Chapter 2
I jerked awake and immediately knocked over the nearly two-hundred-dollar bottle of Meursault. I jumped up with a curse and started trying to blot up the liquid with my silk robe. It wasn't until I was on my knees soaking wine out of the Persian rug that I realized my phone was ringing.
I grabbed it without checking the display. "This had better be important."
"Sir, it's Reid." His voice was tight in a way that made my stomach drop. "We have a situation at the lab. Omega Protocol."
I dropped the robe and shot to my feet. "What happened?"
"Breach. Three guards down, the Banshee prototype missing. Dr. Hardin's gone. I need you here now."
I was already moving toward the bedroom, phone pressed to my ear. "I'm leaving in five minutes. Does Algerone know?"
"Calling him next."
“Good. Don’t call anyone else.”
I ended the call and stood there for half a second staring at the wine-soaked rug. Dammit all. Then I turned away and took the service elevator up to the master suite because the grand staircase was for people who had time to waste on aesthetics.
In the closet, I grabbed the first suit my hand touched.
Navy. Fine. A white shirt. A tie I didn't look at while knotting it. My fingers worked on autopilot while my mind raced through scenarios. The most concerning thing was Hardin being missing. If she had been kidnapped, that was one thing, but if she’d gone willingly…
Well, that was another problem entirely.
Williams had the Escalade running when I came out the front door. He took one look at my face and didn't say a word, just pulled out of the circular drive fast enough to make the tires squeal on the damp cobblestones.
I took out my tablet and started pulling up security protocols while the city slid past the windows.
I looked at the access logs first, then the building schematics highlighting the breach point, pulling up personnel files for everyone with level five clearance or higher. I opened a dozen windows simultaneously, my fingers moving across the screen while my brain sorted through possibilities.
The financial records blurred together after the first pass.
I'd kept Lucky Losers not just afloat but thriving through Algerone's absence.
Secured contracts. Deflected board challenges.
Maintained the illusion that nothing had changed.
And I'd done it all while learning the exact pressure needed to work scar tissue without causing pain.
The exhaustion lived in my bones now. Permanent. The price of devotion that would never be acknowledged or returned.
Hardin had seemed solid. PhD from MIT, fifteen years in acoustic weapons development, impeccable references. But everyone had a pressure point. Money. Ideology. Blackmail. Fear. What were her weaknesses and who knew them?
I pulled up her financial records. Nothing unusual jumped out, but then I remembered she had asked for a raise at her recent performance review. She didn’t appear to be struggling financially by any means, but bank account numbers rarely told the full truth. For some people, more was never enough.
I’d denied her request for an increase in salary some months back. Standard protocol. Her wages were commensurate with other scientists in her field, her bonuses some of the largest in the company, and she wasn’t due for another salary review for another year according to her contract.
But why ask for more money if she wasn’t struggling? She didn’t strike me as the greedy type. She was a scientist. Had someone else offered her more? Perhaps she’d been fishing for the raise to match a competitor’s offer.
The Escalade pulled into Spade Tower's underground garage. Williams opened my door, and I stepped out, breathing in the scents of concrete and exhaust.
Algerone's sedan was parked three spaces over, driver's door still open. He stood next to it with one hand braced on the roof while his driver hovered nearby looking uncertain. Even from here I could see the tension in his shoulders, the way he was keeping weight off his left leg.
His driver said something. Algerone shook his head and reached into the back seat for his cane. The movement was too fast, and he stumbled slightly, catching himself on the car door.
His free hand moved to his jacket pocket, a brief touch that I recognized immediately.
The ace of spades. He'd taken it from the frame again.
He only did that when things were bad, when he needed the reminder that he'd survived worse.
The first few times I'd noticed the empty frame at the penthouse, I'd panicked, thinking someone had broken in.
Now I knew better. Now I understood it meant he was preparing for war.
I was moving before I thought about it.
"Sir," I said as I got close.
He turned, and his expression went cold. "Maxime."
I gestured toward the elevator without saying anything else. What was there to say? We both knew why we were here.
We walked in silence. His cane echoed off the concrete with each step, and I matched my pace to his automatically. Half a step behind, half a step to the right, the position I'd held for thirty-two years.
I hit the call button, and we waited. His breathing was fast and slightly uneven. The hip was bad. Worse than usual at this hour when the meds had worn off.
The elevator arrived. We both moved forward at the same time and nearly collided in the doorway. His shoulder brushed mine, and the contact burned through my suit jacket.
"After you, sir."
He stepped in, and I followed. The doors closed, and suddenly the space was too small. I reached for the button panel at the same time he did, and our fingers touched, just for a second.
I pulled back fast.
He pressed the button without acknowledging it and leaned against the wall. The cane took most of his weight, and his jaw was tight.
The numbers climbed slowly. Too slowly.
Twenty-one. Twenty-two. Twenty-three.
The elevator was too warm. I closed my eyes and inhaled. He was wearing the Tom Ford Oud Wood. It was one of his favorites now, but I remembered a time when he smelled like Acqua di Gio, and when a celebratory dinner out meant we splurged on milkshakes and onion rings instead of caviar and pinot.
Sometimes, I missed those simpler days, back when anything was possible and we were still young and stupid enough to take risks.
Thirty-one. Thirty-two. Thirty-three.
"You got here fast," he said.
"Reid called me first."
"Of course he did."
The elevator chimed, and the doors opened to chaos held at bay by training. Armed security personnel moved about with purpose, voices carrying down the hallway. Other than the armed security and the unusual hour, nothing seemed particularly out of place.
Algerone moved forward, and I followed.
Commander Reid was at the lab entrance, speaking rapid-fire French into his comm.
Reid had the kind of face that belonged on a movie poster with his perfect dark curls and serious brow.
Women fell for him with predictable regularity.
Men too. The betting pool in HR currently had his latest relationship lasting another three weeks, maximum. I gave it another three days.
He looked up when we approached, dark eyes taking in the two of us arriving together.
"Sir. Maxime." He switched to English for Algerone's benefit, though his Quebecois accent still colored the edges.
"Three guards down with Banshee symptoms. Dr. Hardin missing.
MK I prototype gone. Design specs wiped from the servers. "
"Wiped how?" I asked.
"Accessed with Hardin's credentials, downloaded to an external device, then the originals were corrupted."
Algerone's knuckles went white on his cane. "Who outside this building knows about the DoD contract?"
"Six people. All Pentagon, all vetted."
"Apparently not well enough." Algerone moved past him into the lab.
I followed.
The space where the prototype should have been was empty. Technicians were swarming the workstations, and the air smelled like burnt electronics and stress sweat.
People straightened when Algerone walked in. Voices dropped. I moved to his side, making sure to stay close enough to be useful but not close enough to crowd him.
"Show me the footage," he said.
The tech pulled it up on the main screen. Masked figures moved through the corridors like they'd memorized the route. They stopped at each checkpoint long enough to aim some kind of device at the guards. The guards went down hard, hands on their heads, then unconscious.
"They're using our prototype," I said.
"No." Algerone leaned closer to the screen. "Look at the design. That's not ours. It’s a competing model."
I looked harder. He was right. Smaller, less refined, but definitely the same technology, which meant we were either dealing with GidTech or the Chinese. I doubted the Chinese would be so…obvious.
"Pause." Algerone pointed at the screen. One of the intruders was facing the camera. The mask covered most of their face, but the build was distinctive.
"Five foot five, approximately. Could be Hardin," I suggested.
"Or someone who wants us to think it's Hardin." Algerone straightened too fast, and his jaw clenched.
My hand moved toward his elbow before I caught myself, and I adjusted my cuff instead.
He noticed. Something crossed his face before he turned to Reid. "Full background on Hardin. Twenty years back. Every connection."
Reid nodded. “Xavier’s team is already working on it. But… Sir. There's one more thing."
Algerone turned. "What?"
"We caught one of them. The team got him in the stairwell on sublevel two. He was trying to reach the parking garage."
"Alive?" I asked.
"Very. Took three men to subdue him, and he's currently secured in interrogation room B." Reid's expression was carefully neutral. "He's not talking. Yet."
Algerone's grip tightened on his cane, and for a moment I saw something dangerous flash in his eyes. The kind of look that reminded me why people feared him. Why they should fear him.
"Have you identified him?" Algerone asked quietly.
"Working on it. No ID on him, fingerprints aren't in any database we can access remotely. We'll need to dig deeper." Reid glanced at me, then back to Algerone. "But he had this."
He held up an evidence bag containing a slim black device. The competing sonic weapon we'd seen in the footage.
"GidTech?" I asked.
"No markings, but the design matches their prototype specs from the intelligence we gathered last year." Reid turned the bag over. "Whoever made this had access to serious R&D funding."
Algerone stared at the device for a long moment. "Where's the prototype? Did he have it?"
"No sir. Just this weapon and a communications device we're working on cracking. Whatever he was doing on sublevel two, retrieving the prototype wasn't part of it."
"He was covering the exit," I said, the tactical picture coming together. "Making sure his team could extract with the prototype while he held the rear."
"That's our assessment as well." Reid shifted his weight. "The others got away clean. We've got alerts out at every major transportation hub within two hundred miles, but if they had a private aircraft..."
"They're already gone," Algerone finished. His jaw worked for a moment. "But we have this one."
The way he said it made something cold slide down my spine. I'd seen Algerone in many moods over thirty-two years. Angry, calculating, ruthless when necessary. But this was different. This was personal.
"I want to see him," Algerone said.
Reid's expression didn't change. "Of course, sir. Whenever you're ready."
"Now." Algerone was already moving toward the door, not waiting for acknowledgment.
I fell into step beside him, my mind already racing ahead.
Interrogation Room B was in the secure wing, two floors down.
The entire floor had soundproofed walls, no windows, and multiple cameras that could be switched off if necessary.
We'd used it in situations where traditional methods weren't appropriate.
The elevator ride down was silent. Reid took point, standing in front of the doors, hands casually resting on his weapons, while Algerone's cane tapped a steady rhythm against the floor. His face was a controlled mask, but he held enough tension in his shoulders that he was going to be sore later.
The doors opened onto a corridor that looked nothing like the sleek executive floors above.
The walls here were concrete, the lighting industrial, the doors two thousand pound steel mechanisms managed by three different electronic locks.
This was the part of Lucky Losers that didn't exist in the corporate brochures.
Reid stopped at the third door on the left and keyed in his access code.
"He's restrained but conscious," Reid said, his hand on the door handle. "No serious injuries beyond some bruising from the takedown. Medical cleared him."
Algerone nodded once, his expression unreadable. Then he looked at me.
For a long moment, neither of us spoke. His green eyes held mine, and I saw the question there, unasked but clear. I could leave now if I wanted. Walk away. Maintain the plausible deniability that kept the corporate side of Lucky Losers clean.
Or I could follow him through that door and witness whatever came next.
I’d stood by his side through legitimate business and the darker necessities that came with it. I'd made my choice a long time ago about what I was willing to do for him. For us. For what we'd built together.
"After you, sir," I said quietly.
Reid pulled the door open and stepped back. Algerone walked into the interrogation room, and I followed him into the dark.