Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
When Griffin and Savanna had arrived in what was once the lobby of the former hotel, Gray promptly sent them back to their rooms. Treating them like misbehaving kids, Gray ordered them to change from their swimwear. But Griffin was fine with that. He’d steal as much alone time with Savanna as possible.
After he dressed in jeans and a black tee, he rapped at the door connecting his and Savanna’s rooms. “You decent?” he called out. Not that it mattered much since he’d just seen her completely naked. While I sucked on her clit and licked her to orgasm.
“Come in,” she called back.
He wasn’t prepared for his heart to beat double time when he opened the door to the sight of her gorgeous smile aimed right at him as she slowly walked his way wearing high-waisted jeans with a white blouse tucked into them. Her honey-colored hair, which looked darker since it was wet, hung over her shoulders and dampened her shirt.
He let the door swing shut behind him and strode to meet her, immediately reaching for her hair and shifting it around to her back. Savanna’s hazel eyes fluttered when he cupped her tit to discover the bra lacked any padding. “Bad girl,” Griffin scolded under his breath, his erection still painful and begging for release inside his jeans. “This white blouse and thin bra are tempting enough, but the wet hair means the guys are going to get a peek at what’s mine.” He released his hold of her, knowing he was a second away from unbuttoning her top and forgetting about Gray.
“Mm. And are you going to punish me later?” Her sultry voice went straight to his cock, and the sudden blush on her cheeks was adorable as hell.
She spun so that her back was to him. “I can’t believe I said that,” she groaned.
Oh, game on. She couldn’t backpedal from that spicy comment. No damn way.
Griffin let out a low laugh and swatted her ass. She jumped and squeaked before tossing him a saucy look over her shoulder. Her teeth skated over her bottom lip before she smiled.
“We should go out there before he gets grumpy.” Griffin adjusted himself in his jeans, but when she started walking toward the door, the sight of her ass in her own jeans had him running a hand down the ridge of his cock over the stiff fabric.
He’d never wanted a woman so much in all of his life. He’d also never been willing to forgo his own rules for a woman, either.
Once in the lobby, Griffin did his best to tuck away his thoughts and kill his erection. Her safety was the priority, not how many ways he could make her come.
The lobby was an open and airy space decorated in a casual style, similar to their rooms. Carter and the others had returned, and they were gathered around the three leather sofas that surrounded a large white coffee table at the center of the room.
Griffin sat next to Savanna on the couch that had a view of the front door, which would offer a great look at the sea if the sun hadn’t recently set.
“Who wants to share first?” Griffin asked, and from the looks on his team leaders’ faces, both Gray and Carter had news.
Gray shifted his laptop to the table as Jack sat alongside him, and Carter and Oliver took the third sofa. “What’d you find out about the vault?” he asked Carter.
“We got there just before closing, but they’ve made quite a few upgrades in the twenty-plus years since Nick’s dad designed the main vault,” Carter began. “I mentioned to them I had some valuables I’d like to store in one of their safe-deposit boxes. And they proclaimed their vault is completely secure and has never been breached.”
“Once inside the vault, you need more than just the key to access your safe-deposit box,” Jack added. “Retinal scan. ID. And a passcode.”
“So, we were right. If Nick does get captured, there’s no way he can be forced to break into the vault since it’s the one vault he can’t breach. And even if he’s strong-armed inside during business hours, they’ll be missing the final piece to access the safe-deposit box—the key,” Jack remarked.
“We’re working on hacking into the security camera feeds inside the place, as well as obtaining all CCTV footage in and around the area, but I doubt we’ll get Nick on camera,” Carter said, although he didn’t seem too disappointed. From the sounds of it, they didn’t need any more confirmation that Nick had obtained a safe-deposit box in Santorini. The key matched up to those used at the vault, and the photo linking him there years ago proved he knew all about the place.
Griffin fought the urge to reach out and set his hand on Savanna’s thigh or take hold of her hand, knowing this whole damn mess couldn’t be easy for her. Gray now knew Griffin had crossed a line with her, but hopefully, he hadn’t shared that mistake with the others.
Mistake?
Shit. He didn’t want to believe it was a mistake. Being with her at the pool hadn’t felt like one at all, and what was that supposed to mean?
“Well, if our theory is right and Nick stole something from the Archer Group that was of national security significance, my guess is that it was from one of their locations not far from Santorini,” Gray spoke up, drawing Griffin’s attention. “I did some digging, and the closest office for the Archer Group is in Sicily.”
“Which makes sense seeing that the Naval Air Station Sigonella is also there.” Jack shifted back on the couch and crossed his ankle over his knee. His eyes landed on Griffin for a second, and the animosity that he’d shown Griffin for the past two weeks appeared to finally be gone. “But what would Nick have stolen from Archer’s Sicily site? Isn’t everything done electronically these days? Wouldn’t someone hire a hacker, not a safecracker?”
“Then Nick stole something tangible. Maybe blueprints for one or more of their projects stored there?” Savanna suggested, and Griffin once again wanted to hold her delicate hand.
Instead, he set his palm on the small space of leather between them, and when Savanna placed hers there too, pushing her pinkie against his, Griffin bit down on his back teeth to keep himself from slipping his hand over hers.
“Most companies have physical copies stored in a secure location as backup in case of a cyberattack,” Carter noted, and having been CIA at one time, he probably had the most knowledge among them on the subject of the top-secret inner workings of the government. “Maybe Nick’s job was to infiltrate Archer’s Sicily office, take photos, and then get out before anyone noticed. Not to actually remove anything from the site.”
“But clearly, someone noticed. And now, it seems a lot of someones know about it,” Griffin stated the obvious. Every time he thought about multiple people or groups coming after Savanna, his blood pressure spiked. “It appears the Archer Group doesn’t want Uncle Sam to get wind they’ve been compromised, which makes me curious as hell about what Nick has his hands on.”
“Our original theory may still be on point, that the Archer Group is trying to handle this on their own because they don’t want the media to find out they had a breach. Or risk losing future government contracts,” Oliver pointed out.
“Maybe. But from my experience, companies like Archer who have government contracts are required by the Department of Defense to store everything related to those projects in specific government-approved storage vaults,” Carter explained. “And no surprise, those locations don’t show up in a Google search. So that means?—”
“There could be an inside man at the Archer Group, and that’s how Nick was able to access the location in the first place.” Griffin stood, feeling anxious at the news and still not trusting himself to keep his hands off Savanna. The magnetic pull between them was beyond anything he’d ever felt before. He circled the couch to stand behind her and set his palms on the leather. “That could be the real reason the Department of Defense wasn’t notified of a breach. The inside man was expecting Nick’s boss to send someone. But then Nick double-crossed everyone by taking off with the goods. And now they’re not only hunting him down, but someone at Archer is trying to cover their own ass before word gets out about the breach and before whatever was stolen falls into unintended hands.”
“Stands to reason that only the uppermost echelon in the Archer Group would be privy to these vaults,” Carter continued, “so coupled with the fact that a site almost as secure as the Pentagon was infiltrated?—”
“It won’t be hard to identify the traitor,” Savanna interjected in a soft voice, swiveling back to catch his eyes, her long, dark lashes fluttering for a moment, and his stomach dropped at the idea of something happening to her.
“The inside man is trying to control the damage and using Joe and his men for that purpose.” Carter paused as if to mull over another thought. Was he wondering if Joe was also a traitor? “And the others chasing Nick are dying to get their hands on whatever Nick now has.” Carter shook his head and turned to Gray. “Where are we at on Elysium?”
Griffin did his best to keep his attention on Gray rather than the woman who had his heart beating double the norm.
“I haven’t found any Elysium-related chatter,” Gray started, “but since the word means heaven in Greek, what if it was the name of a project the Archer Group worked on relating to something like aerial defense? Satellites, maybe?”
“I hate to say this, but Joe provided that name. What if he was trying to throw us off?” Jack raised the point that Griffin didn’t want to hear.
“ Or it confirms Elysium is something only someone at Archer would know about,” Griffin tossed out his own hopeful idea, needing to cling to the belief he hadn’t taken a bullet for a man who was now a traitor.
“We need to head to the Archer office in Sicily to poke around.” Carter rose from the couch. “See what we can find out. We discussed it on the plane, but I think it’s time we go to your father, Gray.”
“He may be your dad, but as the Secretary of Defense, will he really help us?” Griffin asked, looking at Gray. “Or will he want to take control of the mission once he discovers why we need to gain access to the Archer Group?”
Gray stood and moved around the table as if needing to be on his feet to work through his thoughts. “With the Archer Group’s connection to the Department of Defense, my father might be one of the few people we can trust to help us figure out what the hell was stolen. Once we do that, we can narrow down a list of possible suspects to identify the inside man. There can’t be that many people privy to where top-secret intelligence is stored.”
Good point.
“He may want to assign a different team to look into this, but I’ll do my best to convince him we’re in the best position to handle it,” Gray added.
“I’m going to have another go at these guys we picked up from Jesse’s house while you call your father,” Carter said, his voice gruff, exasperation crawling through his tone. “We were able to track the last location for the eight guys to Rome before Alabama, which was a bit of a surprise since the first three came from Athens. But we confirmed they’re Greek citizens.”
“So, it’s possible their boss is in Rome right now?” Savanna asked as she stood.
“Anything is possible at this point, but my gut is telling me that Nick’s boss may be a middleman, and he planned to fence the intelligence when Nick handed it over,” Carter answered. “There are only a handful of people in Europe I can think of capable of unloading that kind of intelligence without the CIA getting wind of the transaction.”
“I think I know who might be able to help us narrow down that list and fast, especially if this person is Italian or Greek,” Griffin noted, and Carter nodded as if on the same page.
“Who?” Jack and Savanna asked at the same time.
“Emilia Calibrisi,” Carter answered before Griffin had the chance. “She’s an Italian billionaire. Lives in Ireland now, but she’ll have a pulse on any criminal activity in this region, as well as who’d be capable of selling something that valuable without being noticed.”
“Emilia’s actually how we met A.J. and his team.” Griffin wasn’t sure why he’d just offered up that information. Or why he added, “When we kidnapped Jesse’s sister.” But Jesse wasn’t there, so.
“You mean when we rescued Rory.” Carter swung his focus to Savanna, whose mouth was wide open, a look of surprise on her face. “There were pirates involved and well . . .” He was stumbling through his words, which was unusual for the man.
“I take it Jesse doesn’t know about this,” Savanna said, the hint of a smile on her lips. At least she didn’t look mad at Griffin for keeping that not-so-small detail from her.
“We rescued Jesse’s sister essentially by kidnapping her.” Griffin had just begun working with Carter at the time, and it was quite the Welcome to the team. They’d saved Rory and a few others on A.J.’s team from honest-to-God pirates only to discover Rory had been on the hunt for a wildlife trafficking operation. Griffin had been worried his return to civilian life was going to be a boring adjustment, but that first op with Carter’s team proved otherwise.
“Maybe you should have mentioned this to me. You know, like before we went to Jesse’s house in the first place,” Gray said with a grunt at the end of his words.
“It was need to know.” Carter peered at Griffin with a sharp look.
“I can see why you didn’t bring it up to Jesse, though,” Savanna surprised Griffin by saying. “He’d probably?—”
“Go John Wick on my ass?” he asked with a smile. Why am I grinning like a fucking schoolboy right now, especially over this conversation?
Savanna nodded, then gave him a little wink to let him know she happened to be on the same page. Same paragraph. And even the same word on the line as him.
It didn’t matter what they happened to be talking about, the connection they shared seemed to only get stronger. That was a little . . . scary, wasn’t it? But hell, I don’t get scared, do I?
“Okay,” Savanna said a moment later, blinking a few times as if trying to focus her thoughts. “So, are you talking about asking Emilia to find someone who sells items on an online black market? Like an auction?”
Griffin rounded the couch to face her, putting his head back in the game, where it needed to be. On the job. “I would say yes, normally. But in this case, there’d be a digital footprint for that sale. And I’m betting whoever is after such intel wouldn’t want to take that risk. The seller will most likely go old school. Meet in person.”
“What should I do while you’re working? How can I help?” she softly asked, nervously wringing her hands. “Are you hungry? Do you have a chef here? Let me do something.”
“Yes, we have a guy who does the cooking, but he’s running leads for me at the moment. So, if you don’t mind, that’d be great. Thank you. Kitchen is down that hall,” Carter said while pointing. “Hang a left, and it’s the second door. There are a lot of us. You sure you don’t mind?”
She smiled, her dimple appearing. “Not at all. I need to keep my hands, and well, thoughts busy.” Her gaze swept to Griffin once everyone but Gray left the lobby to chase down leads. “What will you do?”
“Actually, I need to have a word with Griffin,” Gray interjected, and Griffin had a pretty damn good idea what that “word” might be.
“I’ll check on you soon.” Griffin lightly squeezed her shoulder and tipped his head toward the hall leading to the kitchen as his way of saying everything would be okay.
“What’s up?” he asked Gray once they were alone.
“Don’t sleep with her. That’s an order.”
Blunt. To the point. Expected even, and yet, it pissed him off.
“Is this you talking as my new team leader, an officer, or just an asshole?” He hadn’t meant to voice his thoughts, but Savanna’s nervous habit of blurting her thoughts had rubbed off on him, so it seemed. Not that he was nervous. But he was tense with so many unconfirmed theories bouncing around and Savanna in the mix.
He was used to hard facts and a plan of action, not so much being part of the intelligence-gathering process. Tell him who to save or where to point his rifle, and he was solid. But throw in a gorgeous woman who was also a widow . . . one he’d had his tongue sliding across her pussy twenty minutes ago, and well, fuck. New territory.
Gray grumbled out, “All of the above. And yeah, if that makes me an asshole, so be it. Better have me pissed at you than A.J. Believe me when I say that. Or hell, Jesse, for that matter.” He shook his head. “Besides, do you really want to break that woman’s heart? I know your reputation. She’s been through enough.”
And he knew that. Understood that. But whenever she was within kissing distance, he seemed to lose his mind and his control.
“I need confirmation from you that you understand me before I can get back to work.” Gray pinned him with a hard look. “She’s an assignment. Not a woman you met at the bar.”
“Says the guy nicknamed Romeo.” And there went his mouth again. “I have no intention of hurting her.” That’s the last thing he’d ever want to do.
“Then I need you to give me your word.”
“So, my word is good enough for you, then?” Griffin asked, still trying to get a feel for his new boss. The guy had bigger balls than Griffin had initially thought when Carter introduced them.
“It sure as hell better be.” Which was as good as Gray saying, Since I may have to take a bullet for you one day, you’d better not be a lying son-of-a-bitch.
Griffin thought back to the pool and Savanna’s arms over his shoulders. To her sweet kisses. The way she moved against him in the water, and gave her body to him completely, without any shyness, as he went down on her. And the promise of tonight . . .
“Roger that,” he finally hissed, hating himself for his response.
Gray demanded he tell the truth, so that meant his words to Savanna by the pool were now a lie. He’d told her she would be the only one able to stop him from taking her into his arms tonight.
Truth be told, he was somewhat relieved Savanna had been declared off-limits.
Because he knew he’d choose her. He seemed incapable of not choosing her.
And then, somehow or in some way, most likely the both of them would get hurt.