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“Let’s take the champagne and go to the roof,” Carol said. She grabbed a second bottle and led the way. Sean retrieved another beer and followed.

It was eleven in the evening and New York was bright with lights. The Upper East Side was quiet and peaceful—a place Sean could easily see himself living. In fact, the narrow carriage house was the type of house Sean could picture for himself and Lucy. Five stories, on the edge of the city, close enough to never feel disconnected, but far enough on the edge for privacy.

Ten years ago, he and Skye, Colton, and Hunter had done a lot of jobs together, things Colton set up. Good jobs—illegal, but not for their own personal gain. Sean had been so invested in their projects, especially after what happened at Stanford. He’d learned a lot about trusting the authorities—namely, they weren’t trustworthy.

Colton was picky about which assignments they took and they spent more time planning than anything, but for four geniuses who were bored in school and with life, all with chips on their shoulders, the ability to circumvent any computer system was heady. They all thought they were gods, and in some ways they were. They saw a virtual world that could be controlled and manipulated, easier than people. They didn’t want or need recognition, except among one another. They went out of their way to avoid attention, or the media.

At least, in the beginning.

“Remember the time we shut down the traffic lights?” Skye said as she lounged under a heat lamp and looked at the night sky. The lights from Manhattan erased all but the brightest stars.

“Showed the city that they had a security hole a mile wide,” Hunter said.

Colton had a thing for hacktivism—hacking into secure systems to show weakness but not stealing anything. Colton took jobs primarily to keep them all in the latest equipment and to pay for the carriage house, but what he liked best was exposing flaws in systems. Making money was second to making a point.

“You’d think after Nine-Eleven they’d have tightened up the network,” Carol said, “but Colton said it was just as vulnerable.”

“It hasn’t gotten much better,” a voice said.

They turned and watched Colton Thayer walk across the roof to where they were celebrating. Colton was barely five foot nine, but he walked tall and dressed well. Sean had been accused of using his charm as a weapon, but Colton had charm down to a science. When he smiled, you’d believe anything he said.

Until Sean had moved to New York three weeks ago, he hadn’t seen Colton in ten years. They’d talked on occasion—primarily when Colton was trying to recruit Sean for a job—but he had done his best to keep his past firmly rooted in the past. He’d never taken a job until now, because Sean knew that as soon as he was back inside, there would be no leaving.

Colton was hard to say no to.

Sean had mixed feelings about this entire operation, and the primary reason was because he didn’t want to hurt Colton. He’d helped Sean through the darkest time of his life, when his brother Duke had all but abandoned him after his expulsion from Stanford. Duke had pulled strings to get Sean into MIT even though Sean had told him he didn’t want to go. Colton had listened when Sean doubted everything he believed and missed his parents more than when they’d first died. Colton had been Sean’s rock, and he would never forget it.

Sean smiled and sipped his beer. “We missed you at tonight’s festivities, C.,” he said.

Colton smiled broadly, which lit up his entire face, from his green eyes down to the dimple on his chin.

“You’re finally back where you belong, Rogan.”

CHAPTER FOUR

The adrenaline rush from the heist had faded by the time Sean arrived back at his apartment.

He went up to his fourth-floor corner flat, a spacious, two-room apartment with windows on two walls. He liked the place, which he’d leased under a shell company, but hadn’t spent much time here. Most of the work he did was on the second floor—in the studio the FBI had rented under an assumed name for FBI Special Agent Noah Armstrong.

Sean grabbed a stack of mail off his counter as a cover, in case he’d been followed. It was clear the level of trust between Evan and Sean was mutual—it didn’t exist. Even though Sean had gone a roundabout way home, he couldn’t be certain he wasn’t followed. He swept continually for any electronic surveillance—but good old-fashioned footwork could be just as effective.

Sean took the mail and went downstairs to Noah’s studio. It was well after midnight, but Noah wouldn’t sleep until Sean checked in. Sean could have called, but he needed to tell Noah what had happened—much more than what he was willing to share over the phone.

“Here’s mail that was delivered to my box again,” Sean said when Noah opened his door.

“Want a beer?”

“Sounds great.” Sean shut the door behind him. Noah tossed the envelopes on a chair and went back to his desk.

Sean said, “Didn’t you say
beer?
”

Noah gave him a look that Sean couldn’t quite read, then walked over to his refrigerator and grabbed a bottle for each of them. Sean wasn’t surprised that the beer of a “brewer” and “patriot” was Noah’s drink of choice; it suited the former Air Force pilot.

Sean sat at the table and Noah sat across from him. “What happened?” Noah asked.

The FBI loft was one large, sparsely furnished room. Functional. The bed and couch were almost incidental—no television, no radio, only a laptop, printer, and tidy desk. Noah did most of the work at the secondhand dining table. The file cabinet was new, and Sean suspected all the drawers were full. He wondered how many of the files related to his past.

He said, “We have a problem.”

“Have?”

“Evan set me up. The museum’s internal security is an RCK design. I had to reroute admin protocols for the duration of the job. I covered my tracks, but I helped design the RCK system. If someone on their end is specifically looking for a breach, they’ll see it and there’s nothing I can do.”

“Will RCK know it was you?”

“They won’t have proof, but through the process of elimination Duke will know.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Noah said.

“I don’t think you understand. My brother knows I’m the only one who can break into the admin system. He may not come to the conclusion immediately, but he’s going to be suspicious. Especially since he’s been trying to keep tabs on me since I quit.”

“How do you know he’s been tracking you?”

“He’s been calling Lucy to find out when she talks to me. He tried to get my phone number from her, but she respected my wish not to talk to Duke while I’m working here. I have a trace on my RCK computer in D.C. He’s been pinging it to see if I’ve been logging in remotely and bypassing his servers. And then—”

Noah put up his hand. “I get it. He wants to know what you’re up to. There’s nothing we can do about it now without reading him in, and Stockton wants to hold off as long as possible. You said yourself you think it’s all going down on Thursday.”

“It’s only going to end if we have the evidence against Paxton.”

“It’s going to end when I say it ends.”

Sean stared at Noah. They weren’t friends, but they weren’t enemies.

Noah said, “Why do you think your buddy set you up? Maybe he really didn’t know.”

“Evan is not my buddy,” Sean said.

“You’re supposed to be on the same team, aren’t you? Working for Thayer?”

Sean conceded that point. “Evan knew. He denied it, but he knew. It was a test—to see if I would reveal RCK trade secrets as well as embarrass RCK. If it gets out that one of RCK’s key security people has gone to the dark side, it will destroy everything Duke has worked for.”

“Just Duke? What about you?”

“Corporate security is all my brother. It’s his division.”

“I’m sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry.

“Duke’s not stupid, Noah. Eventually, he’s going to figure out I’m working for Colton. He’ll interfere, thinking he’s protecting me.”

“Let’s hope it’s after we’re finished.”

Sean had never pegged Noah as a wait-and-see guy, but even he knew they were in so deep there was no pulling out. It was more his tone that irritated Sean. After everything that happened this past month, now Noah copped his authoritarian nature?

“What’s your problem?” Sean asked.

“I don’t have a problem.” Noah was focused on the spreadsheet in front of him.

Sean grabbed it, and Noah clasped his hand around Sean’s wrist.

“Let go,” Sean said.

“Drop it.”

They stared at each other a moment. Sean let go of the spreadsheet, now wrinkled, and Noah let go of his hand simultaneously.

“You haven’t liked me from the minute we met,” Sean said. “Though you never told me, I assumed it had something to do with one of my brothers, because we’d never crossed paths before.”

“You’ve always known I’ve had issues with RCK and the gray areas you play in.”

Sean shook his head. “This was personal.”

Noah smiled, but his pale blue eyes turned icy. He sat back in his chair and sipped his beer. “You want to play shrink now.”

Sean said seriously, “I want to live.” He leaned forward. “What scares me is that you are the only one in a position to protect my ass and sometimes I get the feeling you want to take me out yourself.”

Noah didn’t blink. “The past isn’t important, Sean.”

“Don’t lie to yourself. The past is
always
important. Do you think I’d be here now if it weren’t?”

Noah said, “You’re here
now
to earn your get-out-of-jail-free card.”

Noah didn’t even try to keep the contempt out of his voice.

Sean abruptly pushed back from the table and stood. His chair fell backwards. “You really don’t know me, Special Agent Armstrong.”

Sean left the apartment. Why had he let Noah get inside his head like that?

He needed to talk to Lucy, but it wasn’t safe to do so. But he couldn’t go up to his too-small, too-claustrophobic apartment where he’d just think about the past. The good, the bad, and the very, very ugly.

He left the building to clear his head but feared he’d made a serious mistake trusting Noah Armstrong.

*   *   *

Noah had baited Sean on purpose, and he regretted it.

He was letting his personal feelings cloud his interactions. How could he not? Rogan-Caruso Protective Services had a long-standing reputation worldwide, long before “Kincaid” had been added to the masthead. Sean’s three older brothers had built the company from the ground up after the deaths of their parents. They had their fingers in a lot of pies and didn’t always play by the rules. Noah had been an officer in the Air Force for ten years, and rules were there for a reason. Noah had indirectly butted heads with Rogan-Caruso operations, so when he met Sean nearly a year ago he assumed he was just like the others. Especially his brother Liam, whom Noah had dealt with several times overseas. Rogan’s parents were inventors who created gadgets for the military, and after their deaths Liam and his twin sister had taken over the overseas operations until they left RCK to start their own enterprise.

When Noah had first met Sean, he’d seen Liam in him. Arrogant. Cocky. Manipulative. But Sean had something that Liam didn’t, and it took Noah months to see it.

Honor.
It’s what separated Sean from his brother, what made Noah not despise him. Unlike his brother, Sean had proved he was willing to risk his life for others. Noah didn’t always like how Sean got results; he didn’t like private security companies like Rogan-Caruso-Kincaid taking the law into their own hands. But in the end, Noah reluctantly looked the other way because sometimes the system failed and RCK could right wrongs.

Besides, he’d wanted Sean as part of this investigation, knowing full well what he was getting into.

But everything Noah knew about Sean made him wonder if he had really changed. He’d fallen comfortably back into his old gang. There were crimes he’d committed that he could never be prosecuted for because the statute of limitations was up. And these new crimes were protected by Sean’s current immunity agreement with the FBI. Sean was a lucky guy in so many ways, skirting past the law, making his own rules, using his wits and charm to get his way. The potential hiccup in his life plan—going to prison for a nine-year-old crime—was being cleansed as they spoke, simply because there were worse bad guys than Sean.

For ten months, almost for as long as Noah had known Sean, Noah’d been quietly investigating U.S. Senator Jonathan Paxton. No easy feat considering that Paxton was a senior-ranked member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which oversaw the FBI. But there were too many questions after two former FBI agents with a connection to Paxton went to jail for running a vigilante group that targeted sex offenders. Paxton had funded the front organization, and while so far the white-collar division hadn’t been able to find any financial evidence that he had paid for hits, Noah’s gut told him Paxton had been involved.

But neither of the agents was talking, and terms of their plea agreements allowed them to remain silent. Noah thought they’d gotten off far too easy, but he understood the pressure that the U.S. Attorney’s Office was under. The agents had killed known sex offenders—brutal rapists and child molesters who had been released early. The media attention, not to mention finding a jury pool that would convict, were both obstacles the Justice Department didn’t want to deal with during an election year.