16. Nataliya
SIXTEEN
“Are you sure this will work?” Adrian asked. “Having Drake on the phone?”
“Drake needs to know when to take over. It’ll be easier to do that while we have the line open than if I text him,” I said. “Once I’m into the system, he’s going to take over remotely so he can keep an eye on the security cameras and anything else we might need while I break through firewalls.”
Adrian thought it was risky—what if someone detected Drake in the system?—but I did my best to explain that it would be worth it. Having two eyes on the server would let us work twice as fast.
“Besides,” Drake said over the line. His voice sounded tinny and faraway; he had us on speaker. “I’m your in.”
“Okay,” Adrian said. “I get it. I’ll leave the computer stuff to the two of you.”
“I just need you to get near enough to be able to access their Wi-Fi,” Drake said. “Then I can remote-in.”
It meant having to go into the lobby, and that was the part Adrian was worried the most about. We both were. Being recognized by Hayes’s security team was the worst-case scenario. But we had a plan for if that happened. Gabe and Zach were parked in Zach’s car in the same lot. They were the cavalry, and they’d be waiting for any signal that we were in trouble.
Before we got out of the car, Adrian took my hand and squeezed it. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
They were just words, platitudes to calm my nerves, which would normally annoy me. But today, they were exactly what I needed—maybe because I knew how truly he meant them. I clutched his hand in return, took a few breaths. “I’m going to do my very best to get us what we need to bring him down,” I promised.
“Me too!” Drake chimed in over the speaker, making us laugh. It was enough to break the tension, and that helped to get us out of the car.
Adrian held my hand the whole way alongside the building and into the lobby. We were playing tourists who’d gotten lost; it was a common enough thing that happened in cities that it wouldn’t be immediately suspicious.
I stood at Adrian’s side, acting as if I was texting when I was hooking into their Wi-Fi, as he asked the front desk clerk for directions to the Coca-Cola Museum. He smiled and played the charming, if a tad hapless and overwhelmed, boyfriend trying to make our vacation one to remember. He laid it on thick, but not in an unbelievable way. It was honestly impressive; I hadn’t known he was such a good actor.
Drake and I couldn’t speak aloud, so I had to trust that he was doing what he needed to do…and right on cue, the fire alarm started to blare.
People screamed and started for the door, and in the chaos, Adrian dragged me down a hallway. Offices lined the corridor, and thankfully, it didn’t take long before we found one that didn’t have a gigantic glass window in the door where the computer was still on and logged in.
“We’re here,” I said to Drake as Adrian closed the door behind us.
Adrian kept his eyes and ears on the hall as I sat behind the desk. I could have crowed—whoever owned this office left their passwords on sticky notes beneath the keyboard. I was positive that it was against any regulation Hayes would have established, but from the pictures of grown children and a white-haired couple in the frames on the desk, I got the sense that this office belonged to someone older who might not be super keen on technology to begin with. Besides, a company like this probably required password changes all the time, and that could be a pain for anyone to keep up with.
“I’m into the system,” I said to Drake after a moment.
“The building is still emptying,” he responded, keeping an eye on the security cameras. “They probably have to wait for the fire department to show up and have the building checked before they’ll be allowed back inside.”
“How do we stop them from checking here?” I asked, looking up at Adrian.
“I got it,” he said. I didn’t watch what he was doing—my eyes were on the computer screen in front of me—but I heard a splintering thunk. “That’ll give us a few more minutes.”
I nodded, still not looking up. My fingers flew over the keyboard as I dug as deeply as I could into the server. Behind a firewall, I found access to a cloud server. It was password protected, but with a few maneuvers, I cracked it open. My stomach sank when I saw that everything inside was encrypted. On the one hand, that probably meant I’d found the good stuff. On the other hand, I had no idea which stuff would actually be useful to us.
“Shit.”
The alarms shut off. “Fire rescue is in the building,” Drake warned. “You need to be wrapping up.”
“I’m not done.”
“Get what you can. We’ll sort it out later.”
I dug the thumb drive out of my pocket and popped it into the USB port. I wasn’t sure what I was grabbing, exactly, but I saved whatever I could as quickly as I could. The files were large, and I filled the drive. My heart was rabbiting in my chest, and my hands shook as I got the thumb drive ejected and back into my pocket.
“Can you wipe what you’ve done?” Adrian asked. “Will his tech guys know that someone’s been here?”
“Fire rescue has cleared the building. People are going to start coming back in,” Drake said, and my pulse pounded in my ears.
“I don’t have time,” I told Adrian. “I can make it so this person doesn’t know, but anyone who knows what they’re doing will know these files have been copied.”
It wasn’t what he wanted to hear. He swore. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “We’ll deal with it later. We need to get out of here.”
I closed everything I’d opened and left the computer on the screen it had been on when we came into the office. Coming back around the desk, my knees felt weak. My mouth filled with saliva. Do. Not. Throw. Up. I told myself. “Adrian?—”
My voice must have given away just how much I was struggling because he bundled me into his arms. “You did amazing,” he murmured into my hair. “Just hold on a little longer, okay? We’ll get out of here.”
I nodded against his neck, breathing him in for a second. “Okay,” I said. “Get us out of here.”
“The hallway is clear for now,” Drake said. “The lobby is going to be a problem.”
“Send in Gabe and Zach,” Adrian said.
“Will do.” Drake hung up, and the silence in his wake was deafening.
“Just follow my lead, okay? That’s all you have to do.”
“But what about?—?”
“Gabe and Zach know what to do,” Adrian assured me.
Adrian opened the door, putting a little muscle into it since he’d wedged it closed, and then we were out in the hallway. He pushed me behind him, blocking me with his body. There were noises from all around, but Adrian navigated us back toward the lobby. Even with my blocked view, I could see that we wouldn’t be able to slip away unnoticed.
Panic rose in my chest. “Stay calm,” Adrian murmured to me.
After a moment of holding my breath to keep from hyperventilating, I saw Gabe and Zach rush into the building. “Someone help us!” Gabe hollered, sounding genuinely panicked.
It was enough to catch the attention of everyone in the lobby—which included the fire rescue team and some police officers along with men in suits who I had to assume were part of the building’s security. Everyone rushed to provide whatever aid Gabe and Zach concocted, and while they were distracted, Adrian led us around the crowd and out the door.
Our feet hit the sidewalk, and Adrian linked our hands, forcing me to slow down. “Don’t run,” he said. “Act like nothing happened.”
I nodded, and despite the blood rushing in my ears, I kept my step light, natural. Somehow, just walking back to the car felt like a minefield. Like any wrong move could be the last one I’d ever make. We climbed into the car, and even with the doors shut and locked, I sat ramrod straight.
Adrian pulled out of the parking spot and turned out onto the road. I knew we weren’t going back to the same motel. Instead, we were going farther into Atlanta to a hotel that was a big step up from the motel outside of the city. “I want somewhere that’s full of people,” Adrian said the night before as he’d made the reservation. “Somewhere Hayes couldn’t send a big show of force without drawing too much attention to himself.”
It was a good plan: Gabe and Zach had their own room at the same hotel, and they would be joining us as soon as they could safely. Until then, it was just me and Adrian in a room with a nice view of the city and a big bed.
A big, singular bed.
“We won’t be here too long,” Adrian reasoned as we came through the door. “Just one night.”
“Sure,” I said. The word wheezed from my throat. The single bed didn’t bother me…but everything else did. There was still that panic from before rattling through my bones, and I didn’t know what to do about it. “Is this how it feels?” I asked. “After a mission?”
“Like what?”
I turned to look at him, and there was tension written on his face, in his body, and I shivered. “Like I’m going to fall apart,” I said. “Or fly. Or…something.”
Adrian nodded. “It’s adrenaline,” he said and took a step toward me. “And yes, that’s normal after a mission. You’ll calm down soon.”
I didn’t believe him. “I don’t like it,” I said. It was like my skin was too small for my body. “I need—” My eyes caught on his, and all of that buzzing rushed south, pulling my lower stomach tight.
Adrian’s eyes were dark. “What do you need, sweetheart?” he asked.
“You,” I whispered. “Please.”
He took two steps to me, and then I was in his arms, his mouth on mine. Shocks ran through my nerves; I had never enjoyed kissing anyone like I did Adrian. He licked into my mouth and walked me back toward the bed.
I ended up on my back with Adrian between my thighs. His hand slid down my jeans; he shifted my panties to the side and pressed a finger inside me. He groaned. “You’re so wet, sweetheart,” he said and kissed me again.
I moaned into his mouth as pleasure thrummed through me. “Adrian.” He circled my clit with his thumb, and I cried out, lost to desire and the overwhelming need that welled up within me. I clutched at him. “I need?—”
“I know,” he murmured. “But I want you to come apart on my fingers first, all right? Do that, and then you can have me.”
He stroked his thumb over me again and again until I was shivering and moaning as I soared over the edge. I kissed him, pushing him back slightly until he rolled onto his back. I kicked my jeans off the rest of the way, getting rid of my panties along with them, and straddled his hips. “Now, you,” I said, leaning over to kiss him.
Adrian swallowed, nodding. “Yeah.” I unzipped his jeans and tugged them down. When I wrapped my hand around him to position him, however, he stopped me. “I don’t have anything this time.”
“I have an implant,” I said. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you last time. And I’m clean. Are you?”
When he nodded, I lifted myself up and slid down onto him, breath hitching in my throat. Adrian groaned, eyes hazy as he watched me. “You feel incredible.”
I began to move, rolling my hips into his, and Adrian’s breath grew heavy, hands holding my waist. I was anchored here, in his hands, our bodies joined in the most intimate way possible. “Oh,” I sighed, shivering. “Oh, God—!” Pleasure wound itself tight in my belly, and I tried to move with it, go faster, but it wasn’t enough. I whined, and Adrian wrapped me in his arms and rolled us so that my back was against the mattress.
He thrusted against me, moving harder and faster and better than I could do on my own, and I clutched at his shoulders, gasping at the delicious heat that filled my belly. “Please,” I murmured, kissing his lips, down his chin, his throat. “Please, please.”
Adrian kissed me, shushing me softly. His hips slowed, though they didn’t stop, and there was something about the deep fullness of him inside me that made that heat coiling along my spine stoke all the hotter. “Easy, sweetheart. I’ll get you there.” He wrapped a hand around my thigh, brought it up over his hip so that the angle changed slightly, and I was suddenly on a hair trigger. “Come for me,” he murmured. That’s all it took. I fell apart in his arms, and Adrian held me through it, riding out his own pleasure.
We lay there afterward, holding one another, but then the cell phone in my jeans began to ring.