His sneer spurs the Security guys to take a step forward, but I wave them off. Kyle won’t hurt me, despite his anger. God, he’s the best damn coder I’ve ever met. I hate having to do this. “Yes,” I say softly. “I’m sorry, Kyle. I didn’t have a choice.” Holding out my hand, I try to force some strength into my tone. “Your badge, please.”
Grumbling something unintelligible under his breath, Kyle jerks his badge off his belt clip and throws it down on my desk. “Fuck you, Evianna. Fuck this whole company.”
This time, the building’s security guards won’t be placated. Jimmy wraps his hand around Kyle’s arm again. “Enough, kid. Don’t make a scene. We’re going straight to the elevator. Anything you need from your desk, you tell Laird here and he’ll get it for you. Understand?”
Jimmy has a good hundred and fifty pounds on Kyle, and the kid nods, keeping his head down as Jimmy escorts him into the hall. After I shut my office door, I sink down onto the edge of my desk, my legs not quite steady.
Taking over as CIO for Beacon Hill Technologies three years ago allowed me to move back home to Boston from Silicon Valley. To take care of my mom for a while—until her condition progressed to the point where she needed round-the-clock care.
The brisk raps on my door force me to pull myself together, and I shake my head quickly to rid myself of the lingering feelings of doubt. I didn’t have a choice. He broke company policy, and that’s a fireable offense.
“Yes?” Before I can stand, the door opens a crack, and Ulysses peers in.
“Everything okay, boss?” The compassion in his almond-shaped eyes and his quiet demeanor are why I hired him a year ago as my administrative assistant. When this job threatens to steal the last of my sanity, Ulysses shows up with a cup of tea or a cannoli from Mike’s Pastry shop. Or a sympathetic ear. Sometimes all three.
“No.” With a dramatic sigh, I wave him in and wait for him to shut the door. “I had to fire Kyle.”
“Well, I figured that out. Everyone figured that out.” He moves to my little electric kettle and starts the water, then fixes me a cup of jasmine tea.
The soft, floral scents calm me, and I sink onto my little overstuffed chair in the corner by the window. “I can’t tell you why.” When he frowns, I hold up my hand. “You know how tight our NDAs are. But let’s just say it was so blatantly against company policy, I didn’t have a choice.”
As the tea steeps, Ulysses pulls up my calendar on my laptop. “You don’t have anything for the rest of the day, Evianna. Why not go see your ma for a couple of hours? Then maybe the spa? You can come back tomorrow and pretend none of this ever happened.”
“Maybe. After I talk to the troops. They need to know.”
He checks his watch. “Okay. I’ll call the Waxing Spa on Newbury and see if they have anything available tonight. They’re open late. Now, drink your tea and have a little breather. Then you can make your announcement, stick around for questions for an hour, and be at your ma’s by 6:00. ‘Kay?”
“You’re a lifesaver, Ulysses,” I say as he hands me the mug. “What would I do without you?”
As he leaves, he offers me a small smile. “You’d overdose on coffee and snap.”
He’s right.
By the time I trudge up the steps to my brownstone—well, my mother’s brownstone—I feel like a wet noodle. That massage was just what I needed. And my mom was having a good day. The new computer setup I got for her allows her to use her barely functional fingers to pick words and phrases off a large monitor so she can communicate. When she can no longer move her fingers, it’ll track to her eye movements.
ALS—amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease—is terminal and insidious. First, she started to stumble. Then noticed weakness in her legs and muscle spasms. That was six months after I moved back to Boston, and two months ago, she lost the ability to speak. But her mind is strong, and even though there’s no cure—yet—and I know she probably only has another year or so with us, she can still read, watch television, and now…send me emails and “talk” to me when I visit her every few days.
Tonight, she spent an hour telling me the story of her and Dad’s first date. And how it ended with food poisoning and a trip to the ER. I haven’t laughed that hard in weeks, and the joy on Mom’s face…it makes all the long days worth it.
After a shower and a cup of chamomile tea, I slip into bed with my tablet to catch up on a few lingering emails before I try for a solid six hours.
The first message waiting doesn’t have a subject, and I don’t recognize the sender. CodeAnon01? What the hell? But as soon as I click on it, my heart starts pounding in my chest and I grip my tablet tighter.
Everything I did was for the good of the company, Evianna. EVERYTHING. And what do I get for it? Fired by the coldest bitch on the planet. You wouldn’t even give me a chance to explain. I thought you cared about the company. I thought you cared about all of us. But all you care about is covering your ass. Whatever you’re planning…it’s going to fail. And everyone will know it’s your fault. Noah never should have hired you. You don’t deserve to work for a company like Beacon Hill. I hope you get what’s coming to you.
My stomach pitches, and my tablet almost slides off my lap. My hands shake as I forward the email to our HR manager, Sarah, with a note.
“I thought you should have a copy of this for your records. He’s angry and hurt, and I don’t blame him. But in case he tries to break his NDA, we’ll need an electronic trail.”
Despite there being nothing I haven’t heard before in the email, something about it unsettles me. Unable to deal with any more drama tonight, I go back for a second cup of tea, and this time, add a generous splash of bourbon to the cup. So much for all that post-massage bliss. Now, I’m more stressed out than ever.
3
Dax
Five hours. As my alarm blares, announcing the time, I’m tempted to grab my phone and throw it across the room. but I rely on it for everything: the color scanning app to help me get dressed, the saved number to the Sighted Companion Network if I get myself lost or need a guide to learn a new neighborhood, the optical character recognition technology built into my lightly tinted glasses that reads menus and signs for me.
At least those five hours were mostly continuous. Better than I’ve had in the past two weeks. Ford and I shot the shit over beers and a burger for three hours, and though my level of “opening up” could only be described as a shallow paper cut, when I got into the Lyft, something between us had shifted from confrontational to almost comfortable again.
My life depends on routines. The toothbrush in its precise place. My electric razor on the charger. The shampoo to the right of the soap. As I run a comb through my hair, I wonder if today’s the day I’ll work up enough courage to call Ryker.
The memories threaten as I sit by the door and pull on my shoes. We came up together. Got roaring drunk together the day we put on our berets and patches for the first time. And for three years, I was his Warrant Officer, his second-in-command.
“Alpha Team! Move! Move! Get the fuck out of there!”
Ry’s order comes a second too late. We’re pinned down, and bullets pepper the rocks all around us, sending shards pelting our helmets and tactical gear. Dropping to my belly, I try to raise CENTCOM. “Alpha Team in need of air support. Now, now, now!”
“We’re on our own,” Ry mutters as he rolls over onto his back next to me. Digging into his pouch, he tugs out a grenade, pulls the pin, and counts to three before letting it sail towards the group of guys we thought were goat herders until they opened fire. “I counted seven. You?”
“Same. Ripper?”
Our Communications Sergeant grabs the radio out of my hands as the explosion rocks the side of the mountain. “Based on where that landed…five now,” he says with a grin. The man’s insane. Zero sense of self-preservation. I swear, he’s only alive because he cares about the rest of us too much to do anything overly stupid.
I angle a quick glance through a crack between two rocks. “Two down, one…Jesus fuck. Make that three. The third guy is…well, spaghetti.”
In seconds, Ripper’s modified the radio to send out a morse code burst with our location. “Hold ‘em off for another ten minutes, and we’ll be sitting pretty on the chopper out of here.”
“Sitting ugly, you mean,” Gose says. “We’re the sorriest looking sons of bitches in Afghanistan. Hab’s covered in goat shit, for fuck’s sake.“
“And yet Ry still looks like he’s modeling for an army recruitment poster. He’s the prettiest thing out here,” I joke. That earns me a punch to the arm, but I’m right. The fucker could model—if he wasn’t always covered in dirt and tactical gear.
“Fuck you. Don’t call me pretty.” He jams a fresh magazine into his M4. “Ready?”
Checking my own mag, I nod. “I got your back.”
I always had his back. And he had mine. Even in Hell. How can I be too scared to call him? I’m fucking Special Forces. No one can take that away from me. Even if I can’t see more than vague hazy shapes and colors. I don’t back down. I don’t let shit scare me off. But calling Ry…I just can’t. Not yet.
Evianna
I step off the T a little after 7:00 a.m. Noah and I have a meeting with the legal department of one of the largest insurance agencies in New England at ten, and my technical presentation needs to be perfect. If this goes well, we’ll have letters of agreement signed with every major insurance company in the United States by the end of the week.
As I walk the last four blocks to the office, I mentally run through my slides. Alfie’s origins. Her safety features. How she’ll give the elderly—and their families—peace of mind. On the corner, I stop and let a group of early morning runners pass, and the longing hits me. Back in California, I used to run every day. Maybe…once we launch, I’ll have time to start up again. Glancing down at the box of doughnuts in my hand, I stifle a snort. No exercise, doughnuts for breakfast, pizza for lunch…no wonder I’ve put on thirty pounds since I moved back to Boston.
“Evianna!” The angry shout startles me enough to send coffee sloshing over the rim of my travel mug. Kyle stumbles as he passes the last of the running group, and his eyes are bloodshot and half-focused. “We nnnneed to t-talk.”
“Oh God, Kyle. You smell like the bottom of a tequila bottle. Go home. There’s nothing to talk about.” I try to sidestep him, but he grabs my arm and squeezes, hard. “Ow! Let go.”
I’m not a tiny slip of a thing. Hell, I outweigh the kid. But his fingers dig in tighter, and tears spring to my eyes unbidden from the pain. “Kyle. This is getting dangerously close to assault,” I say, trying to keep my tone low and measured—the exact opposite of how I feel. “Let go of me. Now.”
“You’re gonna…lisssten to me, Evianna. Or I’m gonna go public. Alfie’s…broken and when people…find out…” He’s dragging me towards the building now, and I scan the street, searching for someone—anyone—to help me.
Balancing my briefcase, travel mug, and a box of doughnuts for the bullpen, I’m not exactly in a position to wrench my arm free. With my stellar grace, I’d probably land on my ass with coffee all down my white silk blouse.
“If you break your non-disclosure agreement, Beacon Hill will sue you for everything you’re worth. Alfie’s not broken. She’s perfect. Leave. Get the hell out of here, and I’ll forget this ever happened. Please, Kyle. You’re…a good kid who made a mistake. Don’t let it ruin your whole life.”
The box of doughnuts tumbles to the ground, followed by my coffee, and I claw at Kyle’s fingers, prying them loose so I can take two quick steps back.
When Kyle lurches for me again, the building’s security guard shouts a warning. “Hey! Leave the lady alone.” He races over and puts himself between the two of us. “Ma’am? Is everything all right here?”
“Fine,” I say, forcing strength I don’t feel into my tone. “Minor disagreement with a former employee. Kyle was just leaving.”
The security guard puffs out his chest as he turns to face Kyle. “Sir? I think you want to listen to the lady.”
With a muttered curse, Kyle backs off. “You’re gonna regret this, Evianna.”
I don’t know how I manage to hold it together until our meeting with Revere Insurance Services is over, but as their lawyers rise and the lead council offers me his hand, I plaster a wide smile on my face.
“Thank you, Mr. Carter. Alfie launches in ten days, and your customers will have an exclusive opportunity to pre-order their units five days in advance. I’ll be sure to send over test units for you, Mr. Limet, and your executive team this afternoon. Any problems, just give me a call.”
The thin lawyer gives me a nod and a smile, but his grip is a lot like a wet noodle. Mr. Limet does a little better with the handshake, thankfully, but addressed all of his technical questions to Noah. My boss—and majority owner of the company—may be a great guy, but the doesn’t know the tech like I do. And even after he corrected the lawyers twice, they kept addressing him and him alone.
Assholes.
“Evianna is the heart and soul of Beacon Hill Technologies,” Noah says as he comes up behind me and slings his arm around my shoulders.
Great. Thanks for making me look like a token pair of breasts, Noah.
He continues as I grit my teeth. “Alfie’s success is one hundred percent her doing, and we look forward to a long, and successful partnership, gentlemen.”
As the two lawyers head for the elevator, I duck out from under Noah’s arm, the headache brewing behind my eyes tapping an incessant drum beat only I can hear. “The ‘heart and soul of Beacon Hill Technologies’? Where the hell did that come from?”
“It’s true.” He shrugs and holds the conference room door open for me. “Look, I know you don’t want anyone to ‘protect’ you in this industry, Evianna. But those two were not respecting your talent. When we launch, it might be my name on the letterhead, but this is your baby. And I want to make sure you get all the credit.”
“Then next time, don’t call me the ‘heart and soul’ while you’re treating me like your arm candy.” I’m so over this day.
While Noah’s right, Alfie is my project and my passion, he’s never been so…complimentary before. Especially not in front of people. But then he had to go ruin it with that little gesture.
Dropping into my ergonomic chair, I set the meditation app on my phone, close my eyes, and try for five minutes of relaxation. But two minutes in, I shift, and my arm presses against the side of the chair.
“Ow! Son of a bitch.” Any hope of meditating long gone, I shut off the peaceful music and shed my jacket. Oh my God. Four distinct finger bruises mar my upper arm.
Ulysses knocks as he enters, and I hurriedly shove my arm back into the sleeve. “Yes?” I ask, trying to force some calm I don’t feel into my voice. “I was meditating.”
“I heard you swear, Evianna. I know you weren’t meditating. Not any longer. Is something wrong?” Ulysses braces his hands on the edge of my desk, leaning forward to give me the once over.
Flopping back in my chair, I shake my head. “Nothing a little time and some arnica won’t fix.”
“Explain.”
After I tell Ulysses—in very vague terms—about the email and what happened outside the building this morning, he shakes his head and sighs. “Evianna, you should call the police,” he says as he hands me a cup of tea.
“And have them do what?” He’s a kid. A kid who lost his job because he did something stupid. He was drunk off his ass.” I blow on the steaming liquid, my fingers finally steady around the ceramic pixelated heart mug. “Let it go. If he approaches me again, I’ll call them.”
In the dark of my bedroom, the alarm blaring through Alfie’s speaker sends my heart rate skyrocketing, and I bolt out of bed, trip over my discarded slippers, and fall to the floor with a bone-jarring thud.
“Alfie, quiet mode report,” I whisper as I yank open the top drawer o
f my nightstand and fumble for the hunting knife I keep there. My hands shake, but I manage to unsnap the sheath.
The little gray device blinks once, then says in a muted voice, “Motion detected outside front door. Lock sensor tripped. Alarm activated. No current motion detected. Should I call the authorities?”
No movement inside the house, and whoever’s outside either ran away or is at least standing still. I take a steadying breath as I creep closer to her screen. “No. Show live view.”
The night-vision camera reveals only my empty doorstep, and I tap Alfie’s screen to turn the alarm off. “Alfie, replay last five minutes of video.”
With a glitch of static, the view changes and shows a skinny guy in a dark hoodie stumbling up to the door with a small bag in his hand. Just before he raises his arm, he looks up at the camera.
Kyle. Oh God. I’m the deepest sleeper on the planet. Plus, I had my white noise machine running. I didn’t hear him pounding on the door. It’s been two days since the incident outside the office, and though he sent me half a dozen emails, he stayed away. I thought…maybe he’d let it go.
“Evianna, get your ass out here! Right now!”
He gets angrier and angrier when I don’t answer, finally using his shoulder to ram the door. But this house is over a hundred years old, and the door is solid. Three times he tries, then rubs his left arm, wincing.
“You ruined me! I tried to call Lampster to get an interview with their dev team and they wouldn’t even talk to me! The whole world is going to know what you did—to Alfie and to me!”
I yelp when Kyle shoves something through my mail slot. The brown paper bag lands with a heavy splat. Oh God. Did he seriously drop a bag of shit on my hardwood floor?
His final kick to my door sets off Alfie’s external alarm—the one that woke me—and then he races down the street and out of sight.
“Alfie, show l-live view,” I say over the lump in my throat. After one last check to make sure Kyle hasn’t come back, I swallow hard. I have to go check the front door. And get that bag out of my hallway.
Second Sight: An Away From Keyboard Romantic Suspense Standalone Page 3
