Risky Temptation (10 page)

              After only a moment’s hesitation, I put my hand softly on his cheek, wanting in some way to show him that I understood. I knew where he was coming from. I too loved someone deeply and worried for their safety. I too have felt that kind of love.

              But with a sudden jerk, he grabbed my wrist and yanked me against him, making me gasp in surprise. I craned my neck up towards him. “And what does Desmond have?” he whispered harshly, his whiskey laced breath brushing against my cheek. His eyes gleamed with long ago pain and fury. “What does Desmond have to protect you with that my Elizabeth didn’t have?” He gave me another humorless smile. “Elizabeth was different from me. She was good. She was better. Don’t follow her mistakes and stay with a Family man. You’ll lose your life for him.”

              His grip on my wrist was tight. His hand was able to circle my entire wrist, leaving me now room to wriggle free. But I didn’t try to wriggle free. Instead, I relaxed my hand and looked up at him with the truest sympathy I felt.              

              I saw his eyes waver. Those chilly green eyes, ragged with pain and with regret, melted a little as they looked at me.

              “She didn’t wonder that,” I whispered.

              Tobias’s eyes widened a little at my words then narrowed. “What?”

              “She didn’t wonder where you were,” I said. “She worried about you.” I took in a breath, my throat feeling tight. If Elizabeth had loved Tobias the way I loved Marco, and it was clear their love had been deep by the pain in Tobias’s face, I could imagine exactly what she must’ve been feeling in those final, desperate moments.

              “She worried that you would blame yourself,” I said, my own voice breaking a little. “She knew she had made her own choices. She knew the risk. I’m positive her last thoughts were prayers that you wouldn’t blame yourself for what happened.”

              A wave of emotions rippled across Tobias’s face. Surprise, hurt, anger, denial, scandal, and a tiny flicker of redemption.

              I took a step back, making to pull away from the intense moment when Tobias pulled me towards him, crushing me against him.

              Rough lips were crushed against mine. I gasped instinctively, unwittingly opening my mouth to him. His tongue entered me, exploring me baldly and bravely and with no hesitations.

              I struggled and pulled against him but he wrapped his arms around me, trapping my arms between his chest and mine. He held me to him easily and I felt every inch of his body pulsating and hardening against me. He meant to keep me there and had no intention of letting me go until he was good and ready.

              Still, I jerked and pulled. Not wanting to fight me, he pushed his body against mine, shoving me up against a wall while his mouth explored mine with absolutely no shyness. He kissed me with a knowing passion that raised the hairs on my body, making my toes curl.

              “You don’t know us,” he whispered harshly against my lips, his breathing ragged from pain and passion. “You don’t know men like us.” I knew he was also referring to Marco. “There is no redemption for us.”

              He gathered my arms and pinned them easily above my head, despite my resistance. “Why would you risk your heart for a man that’s just like me?”

              I imagined Marco. I remembered the way he had saved me from being assaulted by a table full of Desmond Mafia men. I remembered the way he had teased and taunted me while I had worked. I remembered the pain in his eyes as he revealed the story behind Jamie. And most of all, I remembered the warmth of his love and the heat of his embrace—things I knew I could never live without.

              Thinking of Marco, I replied, “Because my heart is mine to give. And I will not let fear stop me from loving who I want to.”

              I saw Tobias’s face jerk in surprise at my response. His eyes searched my face, a look of something akin to admiration blooming in those green depths.

              “That kind of bravery will always be punished with a man like Marco. With a man with his history,” he said quietly.

              “Then so be it,” I said.

              I had enough time to catch his mixed gaze of surprise and heat before his lips descended on mine. His body was pressed against mine, letting me feel every hardening length of him. His hand held my wrists easily, keeping me completely captive. He had no intention of stopping.

              But I had no intention of continuing.

              Blindly, I began stamping my feet. It took two tries before I found his foot. I stamped again hard, crushing my heel against his toes.

              Tobias jerked in response but didn’t cry out in pain or even curse. But he did pull back. His eyes, hazy and darkened with a fiery desire that made me itch with nervousness, flicked over me as if he was just barely able to recognize who I was.

              He brushed a thumb against his lower lip, not breaking his gaze. “Remarkable,” he whispered. “You’re remarkable.”

              But before he could say anything more, I jerked free and ran towards my rooms, throwing the doors shut behind me and missing Marco more fiercely than any tears or cries could express.

Chapter
Eleven
Marco

              I spin the black cellphone around in my hand, resisting the urge to crush it. Any connection to Lestrade made me want to smash bricks and toss over cars in anger.

              The plan was set.

              Zeke and I had carefully gone over every inch of the building’s layout. The best entrance was actually the most direct entrance—walking through the front door. But to get to walk through the server door, I had to make sure I cleared several layers of security.

              I also had to get a quick education on exactly where I was supposed to plug in the spy drive.

              Zeke had handed me a small tablet and a cable. “You’re going to have to plug it in here,” he said, pointing on his computer screen of a black box with a whole side of plugs and outlets. “This is where we’ll get our best shot at entering the internal mainframe. It’ll take about sixty seconds to upload the whole virus and to connect it with the home station here.”             

              It would’ve been easier to have Zeke break in but he needed to stay back and make sure that the upload was connecting and working properly. If any problems occurred, he needed his computers so he could troubleshoot the issue.

              So we had to resort to him giving me a crash course on hacking. Apparently creating a program to sneakily steal something from a server wasn’t too hard. It was the not getting caught part that was hard. So, Zeke had created a program that would steal the key in small bits over a period of time so that suspicions wouldn’t be aroused. It would also allow for a more precise copy of the key.

              My job was to get into the server room and first hack into the security system so Zeke could have access to their cameras and keep a look out for me from afar. Then I had to find the correct server, plug in the spy program, and not get caught in the sixty seconds it took to upload it. Then I removed the whole thing and walked out.

              Easy.

              I gave a half groan, half sigh. A million and one things could go wrong with the plan and I could clearly envision the consequences for each one.

              But it didn’t matter. I was doing this.

              It had now been over a week since Halle had been taken. Lestrade was insane if he thought that I would let this matter go lightly after it was all over. I was going to make sure it was crystal fucking clear that Halle was off limits. He wanted to talk to me, he can grow a pair of balls and come talk to me.

              I finally punched the dial button and waited.

              “Checking in, are we?” Lestrade’s voice sounded amused and casual, like always, making me grit my teeth in annoyance.

              “Where will the drop point be?” I asked shortly. I wanted to know the meeting place so that we could do the exchange as soon as I had the key and had made the hit.

              “Do you already have the key?” Lestrade asked in surprise.

              “I will,” I said. “In three days. And by then, Copper will be taken out as well.”

              “Well, you must have some plan in place to sound this confident,” Lestrade said.

              “Where’s the drop point?” I asked again.

              Lestrade sighed. “Thatherton Docks. Are you familiar?”

              I was. It was outside of London, near Kent. “Fine,” I said. “But first, I want proof of life.”

              “Proof of life?” Lestrade asked incredulously. “You don’t even have proof of key or Copper. And you’re demanding proof of life? Honestly.”

              “Proof of life,” I said firmly. “Put her on the phone.”

              “You really think I would kill her?” Lestrade said. But before I could answer, I heard his aggrieved sigh and a shuffle as he seemed to walking somewhere with his phone pressed against his chest.

              I heard a few mumbles and then my heart rose as I heard the only voice my soul answered to.

              “Marco? Marco? Is that you?” Halle asked frantically.

              “I’m here, sweetheart,” I said. “Are you okay? Just answer yes or no.”

              “Yes, yes, I’m fine,” she answered quickly, her voice thickening with tears. “Are
you
okay? Please be careful.”

              “Don’t worry about me,” I said. “I’m coming for you soon, babe. Don’t you worry. Before the week is out, you’re going to be here in our house, in our bed. Believe me.”

              Halle sniffed. “I believe you. I love you. I miss you. Marco—”

              “Honestly, it’s only been a few days of separation,” Lestrade interrupted. I heard Halle make a sound of protest as the phone was taken away from her. I fisted my hands, dying to have Lestrade in front of me for just five minutes.

              “You two are acting as if you haven’t seen each other in years,” he said. “As you heard, proof of life.”

              “Lestrade,” I said in even, measured tone, “I won’t forget this. I won’t forget what you’re doing right now. And I am going to pay you back.”

              There was a caustic laugh on the other end. “Ha! What could you take from me that has any value equal to your lady?” he asked in a bitter voice. “Anyway, we both know in the end, she’s no more in danger here than she is at home with you.”

              “What the fuck does that mean?”

              “You know what it means. It means, you’re a man with a shadowy past and some of those shadows are going to come back to get you. And when they see your lovely girl, all light and innocence incarnate, they’ll get her too.” He paused. “She’s no safer with you than she is with me.”

              I gave a dry huff. “But the difference is, she
chooses
me,” I said.

Rather than hear, I felt Lestrade jerk in offense at my words.

“Don’t underestimate her, Lestrade. She’s beautiful but she’s no fool,” I said confidently. “Love is never safe. But you can choose who you risk your heart with. And she’s got mine and I’ve got hers. So you keep her whole until I see you at Thatherton, you fucker.”

With that I hung up, ready to finish preparations for tomorrow’s big sting.

Chapter
Twelve
Marco

              I walked into Turn Tech’s lobby, my toolbelt bouncing casually along my hip. The technician shirt was a little small on me so I tried to keep a bit of a hunch.

              It was the big day. Today was the day that I made the steal.

              “Remember,” Zeke whispered in my ear through my hidden earpiece, “you need to check in with Mr. Blythe first.”

              I headed first to the large black enameled front desk. A pretty young receptionist smiled up at me. “Can I help you?” she asked.

              I nodded. “Looking for Mr. Blythe,” I said in my best British accent. I would only draw attention by being American.

              When I had tested my accent on Jamie, he had scrunched his face hard trying not to laugh seeing his older brother pretend to be British but even he had to admit that the accent was pretty damn accurate. A good thing too. Without it, even the clueless Mr. Blythe would be a little suspicious of an American technician.

              The receptionist looked at my uniform. “Are you here for a servicing appointment?”

              I nodded. “That’s right,” I said.

              This was where Mr. Blythe’s cluelessness really played a role. I only hoped he lived up to his reputation.

              The receptionist typed a few things into her computer before looking up at me and nodding. “Alright, he’s in his office,” she said with a smile and no further directions. All technicians that currently worked for Turn Tech should be familiar with where the office for the head of security is.

              I nodded and headed down the corridor to the left. At the end of the hall was a small but sleek office. Outside by the door hung the name plate, “Thomas Apple.”

              I took in a deep breath. Time to do some acting.

              I walked in to the office without knocking. Blythe, a short and portly man with a quickly growing bald spot, looked up in jerky surprise.

              I also stopped in my tracks in pretend surprise. “Er…” I started, “I was looking for Mr. Apple.”

              Blythe looked at me in confusion. “Apple? He’s out on leave,” he said automatically. He squinted at me. “Who are you?”

              “Rich Lloyds,” I said, pulling out a faked ID card. “I’m here for the servicing appointment.”

              Blythe frowned, his brow creased in confusion. “There’s no servicing appointment today,” he said. But there was already a tone of doubt in his voice. It was my job now to play up that doubt.

              Blythe typed clumsily into his computer, presumably to look up the schedule for today.

              “Well we got a call from Mr. Apple a few days back saying that he wanted to make sure we did an extra check this week,” I said, hitting the right note between confused and confident. “I guess he wanted someone to look in on the servers while he was out.”

              Blythe’s frown deepened. “It doesn’t say on the schedule,” he murmured to himself. “But you’re saying Apple called you?”

              I nodded, not wanting to say more. Only liars added details. I kept my mouth shut and looked at him, expectantly.

              I could see Blythe sizing me up. I’m sure most of his technicians weren’t over six feet tall and too broad for the average uniform. But I kept my shoulders hunched and my face just slightly annoyed looking to show him my impatience at being kept from doing my job.

              I saw his hand inching towards his phone. If he called to verify the appointment, the whole plan would fall apart at the seams. We had to rely on Blythe’s cluelessness and fearfulness of Thomas Apple to succeed.

              I gave a frustrated sigh. “Mr. Apple usually doesn’t like for his servers to miss appointments,” I said in a throwaway tone as if speaking to myself. “He always gets so angry when they get missed.”

              Blythe’s hand stopped. He pressed his lips in thought before nodding. Clearly not wanting to anger his boss by forgetting about a crucial service appointment, he waved a hand at me.

              “Of course, of course,” he said. “We can’t miss a scheduled service. I’ll call the girl to give you the card.”

              I waited till I was out in the hall to breathe out in relief.

              “That was good acting, yeah?” Zeke said into my ear, impressed.

              “Thanks,” I muttered dryly.

              Now we had passed the first hurdle.

              The security into the server room
was
tight. Air tight really.

Except
for technicians, which was quite absurd.

              Turn Tech was paranoid about giving disposable technicians biometric security access to the server room. After all, technicians came and went all the time. They didn’t want to risk having a former technician out there with the ability to enter the server room before they had time to wipe his data clean from their systems.

              So instead, the techs go keycards from the front desk to swipe to enter the server room.

              So easy.

              I went back up to the front desk and the same receptionist I had spoken with me nodded and wordlessly handed me a keycard, having gotten a call from Blythe already approving my access.

              I smiled and took the card and headed towards the large sleek door behind her.

              The server room.

              I swiped the card.

              The sensor beeped twice and then the door made a
swoosh
sound as it unlocked. I pushed the heavy door in and entered a dim room that was filled with large black servers, all quietly humming and pulsating with the world’s security within its shells.

              “Alright,” Zeke said quietly from my ear. “First you’re going to find server A-13. That one will give me access to the cameras. It should be on your left.”

              I looked to my left and saw that each server had grey lettering on the side. I was standing next to A-27. I walked down the line till I found A-13. It was eerily hushed in the room with only the steady hum of the servers surrounding me.

              “Alright,” I said. “I found it.”

              “Put the drive in where I showed you,” Zeke said. “I should then get access within a minute.”

              Zeke had shown me a drawing of what he assumed A-13 would look like. He had pointed out the slot where I needed to insert the drive that would allow him to hack into their camera system.

              I knelt down and looked carefully at the overwhelming knot of cables and wires. But I found the spot Zeke had pointed out to me. Reaching into my utility belt, I pulled out the slim little drive and plugged it in.

              “Got it,” I said quietly. I knew I was the only one in the room but I found myself speaking in whispers anyway.

              “Wait for it,” Zeke said in my ear.

              I paused, waiting.

              In what was probably just a minute, I heard my pulse beat loudly and steadily in my ears. If we failed here, there was no other recourse. It wouldn’t matter if Copper was taken out then. Turn Tech would still possess the key.              

              And then I’d have nothing to bargain with for Halle.

              “I’m in,” Zeke said.

              I breathed out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding.

              “Alright, now what you need to do is find the golden server,” Zeke said. “I’m betting it’ll be near the end of the room, yeah?”

              There was no way we could know which server held the key code. That would clearly be the highest level secret within Turn Tech. But Zeke guessed that the ‘golden server’ would be towards the end of the room where it wouldn’t get too much heat spillover from the other servers.

              The other identifying marker would be a double IEEE 1934 slot without any other cables connecting it to joined servers. Until a few days ago, none of those words would’ve made sense to me but thanks to a crash course from Zeke, I had a somewhat better understanding.

              I headed towards the back of the room. The server markers began going down.

              N-15, O-5, R-20.

              Finally at the end of the room, the markers ended at T-13, the last server.

              I went up and down the row for T servers and yet found none that matched the description Zeke had drawn out for me.

              “All clear in the lobby,” Zeke updated me. There were no cameras in the server room since they could overheat and only a handful of people were allowed in, making them easy to monitor. Instead, they monitored by who entered and how long they stayed. I had a time limit. Most tech services lasted no more than twenty minutes unless something more detailed needed doing. Once I passed twenty minutes, someone would probably come in to check on me.

              Zeke instead kept his eyes on the cameras that pointed out to the lobby and first floor.

              “I don’t see the golden server,” I said, using Zeke’s nickname for the target server.

              I searched again down the row of T servers.

              Then, it caught my eye. In the dimness of the room, it had been hard to see. But behind T-13 was another slimmer server. I read the marker on its side—TT-1.

              TT-1?

              Turn Tech, probably.

              The only double letter marker. It had to be it.

              I knelt down and checked its side.

              There it was! The double slot.

              “I found it,” I whispered.

              “Plug in the program,” Zeke answered. “It should upload within sixty seconds. Then you just need to wait it out for about ten minutes before leaving so you don’t arouse suspicion.”             

              I nodded even though I knew he couldn’t see me. I unhooked the largest pouch from my utility belt and pulled out a small tablet and cable. Plugging in the cable, I turned on the tablet and punched in the code to the spy program. Immediately the program launched and began to download itself onto the server.

              “I’m reading 12% already,” Zeke said.

              “Copy that,” I said, seeing the same thing on my screen.

              I couldn’t believe how well this was going. Everything was flowing so smoothly. I’d be out of here within—

              “
Scheiße
!” Zeke exclaimed in my ear.

              “What?”

              “Apple!” Zeke muttered. “He just walked in!”

              “What!” I said in a loud whisper. “What the fuck is he doing here? I thought he was on a leave of absence!”

              “He is!” Zeke said. I heard frantic tapping on a keyboard. “He’s not supposed to be in till the end of the week.”

              I looked down at the screen. 68%.

              “Where’s he going?” I asked. If he was heading towards his office, I was fucked. Blythe would immediately report the service appointment to seem like he was on top of the job. And unlike Blythe, Apple would know right away that there was no scheduled appointment.