Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
KENSINGTON, TEXAS
Saratoga Springs, N.Y., CEO Leanne Miles has released an official press announcement. She and her husband are expecting their first child.
—Castor News Room
Getting on the plane to leave Fallon was the last thing I wanted to do. I know she was reluctant to leave me at the Charleston airport if the amount of time she spent kissing me at TSA was any indication. But we both needed to return to work today—particularly after Fallon admitted to missing being in the office because her mother was unwell these past few weeks. I make a mental note to send Helen some flowers after I get off the conference call from hell.
Mondays can suck it.
“Whose idea was it to schedule this dumpster fire for first thing in the morning?” I demand.
Sam Aiken snorts with his typical good humor. “Be grateful it wasn’t earlier. Q?za’s normally up as early as Thorn.” Sam casually drops Agency’s director Parker Thornton’s nickname as the two have been friends for over twenty years.
I shudder. “There’s something wrong with the lot of you people.”
The woman in question snarks from behind her privacy screen, “If you were growing a small human who uses your bladder as a timpani drum, you’d say to hell with it and work too, Whiskey .”
Hearing my Agency code name fall from her lips feels unusual. When I remark on that, she retorts sweetly, “Oh, my bad. Was it supposed to be some sort of secret?”
“I mean, who the hell cares about a little thing like the National Security systems that have to be hacked into.”
Cheerfully, Q?za switches to video. She’s obscured in shadow, but my brows draw together as I study her. It was meant to distract me and it’s working. “Tell me about it. When I hacked—” A sharp cough from Sam has her selecting different words. “I mean, when I ‘accessed’ the DoD database to find out more information about my husband, I never would have believed I could be both dead and my clearance still active.”
My jaw’s on the floor, but I manage to push out a rough, “Pardon me? What were you doing looking up your husband?”
She twists to the side and actively ignores my question.
It’s Sam who gives me the answer. “ Q?za was involved with a different op where she met her husband.”
Patiently, as if she’s talking to two-year-olds instead of men who deal with the ramifications of cyber hunting every day, she reminds Sam, “I’d met him before.”
“Yes, but he thought you were?—”
Just then, Thorn joins the call. He interrupts smoothly. “Someone else.”
Her husky laugh comes out. Then she kisses her fingers and raises them to the sky in benediction and thanks. She whispers something but at the end I hear, “Right, Lee?”
Lee? Who the hell is Lee?
My identity, which is supposed to be concealed behind my code name and a million safeguards, but I suspect the intrepid Q?za knows good and well who I am. When I say as much, both Sam and Thorn respond with a shrug. Still, I’m irritated I can’t piece together who Q?za is. My voice is petulant when I demand, “Why can’t I be in the cool kids club and know who she is?”
It’s Sam who is the most political. “Information about Q?za is need to know.”
Thorn mutters, “Besides, nobody shares information with Q?za . She ferrets it out all on her own, whether you want her to know or not.”
Q?za simpers. “Oh, Thorn. A compliment. Let me mark the time and date.”
He chuckles. “I should have left you for dead.”
Dead? Wait, that wasn’t a joke?
“Just think of all the fun you and I have had over the years,” she retorts.
“Fun?” Thorn roars before he hisses, “I almost lost my job because of you.”
“Keyword being almost.”
“I had to do paperwork,” Thorn’s voice is nothing less than disgusted.
“For what? A week?” she retorts.
Sam mutters, “Here we go.”
“Am I going to need some popcorn?” I ask the older man.
“Possibly.”
I’m stunned when Q?za and Thorn bicker back and forth like siblings. Remaining mute, I pick up keywords like singing, tabloid, and shot. Then Q?za brings me directly into the conversation. “I do owe you an apology, Agent Kensington.”
“For what? And while we’re speaking of it, I’m not an agent any longer.”
Q?za singsongs, “That’s not what your file says.”
Thorn’s cheeks flush when I glare at him. She snickers. “I, myself, tried to tell Thorn that years ago. Look where we are at right now. Together.”
I growl, refusing to cede anything. “What’s the apology for?”
She hits a button and the blur of her features disappears. I find myself face to face with a familiar one—a pain-in-the-ass business partner I bitched about to Sam what feels like yesterday. My mouth manages to push out her name. “Leanne?”
“Surprised?” Leanne Miles wiggles her fingers at me.
“That’s a bit of an understatement.” My head spinning, I ask one question, “How?”
Before I can formulate a reply, she sweeps my feet out from under me. “Sorry I left such a mess for you in Silverthorn. I couldn’t keep my cover and stay.” Her eyes flood with tears. “There were reasons I had to leave quickly.”
The “mess” being after she was attacked during her identical twin’s funeral—the famous musician Erzulie. It was a funeral the world thought was hers—famed CEO Leanne Miles, owner of the US government contractor, Castor. It shook the market for weeks until a successor was named and even then, until Leanne came out of hiding and took back her company, Castor felt the impact of the repeated attempts on her life.
Thorn butts in. “Now that we all know who each other is, can we get down to business?”
Leanne’s dramatic sigh is amusing. “Still working on those people skills, I see?” She shifts in her chair and I notice her body is ripe with pregnancy.
It immediately makes me wonder what it would be like if Fallon fell pregnant with my child. My dick becomes iron hard in an instant at the idea of her body swollen with our combined seed, her nurturing our son or daughter against her luscious breasts.
While I’m dreaming of a future, I need to be focused on the present. Leanne’s switched from picking on Thorn to the reason the four of us are on a secure compartmentalized call being bounced off a satellite. “Here’s the problem.” She explains that when she was in hiding from the death threat against her own life, she’d been hunting day in and day out. For five months, she did nothing but eat, sleep, and breathe, the threat against her while trying to protect her now husband.
The irony of her placing herself in harm’s way to protect her husband when he’s a trained bodyguard isn’t lost on me and I don’t hesitate to say as much. She offers me a wry smile. “He had several things to say on the subject when I took a bullet for setting off the failsafe inside of Dioscuri.” Leanne names software her company built specifically for the Agency that’s host to some of the highest classified information in the world.
A snort escapes my lips, causing hers to curve upward. “I just bet he did.” I suspect her “recovery” from that stunt was closely monitored by her then boyfriend—who happens to head my brother-in-law’s personal protection detail.
Small world.
The humor leaves Leanne’s face as she caresses her stomach. Her thoughts are more musings. “Do you know how Kane and I got together, Ethan?”
“Other than you impersonating your sister to draw out her killer?” That part was widely reported in every media outlet across the globe.
“Hmm. That’s the public version.” Across my screen comes a request to join a chat in a part of the dark web that won’t leave a trace of our conversation when it’s over. Leanne winks at me. “Meet you there.”
Then she’s gone. Sam and Thorn follow. I click the link and find I’m the last to join. As soon as I do, I find the background behind Leanne has shifted. No more smoke and mirrors, she’s clearly framed behind her desk at the New York City branch of her multi-billion dollar company, Castor. Musing, she shares, “I’ve never been satisfied Linus Messina was solely behind the attack against me.”
A pin could drop before Thorn thunders, “And you didn’t think to share that with me before now?”
She shrugs, fearless in the face of his temper. “All I had were suspicions, Thorn. I’ve been monitoring them…”
“Not through Dioscuri or I’d have known,” he cuts in.
“No. Through another piece of software I’ve been tinkling with.”
It doesn’t take a genius to observe Thorn alternately wants to throttle her for not keeping him in the loop while at the same time bombard her with questions about the new software she’s building. But it’s her words that shake us all because of their truth. “Your predecessor never would have accepted either of us back if someone still wanted me dead.”
The scandal surrounding Leanne’s involvement in her sister’s murder was contained due to a lack of police investigation and family grief. However, she’s right. If the Agency was caught continuing to operate an op on US soil without sanction, all bets would have been off. It would have set off a series of internal investigations that would have sent whomever was after Leanne underground—more than they already were.
In other words, despite living, she’s been doing it with one eye over her shoulder. There’s never really been closure on who hired the hit on her in the past. I jump in as devastation falls across Thorn’s face. “Does your husband know?”
She nods. “We don’t keep secrets from one another.”
Sam clears his throat. “Tell us everything, Lee.”
Leanne lays out exactly what she was investigating in the months she was in hiding—the money transactions both on and off shore. The people involved. How she survived. As she details how she endured, I couldn’t quite reconcile the businesswoman with the agent. Now, I’m irritated with myself for missing it. I don’t beat around the bush. “I’m in. What do you need?”
“Why, Ethan, I’m so glad you asked.” Leanne sketches out some initial thoughts about how to eliminate who might be hunting her. Sam and I debate the merits of which areas of the dark web we each will wallow in.
Much to my surprise, it involves a phone sex business based in North Carolina. “You’re kidding. Those still exist?”
Sam chuckles. “Internet porn just isn’t good enough for some people. They like a live voice.”
Thorn names the amount this business rakes in and we each whistle. “More than just a few people like this business. Q?za already determined most of their clientele is from overseas.”
Leanne confirms, “Someone on the inside isn’t just laundering the money; they’re dry cleaning it and wrapping it up with a pretty bow.”
I question, “You can’t get in deeper?”
“Not on my own.”
“You won’t have to,” I assure her decisively not just because of the fact she’s been a colleague but because of the fact the company in question is based in Seven Virtues.
And I’ll do anything to protect my Fallon.