting shot in the chest stayed with you, even after it was long healed. I had no doubt that the memory of that would stick with Hardy for years. There wasn’t a night that went by that I didn’t dream of that day when Jack shot me.
“You okay?” Dylan frowned at me.
“I’m fine, Bambi.” The nickname slipped out before I could stop it and his frown deepened into a scowl. “Sorry.”
We stayed on neutral topics the rest of the way into the city.
When we arrived, we had to duck out another way because apparently, there was a royal on the train, which meant there were reporters everywhere. Valonia loved their royals. We grabbed our backpacks and slipped out near the back of the train to avoid the crowds.
Entering the south quarter of the city, Dylan looked a little warier than he had before. I wasn’t sure what he was thinking about, but his mind was churning with something.
“So now what?” he asked.
“Jacques has a shop not too far from here. A bookstore. He deals with older prints and such.”
I guided us off the tourist road and into the French section of the city. Being so close to the French, German, and Swiss borders, the Valonian culture had enveloped all kinds. During the Great War, Ville Couronne had been occupied by Germany, and segregated into sections, depending on ethnicity and nationality. They’d torn those away after the wars ended, but there were still hints of the history that had played out here.
Outside of Jacques’s shop, Dylan frowned and shook his head. “It’s quiet.” It was quiet. I looked through the window, but I couldn’t see anyone in there. And the door was shut. Jacques never shut his door.
“Yeah.” I frowned too. There were still people milling about outside the store, but there were always people inside. But it was closed now. Jacques never closed his shop. I pulled out my gun. Dylan already had his out. We flanked the doorway, communicating wordlessly as Dylan pushed the door open. It creaked, reminding me of one of those action flicks.
It made me nervous going in without protection or backup, but this was a monster of my own making. And I’d dragged Dylan into it too. And if something happened to him while here, on this mission, I didn’t think I’d ever forgive myself.
But nothing happened when we walked into the place. It seemed deserted. The shop smelled of old books and musty paper. The high bookshelves blocked a large part of the light as we weaved in and out of the stacks. Any other day, I’d have loved the atmosphere in here. But today, it was disconcerting.
Finally, I couldn’t take the silence. “Jacques?”
Nothing.
“Jacques, are you here?”
I made my way toward the back of the shop, where Jacques’s office was. The door was open, but it was the pool of blood sliding across the floor that caught my eye. “Fuck it all. Back here, Bambi!”
I stepped over the blood and into the office. As expected, I saw Jacques’s feet sticking out behind the desk. The blood trail came from under the desk. I scanned the room quickly and then walked around the desk. Jacques’s chest was a mess of holes. His flannel shirt was wrecked and soaked through with blood.
But it wasn’t the wounds in his chest that caught my eye. There was a note pinned to his shirt, up high near his shoulder, so it was clear of the wounds that probably pierced his heart. It had my name on the front of the note. With a sharp inhale, I knelt beside the body and unpinned the note from him. I unfolded it gently, like it would have fallen apart if I didn’t. In reality, I just didn’t want to know what it said.
Dear sweet pea,
I told you to give this up. I practically begged you to last time we talked.
Now Afonso’s and Jacques’s lives are on you. You can’t win. I know you. I’m always one step ahead of you. You can’t beat me.
Go home, sweet pea. It’s what is good for you.
Love,
Jack
I clenched my jaw, my entire body tensing so hard it shook. Anger infused my very core. Jack was still trying to tell me what to do, how to do it. But he had one thing right. He was one step ahead of me. But why Jacques? I understood Afonso, though I was sad to hear of his demise. He might have tried to kill me, but he at least had the decency to feel bad about it. But Jacques wasn’t ever on our lists. How did he even know about him? He was my contact, one that I’d gotten after Jack was gone. So why target him? How did he know to target him?
Dylan walked into the room. “It’s clear. No one’s here.”
“Jack was here.”
“How do you know?”
I handed him the note and gazed at Jacques. His only involvement was holding my stuff for me. He wasn’t a criminal. He wasn’t connected to anyone in the underworld. He had a wife. Two kids. Two girls. Twins. And now they had no father. This was my fault.
“You’re sure this was Jack?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Also, sweet pea again?”
I stood up, straightening so I could bow up near him. “Call me that one more time and I will rip your lungs out through your nose.” Anger radiated heat throughout my body. I burned to put a bullet in Jack’s head.
<
br /> “What is with this guy? Either he gives you panic attacks or makes you violent.” Dylan crumbled up the paper and shook it at me. “You are better than him. You’re giving him that advantage over you.” He tossed it down and walked out.
He was right, of course. I’d been giving Jack far too much power over me and my actions. I knew that, but sometimes, I couldn’t see it. That was where Dylan came in handy. He could see it. It was one of his strengths, keeping me human. Sometimes, it was a detriment, too.
~*~*~
I sighed, and left Jacques’s office. We’d call this into Thirteen and they’d send their teams to clean it up, as always. Even though it wasn’t a sanctioned op, I knew Stephen well enough by now to know that he’d still clean up the messes I made.
I pulled the ladder over to the right corner of the wall bookshelves, and tentatively climbed up. I stopped at the seventh book case and counted the books until I got to the one I wanted. I slipped the book into my bag, and then went down to the floor. On the third shelf, there was a box turned up sideways so it looked like a book. I grabbed that too, and shoved it into my pack.
One step ahead, my ass. Jack hadn’t found these or he’d have taken them. They were the key to understanding what was on the laptop he’d stolen from me. Or what Jack thought was on the laptop. These encryption programs were ones that Jack had never seen. And they were made by a Cadence Long he’d never known.
