by KB Winters
And this lying, cheating cradle-robber was the shadiest of them all.
I hesitated for a few minutes on whether or not I should send the other photo to Peaches. She was already too involved. But identifying this guy could tell me who was after me. Maybe. Hopefully.
I decided to sit on it for now while I did more digging into Blaise. He had so much more to lose and a greater need to keep his distance from any whiff of scandal. I needed to find evidence of payments to an individual or company in the last few weeks, but financial records were a bitch to access. It was even worse with banks outside the US and in particular with those financial institutions located in places that helped the rich people hide their money.
But it was a necessary step so I put on a pot of coffee, grabbed a bag of pretzels, some mustard for dipping, and got down to work. It took me hours to find no trace of a payment to anyone or anything suspicious. Dammit.
That was the downside of my job. I could spend sixteen hours sitting in front of a computer, digging and coding and still wind up with absolutely nothing. It was frustrating as hell but it was also the nature of the beast.
A knock startled the shit out of me and instinctively, I reached for my knife. It was a six-inch blade with one serrated edge and spring-loaded hinges. Perfect for personal protection. I gripped the handle and took several deep breaths to clear my mind. If I needed to fight or defend myself, then I needed to be calm. Rational. That was hard to do when I slid open the small window on the door and caught a glimpse of my visitor. “What are you doing here?”
Jeremiah grinned like he was some adorable schoolboy instead of a grown ass man with big sexy muscles. “I was in the area and thought I’d stop by. Bad time?”
“Yep. Maybe next time pick up the phone.” I didn’t like unexpected visitors and I liked them even less when someone was out to get me.
“I tried that but you never answer and you don’t call back.”
He wore a smirk that I shouldn’t have found sexy, but I did. I so, so did. That was another very good reason to keep myself on one side of the door and Jeremiah on the other.
“Why?” he asked
“I realized you were right. I don’t need anyone else’s help and I’m perfectly capable of handling things on my own. So, thank you Jeremiah. And it was good to meet you. Finally.”
I gave him one last look and shut the door. No matter what happened, I was sure I’d never see Jeremiah again.
Chapter Five
Jag
My hand was balled into a fist as I pounded on the door again. “It’s real cute you thought you could get rid of me so easily, Vivi.” Why in the hell did I make this long ass drive anyway? She clearly wasn’t going to tell me the truth and I didn’t have the time or energy to deal with this bullshit.
“Go away!” Her voice came from deeper inside the camper now, which meant she was comfortable.
“Come on, Vivi. You came all the way to Vegas to get a look at my pretty face, get your ass out here and let’s catch up.” I walked away from the camper, toward two chairs set up to look at the stars. She was stubborn as hell but the girl I remembered just needed to cool down and she would be okay.
When the door opened I grinned to myself. When she dropped into the chair beside me with a bag of pretzels in one hand and a bottle of root beer in the other, my smile grew bigger.
“Why did you come here, Jeremiah?”
“Call me Jag.”
She popped a pretzel stick into her mouth. “Why?”
“Because I’m sexy as hell and as smooth and stealthy as a jaguar.” She laughed at the answer, shaking her head. When she looked at me I could still see disbelief shining in her eyes. “I can’t believe we’re here like this. You and your root beer and pretzels.”
She sucked in a breath and pointed at me. “Don’t do that.”
“Fine.” I held my hands up defensively but I couldn’t stop smiling and it ruined the effect. “What are you up to these days?”
“Cyber security, what else?”
“Right, but how’d it all come about? Christ, woman it’s called a conversation.” It was never this hard to start a conversation with Vivi. Maybe she was one of those people who felt more comfortable hiding behind a computer screen. I hoped so because the alternative was that life had fucked her over and she didn’t open up to anyone. At all.
“I did a few of those tech competitions with the fat paychecks and placed in the top three, which sent all the government and corporate scum suckers to my front door to offer me money to break their systems. One contract turned into two and so on and so forth.” She said it all so nonchalantly, like it wasn’t a big damn deal when it was.
“Damn. That’s great.”
“I guess. What about you? From soldier to outlaw biker?”
I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Sure, she was hot as fuck, but it wasn’t that. Well, it wasn’t just that. It was surreal, sitting under the stars with the girl who’d been my best friend growing up. “Not so much an outlaw. Our businesses are all legal. Mostly.”
She laughed and that sound was like a kick in the gut. We may have never met in real life but her laugh was bliss. “It’s good to see you Jeremiah.”
“Your laugh has saved my life on plenty of occasions, Genevieve.” It was a stupid thing to say and based on her shocked look, I’d probably freaked her the fuck out.
“Don’t call me that. And I’m glad you didn’t get yourself killed over there.”
“Gee thanks Vivi.” And just like that I was the blushing teenager again.
“So, how’d you end up a…what’s it called again? A Reckless Bastard?”
This was it, the real test of the strength of our old friendship. Did I tell her the truth or did I give her the bullshit answer people wanted to hear when they asked personal questions? “Honestly? I kind of fell into it.”
She laughed because it sounded crazy as hell. I knew that. “I spent most of my military career doing covert shit I can’t talk about. Ever. It was a hard way to live but I found a bright spot and her name was Kendall. We fell in love in that fucking hellhole. She was a medic assigned to the unit and we had eighteen months together before she got killed when an RPG took down the chopper.”
“Oh shit, Jeremiah. I’m sorry.” Her face didn’t hold the same phony sympathy I was used to seeing, probably because she knew it was one more loss for me.
“Anyway I was fucked up when I was discharged. Spending days in Silicon Valley, going where the government dispatched me to offer my expertise on the latest war tech and I spent my nights drinking. One night there was this big motherfucker getting drunker than me. He looked worse than me, too, and some guys were giving him shit.”
“Jeremiah to the rescue?”
“Something like that,” I grinned at her. “He could’ve fucked them up if he wanted to, but he was punishing himself, I could tell. So I intervened before anyone got really hurt. That big fucker was Gunner, our VP.” Me and Gunnar, we saved each other from our grief and in the process became brothers. “Lasso came to retrieve him a few days later and the rest is history.”
She smiled and swigged on her root beer. “I’m glad you have them, then.”
“What about you, who do you have now?” It wasn’t the slickest way to ask if she was seeing anyone but then, I never claimed to be slick.
“I have me and that’s all I need.”
“Dammit, Vivi. Come on, just talk to me. You’re here now, just say what you have to say.”
She stood angrily. “I didn’t realize it was such a problem that I tracked you down, Jag. Believe me when I say I won’t be making that mistake again.” She bent over to pick up the discarded bottle, giving me another long look at her ass.
“I didn’t mean it like that, girl.”
“It’s fine. Don’t worry about me. It was just a temporary bout of insanity, that’s all. Take care of yourself.” She turned away quickly, this time but she held herself tall. Strong. Dignified.
“I�
�m sorry, Vivi. I want to help you if I can.”
“You can’t. But thanks.”
This was getting damned frustrating. “Then why in the hell did you track me down if you didn’t want my help? Or don’t even want to talk to me?”
She sighed and turned around inside the doorway of the camper, her pose highlighting her body magnificently. “I thought maybe you could help me, Jeremiah. But we’re different people now, a fact that only occurred to me after I got here.” Another annoyed sigh exploded out of her and she raked a hand through her wild blue hair. “I’m sorry I interrupted your life.”
She disappeared inside the camper and she didn’t come back out again, effectively dismissing me.
“You could have offered me a root beer!” I tossed back at her as I walked toward my bike.
I would go, for tonight. But this wasn’t over. She needed my help and she would get it.
Chapter Six
Vivi
The sun hadn’t even come up yet when one of the ten thousand alarms set up on my phone started to blare. Literally it blared right in my fucking ear. The foghorn sound I’d assigned to…“Shit!” I sat up in the tiny ass bed and promptly fell to the floor, reaching on the bed for the offensive sound that meant someone was in my New York apartment. Again.
The video feed showed a man. Tall and white and bald with a tattoo on the top of his wrist very similar to the other intruder’s. If it wasn’t the same person, they were definitely from the same criminal organization. He was sloppy though, not as professional as the other guy. Bald Head was clearly a hired thug, the way he stomped through the place, overturning pillows unnecessarily and displacing lamps. It wasn’t just careless, it was also stupid as hell because he left fingerprints and DNA everywhere. On top of all that, the asshole was too late.
The decoy electronics were already gone which meant it was time for extreme measures. Measures I’d put in place when I first bought that place a few years ago because deep down every hacker knows this is likely to happen to them. The smart ones, like me, are prepared for the worst. And though it physically hurt me to do it, I flipped the kill switch that activated magnetic strips placed throughout the unit, effectively killing all digital devices that crossed them. Including the intruder’s cell phone, a fact which gave me the delight of a three year old eating chocolate ice cream for breakfast, as I watched him try in vain to make call after call.
The deadbolt locks engaged on the doors and windows, leaving him trapped inside while the silent alarm triggered the police who would be sent the code to disarm everything. On site. He was fucked and even though it meant I wouldn’t get any information from him, I was glad someone would pay for something.
The appearance of this bald guy really threw me, though, because it seemed like two separate attacks. Two different intruders. “Whoever you are, you should have done your homework, asshole.” It brought me entirely too much enjoyment to see him running around my place in search of an exit, but nothing topped his expression when he heard the sirens. It was always a good day when I found something that made me smile, at least that was what my shrink used to tell me.
A noise outside drew my attention and I muted the video feed while I stood slowly, eyes closed to hear where exactly the sound had originated. My fender faced the road and I was situated on a dead end road to make sure I could hear any cars drive up and I hadn’t heard any. Then I heard it, the snap of the twigs I’d spread around the camper for just that purpose, so I grabbed my knife.
The side window on the driver’s side slid open and I tiptoed over, grabbing the cotton covered arm that had invaded my space. “Think real carefully about your next move, asshole. If I don’t like what you have to say, I’ll split this vein open and watch you bleed out before you get your arm away from me.”
“I knew you were in trouble.” That voice was familiar. Too fucking familiar.
“Jeremiah? What the fuck?” I wasn’t in the mood for his games and last night he made me feel like shit for reaching out to him, making me regret that the idea had ever occurred to me in the first place. “Why are you here?”
“I told you to call me Jag.” I could hear the smile in his deep voice and it only pissed me off even more.
“It’s a stupid name and I don’t plan on calling you anything.”
He chuckled and I wanted to prick him with the tip of my knife, just because I could. “Can I have my arm back?”
“That depends. What are you doing skulking around my shit at this hour?”
“What the hell do you think, Vivi? You show up, out of the blue and clearly in trouble that you won’t tell me about. I came to see just how bad it was and now I have my answer.”
I released his arm, closing and locking the window behind him. The man was a stubborn damn jackass who clearly didn’t know how to take ‘no’ for an answer. “I told you as much as I’m going to, Jag. If I need your help then I will call you. Got it?” The metal door was open but the screen door stood closed between us.
“I want to help. Let me.” Jeremiah pushed up onto the next step and opened the door, invading my space.
I snorted at the ridiculousness of his statement. “It looks like you have your own mess going on based on what I saw.”
“What can I say, I’m good at multi-tasking.” He stepped closer, until I had no choice but to touch him intimately or back down. I never backed down. One hand shot to my waist, his thumb dragging against the exposed skin at my waistband. “See, I’m helpful.”
I laughed and pushed at his chest, but Jeremiah was all man and he didn’t budge. He stared at me and I stared back, feeling my blood heat at all the energy swirling in the air between us. The charge of electricity made the camper feel ten degrees hotter. His expression was serious as he closed in, mouth descending on mine slowly, giving me time to decide if it would happen.
Luckily Jeremiah had no clue as to the effect he was having on me, didn’t know there was no choice because then I’d be in real trouble. Now the only danger I was in was having my clothes burst into flames from his nearness, from the deliciously hot way his full lips pressed against mine. From the taste of him, sugar and coffee and something earthy. Sexy. Masculine. The kiss was hot and hard, filled with hunger and raw unabashed need. Big hands cupped my ass and then my breasts. Something long and hard pressed against my belly and I pulled back, panting and staring at him with wide eyes. “What was that?”
With sleepy eyes and a captivating fucking smile he leaned in and brushed his lips against my neck. “If I have to tell you, then I’m doing it wrong babe.”
I laughed and shook my head. “If you’d done it any more right I’d be naked and wrapped around you right now. But why?”
“Why not,” he shrugged like it made perfect sense. “You’re hot as fuck and you’ve always turned me on when you were so damn prickly, which apparently, is all the damn time.”
I spluttered in my outrage and the jerk only laughed harder at me. “Asshole.”
“Meet me at the diner tomorrow for breakfast. Eight o’clock sharp. This place is too fucking far.”
“Yeah well no one invited you up here.” It was something to say but the amused look he gave me told me it was a lost cause.
His dark gaze was serious. And seriously hot. “Don’t make me come back up here, Vivi.” His words were a warning. A promise.
And for some reason it sounded good. Right. Hot. Sexy.
***
I really wasn’t in the mood to get up at the ass crack of dawn to meet Jag, but I knew if I didn’t then he’d come up here and invade my space. Again. But meeting him at the diner meant either leaving my camper and my gear behind or taking this big bitch back on the road.
Since I would never leave my surveillance equipment behind, I took my time getting dressed and guzzling a pot of coffee before I got on the road. Going approximately fifty miles an hour gave me plenty of time to think about what I’d wanted to happen with Jeremiah. Or Jag, because that was what I needed to get used to cal
ling him. I needed to just talk to him about what I needed from him. No more games and no more bullshit. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t the boy I knew online anymore, what mattered was that he had the skills I needed to get out of this shit storm.
Like the beige sedan that had been trailing me for the past eight miles. It was an older model by at least twenty years given how boxy the body was and the driver kept two car lengths between us, a by-the-book tail. I didn’t do anything differently, anything that might indicate he’d been made. I took the Mayhem exit and found one of several public parking lots in town to park, keeping a close eye on the beige heap of junk.
The car didn’t park though, instead he waited for me to get out and start my journey. I grabbed my bag, engaged the booby traps and locks on the camper, then stepped out onto what was basically Main Street in Mayhem and walked towards the delicious greasy smells of the diner.
The diner was located in the middle of the block, which meant the scrap of metal had to slowly chug along the street and draw attention to itself.
The jerk chose to follow me closely so I ducked into a book store and waited five minutes before slipping back out like nothing was going on. When I arrived at the diner, I was ten minutes late and Jag looked suitably annoyed.
“You’re late,” he said as soon as I slid into the booth with my back to the door.
“You’re lucky I’m here at all.” I flipped over the coffee cup and set it as close to the edge of the table as possible to encourage the busy waitress to fill me up. “Look outside and tell me if you see a late model beige sedan. It’s been following me since about five miles from the campsite.”
Jag’s black brows rose, and I knew what he was thinking before he said the words. “You sure?”
“Just look outside and tell me if you see the car, Jag.”
Everything about him said he thought I was batshit fucking crazy. Until he spotted the car. His brows rose and velvety brown eyes grew as wide as the pancakes just set down in front of him. “I see it. Can’t see inside because of the glare, though.”
