Black Dawn (31 page)

“I like you being here, sweetheart, but I’m also not about to let you out of my sight when I’m not one hundred percent sure that no terrorist fuckers are going to try to grab you in the middle of the night.”

“I’m a work thing!”

He laughed as she grumbled. “You’re not a work thing, and you know it.”

Lexi pressed her forehead to his chest as if she was burying her face. “I need a place of my own. It feels weird to just be here.”

“Hmm.” He stroked her back, basking in the quiet, trying to think of how to say what he needed to say without sounding like a bossy dick. Simple facts were what he could understand. He loved her. He wanted her in his house. He enjoyed waking up with her naked body pressed to his and died to be inside her every night.

“What does ‘hmm’ mean?” she asked, resting her chin on his sternum.

“I hadn’t thought about what we were doing; I was just living each day with you.” He turned the muted television off and wrapped his arms around her. “So what do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. I can’t just sit and work from your office all day.”

“You want to stay here and work?” Though watching her interact with the guys who’d come through his office had been… he didn’t know the word for it. It’d been as it should be.

They all got on well, though a few had met her before. She worked hard, worked quiet. It was totally impressive to watch her think and watch her fingers fly over the keyboard. Hell, he could barely get shit done for watching
her
work. If he thought that leather rocker-chick look she had going on was hot, her brain gave him an instant hard-on. Because damn, she was brilliant.

She sighed. “I don’t know.”

“What’s really the problem?”

“What if you get sick of me?”

“Back to you trusting you. Still not taking offense to it, sweetheart, but I am calling you on it.” His cell phone buzzed on the table. The screen lit with his contact at the Defense Intelligence Agency. “Hang tight, I have to get this.” With a swift move, he sat her up, answered the phone, and headed toward his office. “Hello?”

“Sorry to call so late,” the familiar voice said. “But we have a confirmation and need direction on Flyaway.”

Operation Flyaway was the working title of tracking down Monarch to ARO and seeing where it landed. He’d been itching for news on Monarch for days, but since they’d handed the job off, he hadn’t heard a word. “Okay.”

“Our eyes on the ground have seen the laptop. We’re right about their intentions for micro-targeted, door-to-door attacks. But the computer was damaged, or something has corrupted it. They’ve kidnapped a few hackers and are forcing them to work. No one can pull it off, but with trial and error, they’ll get it soon.”

“Get the civilians out, blow the whole place up.” That’s what Titan would do anyway.

“We have different protocol, as you know.”

Parker grumbled. Maybe they shouldn’t have turned the Monarch problem over and just taken care of business on their own. “So what do you need?”

“A hacker who goes by the name SilverChaos. We have an opportunity to track the entire ARO network, but their system has to be infected with physical access.”

“Bullshit, I can get in anywhere.”

“There’s no time to prove you wrong. They’re decentralized, rarely hooking into network, always off the grid. They want SilverChaos, and we need physical access to rootkit the system and install malware that can harvest intel the rare times they hook in.”

Damn it. Parker couldn’t access what didn’t have a connection. But Lexi couldn’t do an in-person job. There were too many risks. “No. SilverChaos isn’t possible.”

“Any reason why not? The guy can name his price and any indemnification he wants for any outstanding issues.”

“Outstanding warrants aren’t the issue.”

“Then get a price from the guy. We need to get him in there.”

“The
woman
is under our protection, and we’re not turning her over for you DIA dicks to run shop over.”

“Come on, Parker. You’re not putting one person above the safety and security of a nation?”

“Of course I’m not, asshole.” Though that sounded exactly like what he was doing. Shit. “Give me another option. We’ll work on it.”

“We’re up against a hard deadline. I don’t have time to come up with another option. You can find anyone; our plan was for you to find SilverChaos.”

“I call bullshit for having only one plan.”

“You need to make this play happen. Run it by him—her. Whatever she wants. Done. Record cleared—”

“
That
is just one of the reasons I don’t want to turn her over to you. You assume she’s a criminal? No more than you and me, man. Plucking people out of nowhere—”

“Don’t compare some hacker to intelligence work.”

“She’s elite.”

“And I’m decorated. Get her in the goddamn office.”

Parker rubbed a hand over his face, knowing that he’d walked into that one, but worse was knowing that if it hadn’t been Lexi, he never would have balked.

“Parker, I’m one phone call away from contacting Jared Westin. No one wants to do that.”

He cackled. “Call Jared. See if he doesn’t defer to me, asshole. Let me be clear to you. If Silver does anything associated with this job, I call the shots and I run point. You got that? Because Jared
will
defer to me.”

“Fuck me, tell me Silver’s not actually Titan?”

“In every sense of the word. For all you care, Silver is Titan in every conceivable way you can imagine, then some you can’t.”

The man grumbled in Parker’s ear before agreeing. “Call you back.”

“Fine. Call, as long as you have more than one option.” Parker hung up the phone, pocketed it, and turned to find Lexi staring at him.

“What do they want me to do?” she asked.

Damn it. “No idea. I didn’t get that far because they didn’t have another option for consideration.” That, and no way was he involving her in anything like this. He could imagine the job—sending her to some Jihadist work site—and it didn’t matter if it was in the States or overseas. It was a big, fat, hell no.

“I can help.”

“They’re going to ask for a lot more than help, Lex.” Like her life. He wouldn’t risk it, and he wouldn’t let her consider it either. Parker shook his head, feeling anxiety grow in his chest. SilverChaos was the best option for the greater good. “No. Nope. No way. There’s always another way. They shouldn’t have approached me with a single option.”

She pulled her cell from her back pocket. “I’ll call Sugar. She’ll call Jared, and I can talk to whoever that was.”

“Lex.”

“And then I’ll get my way.”

He rubbed his temple. “You have no idea what you’re asking. I have no idea what they want, just a few assumptions. So to agree to that before we even know? I can’t, and you won’t.”

“But I can.”

“Why?” he near-shouted, frustration at the situation choking him.

“You know I’m the best solution. If I can keep people from being hurt, then I want to.”

“Lex—”

“I created it, don’t you get that? I have a responsibility to stop it.”

“And I have a responsibility to you!” He threw out his arms. “I want you here. I need you here. In this house. Under this roof. I need you just as badly as I love you. Goddamn it, I don’t want to run the numbers on this op’s risk. I don’t want to crunch data as to whether or not you will make it out alive.
Alive!
Don’t you get that?”

She blinked, not saying a word.

His insides raged. Not at her. Just at the world, just because she was right. “I can’t look at statistical computations and make any justification for what should be done, what’s worth the risk. It eats me alive, but I can’t choose them over you. You. Are. Mine. And I can’t say I want you to help because it’d be a lie.”

Breathing like a mad man, he paced the room. She didn’t budge, just watched him circle as his phone rang again.

“Shit,” he growled. It would either be Boss Man or his point of contact at the DIA. Either way, he didn’t want to take the call. But he grabbed the phone, his sense of honor warring with his sense of self. DIA POC. Shit again, but he answered. “Better be good news.”

“Sorry—”

He flung the phone on the bed and stormed out.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

The phone’s screen ticked seconds away, and Lexi alternated looking at it and at the door Parker had just stormed through. She’d put him in this crappy position, torn between doing the right thing and what he wanted to do. Well, she could make life a lot easier for him. Holding her breath, she climbed onto the bed and held the cell as if this was a make-or-break moment. And it was, on several levels. She was choosing to protect Parker from her, but at the same time, going against his wishes. She was also protecting the world from what she’d created. She couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t try.

Gingerly, she held the phone to her ear. This conversation could change the course of her life. Parker could walk away from her or, as he’d made clear, she might die.

Crap. No good solution.

Lexi took a deep breath and whispered, “Hello?”

“Hello? Who is this?”

Her insides trembled. “This is Silver.”

There was a long pause, making her wonder if she had done the wrong thing.

“Hello?” she tried again.

Finally, a string of low curses. “It’s ten fifty-seven on a Wednesday night. He’s flipping out, and you’re on the phone.”

“Yes.”

“You’re Parker Black’s woman?”

She nodded. “Yes.” Though pulling a move like this might mean she would no longer be Parker’s. “Can you tell me what’s going on? Or at least why you need me?”

“Goddamn it. Hang on.” There was noise in the background, as if whoever it was was talking to someone else. Seconds ticked by. “I can’t share, Silver. It’s classified.”

“But it’s about me? I want to help, just talk to me.”

“Shit. Let me think. We’ll call back.”

“No. Wait. Tell me enough, what’s not classified.” Because if he got off the phone and started talking about her as Parker’s woman, not Silver the hacker, she didn’t trust that anyone would make an unbiased decision. “I can make this happen. I have to help. I—need to. But I can’t hurt him, and he won’t put me in a dangerous position. Just give me enough that I can tell you what to do with me, then you do what you need to.”

He cursed and mumbled, “Don’t hang up.”

She heard Parker stomping around the house. Soon as he realized she was on the phone with whoever this guy was, the conversation would end fast. “Hurry.”

But he was already gone. She waited, watching the digital alarm clock. One minute, then two ticked by.

“Ma’am?”

“Yes?” she said, watching the door for Parker.

“We’ll tell you what we can.” He spent the next two minutes vaguely talking about the program she had designed, who had it, where they had it, and why it appeared they were stuck. The laptop wasn’t far, likely in a stronghold on the east coast, where their so-called expert hackers had tried and failed to repair the improperly functioning code. Shadow had been tortured, and someone had made an attempt to find her twice. But the ARO hadn’t outsourced well in either their code-breaking or kidnapping talent.

The man then took a deep breath and rushed through the details that the Arab Resistance Organization was known for executing those who’d served their purpose or who had failed. No wonder Parker’s risk analysis aversion was so intense. All of the information scared the bejesus out of her.

Eventually the ARO’s trial and error would fix their Monarch problems, then lots of people would die. She had no choice but to get involved. But she was so far out of her comfort zone that she couldn’t see where her next move started. No way could she do this alone.

“I have an idea,” she said shakily. “Call back in thirty minutes.” Even though presenting Parker with the idea would bring a certain yes or no within a matter of seconds.

“Yes, ma’am.” Then the line went silent.

Alright then. She steeled her nerves and went in search of the noisemaker who kept stealing her heart. She found him in the living room, pulling books that had already been perfectly lined up on shelves and slamming them back into place.

“Hey.” She picked up a thick programming interface book and handed it to him.

“Hey.” He slammed the hardback into a precise spot.

She grabbed another, this one on risk analysis of military security. “Don’t be a baby.”

His smoldering blue eyes narrowed. “Knowing the statistical outcome of any op that you might die in doesn’t—”

“I have an idea.” She pushed the book at him. “We could work together on this.”

“No interest.” He rearranged two books on reverse engineering of foreign state algorithms.

Not to be distracted by the scope of variety of his reading collection, she stepped in front of the shelf. “I’m going to help. You might as well be by my side while I do it. Just like I’ve been by your side every time you sent me an SOS for a set of hands.”