Night Hack: A forced proximity alpha hero hacker romantic suspense (Nightshade Book 4)

Chapter 11

Brycen

“So who’s Tate?”she asked, a beer in one hand, her nearly decimated first slice of pizza in the other.

“He’s one of our full-timers,” I explained, dropping a second slice of pizza onto my plate. I’d made enough room for us at the kitchen island while Jana had looked in on her mother, who’d kindly refused dinner. “He just got back from a few months’ leave, which is why you haven’t met him. He’ll probably pop in to introduce himself when he gets here to trade places with Rex.”

“Mmm,” she answered around the last bite of her slice, reaching for another from the pizza box between us. “So tell me, since I’m not working, anything new with your job?”

“Already have no idea what to do with yourself, I see.” I smirked over the bottle of beer at my mouth. Taking a leisurely sip, I proceeded, “Is that why this whole kitchen thing has come about?”

She blushed the most endearing shade of pink. “Maybe,” she answered in a singsong fashion before taking a bite of her second slice. “Seriously, though,” she added after swallowing her food, “I want to know about your day.”

“Not much to tell, really,” I answered, shrugging my shoulders. “D negotiated a new contract with a client I’ve been supporting. We briefed Tate in on your case, so now we don’t have to work Rex, Shane, or Cade as much.” The guilty look on Jana’s face had me backpedaling. “No, no, no! It’s not just your case. The guys have been burning the candle at both ends lately between NSI growing, and D, Shane, and I stalling on making decisions on some new staff.”

“Shane?” she asked.

“He’s a majority owner, like I am, but hasn’t managed to leave the JPD yet,” I explained. “D’s been trying to steal him away since shit hit the fan with Devolin, and then there was that kidnapping thing with Emberlyn last year?—”

Jana’s eyes widened in shock. “What?”

“Mm-hmm.” I nodded. “I never told you the guys at NSI have a knack of finding their women whenever their lives go down the crapper, did I?”

Her mouth dropped open, pizza at the ready, but never quite making it to its final destination. “For real?”

“Uh, yeah.” I explained, then listed everything that’s gone on with some of my colleagues and friends: Theo and Morgan Lowell—not to mention his nephew—then there had been D and Huss’s ordeal, then there was Shane and Ember, and more recently, there’d been Cade and Aspen. Now me… my subconscious added, but I kept that to myself, along with the growing fluttering warmth in my belly.

Jana’s eyes never left mine as I recounted the CliffsNotes version of what had gone down with each couple, her gaze round, expression one of disbelief, and her half-eaten pizza slice had flopped to her plate, forgotten.

Finally, when all was said and done, the woman seemed in deep thought, her brows having furrowed while she focused on peeling the sweaty label off her now empty beer bottle. I got up to fetch us a second drink.

“My situation seems to pale in comparison,” she blurted, causing me to look at her—really look at her—and assess where her head might be at with all that’s been going on with her lately.

Taking my seat, I popped the top off one bottle, then handed it to her. Jana took a large sip from it as soon as her fingers had wrapped themselves around the brown glass.

“I wouldn’t say that at all, sweetheart,” I told her, opening my own bottle. “Every situation was different, with its own set of circumstances. But don’t kid yourself, every single one of those women have stared death in the face. Your case isn’t any different, or have you forgotten you’re on a serial killer’s list of contacts?”

Jana

Well, when he worded it that way…

“I hadn’t thought of that,” I mumbled, picking at a piece of pepperoni on my partially forgotten slice of what had started as the best pizza I’d ever eaten. “Three makes a serial killer, right, or has that changed? I’m sure I’m not all up on that criminology craft you guys are used to.”

Brycen shook his head. “No, you’re right about the three,” he said in a disgusted manner, “but serial or not, three victims or thirty, it doesn’t discount the threat to you. As much as I hate it, that’s still very much real, babe.”

No, it didn’t discount anything in the least. I was still freaked out at how I’d managed to get on this sicko’s radar at all. Choosing to ignore his babe moniker, I led with the next logical question, even though it wasn’t quite time for that part of Brycen’s well-thought-out plans for the evening.

“Since we’re talking about it, why don’t we just skip to if there’ve been any new discoveries regarding my case.”

His eyes darkened, the edges of his mouth tightening. “You sure you don’t want to finish dinner first? You seemed famished earlier, and I can’t help but notice you’re now only picking at?—”

“I’ll keep eating,” I promised. He’d had me forgetting about my appetite earlier, simply because the stories he told me about his friends were like something you’d find in some suspense book—I’d been enthralled.

The man stared at me as if he awaited proof that I would live up to my word.

Grabbing my slice of pizza, I took a much-too-large bite from it, uttering, “See?” right before stretchy cheese slipped off, slopping onto my chin.

Despite the embarrassment I felt, my goof had netted me with one of the man’s belly laughs. I enjoyed the sound so wholeheartedly, it had become contagious, and I couldn’t help but join in as I mopped at my face, making sure I got the saucy cheese mix with my napkin.

Hilarity of the moment having passed, Brycen’s face sobered. “Let’s make a deal. I love a woman who isn’t apologetic about the way she eats. So, as long as you keep eating, I’ll keep talking.”

On a single nod, I added, “Deal.” For good measure, I took a much daintier bite of my slice of pizza, trying to salvage whatever remained of my proper womanly image, even though certain said image had gone out the window about a few hours after I’d first met this man.

The edges of Brycen’s mouth ticked up slightly, for all too short of a moment, before his expression faded into a somber one. “Right, okay… The preliminary results came back from the coroner, confirming that all three hair and tissue samples you received belong to each victim.”

“Okay.” I grabbed my beer bottle and took a large gulp. “We figured that was going to be the case. Any leads on who this guy is?”

“That’s the other part. The box, wrapping, even the tape are still being analyzed. Nothing’s come from those yet,” he answered.

Then what else is there? “You do still think this is a guy, right?”

“It’s what Shane, the JPD, and the FBI seem to think, and considering his targets have all been female, I’m tending to side with that assumption,” he stated, taking a bite of a third slice of pizza he’d just pulled from the box. “Shane and his partner are looking into seeing if there’s anything that connects these women, yourself included. Nothing to report on that yet, but our electronic portion of the investigation is something that takes time, so I’m not surprised. Devolin and I are looking into every electronic trail to make sure we cover all areas of their personal lives.” I nodded in understanding that I’d be investigated too if they hadn’t already. The man’s eyes met mine. “I can’t have anyone miss anything, Jana. Not when there’s something I can do to help. Not when?—”

My hand reached out to clasp Brycen’s forearm, stalling his reach for his drink. His eyes diverted from mine to my hand. The muscles beneath my fingers twitched, and I couldn’t help but to allow my thumb to rub the taut bronzed skin, even though I’d convinced myself it was simply an appeasement gesture to calm the man before me, who seemed nervous all of a sudden.

“Brycen?”

“Hmm,” he managed before he covered my hand with his.

I swallowed hard, my eyes trailing back up to his. Once our gazes met, they stuck, and I felt my mouth go dry.

“Thank you,” I whispered, feeling my body start to lean in toward him, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed; his demeanor having gone from serious, to nervous, to sweet, then downright smoldering in the span of seconds.

“Ja—” Brycen was cut off by a key in the front door’s tumbler. I watched as the haze of lust disappeared, almost as if it had never been there, and the relaxed persona he’d had moments before had vanished, transforming into one of business. Keeping hold of my hand as he lifted it off his forearm, he said, “Shift change. That’s probably Tate or Rex checking in. How ’bout you put the rest of this food away, and if it’s Tate, once we’re done with the introductions, you and I can tackle that disastrous abundance of storage you’ve got left over?”

Without preamble, he squeezed the hand he still held, got to his feet, then released me. Having stood up to do as he’d suggested, my back was to the kitchen’s exit, when “Oh, and Jana,” came.

Peering over my shoulder, I asked, “Yeah?”

I was met by a grin that showed off the man’s dimples. “Don’t think I’ll forget about what was about to happen, sweetheart,” he stated. Without waiting for a response, he left me standing speechless, our plates in one hand, pizza box in the other.

Well…