Chapter 3
BERNADETTE CRENSHAW
Shit.
If I could go back in time and kick my own ass, I would. It must have been the blow to the head, or trauma from being kidnapped, but the first thing coming to my mind when seeing Frank Stein was not remorse from hacking his company.
How did he find out when I didn’t take anything? I barely even looked at the one file I opened.
I clear my expression and paste a contrite smile on my face. Heat spreads up my chest and neck followed by a cold sweat as I try and fail to come up with a response to what I now realize is coming. I am so screwed.
The hateful expression on his face has dread coursing through me on a wave, but it’s the venom in his eyes, saying loud and clear, this man has no softness to him.
Normally that would be a major turn on, but when faced with abduction and how this dude’s eyes say he wants to kill me, it’s a bit of a lady boner killer.
“Probably because I’ve been kidnapped, and I’m being held under duress?” I murmur under my breath in the most pacifying voice I can muster.
The giant man smirks. “You hacked my company, and as a result valuables were taken from me. I want to know who you work for, and once I find them, I will decide whether to allow them to continue to do business. We can discuss how long you’re being held under duress once you set what you did back to rights. ”
A frown pulls at my brows. I didn’t take anything, and I don’t work for anyone, he must have the wrong person. “Listen I don’t know what you think I did, but you’ve got the wrong gal. I don’t work for anyone.”
Sure, I hacked your company, which is fucked up.
But then again, I still have no idea why I was brought here since I encrypted what files I did find, but it wasn’t anything worthy of kidnapping.
Short of gathering the list of his shareholders, which is on public record anyway, I don’t know much about him.
Other than he is way hotter in person, I thought he was maybe only good looking on TV. Frank Stein can get it.
“So, you didn’t hack my company?” he asks, his steely gray eyes staring into me as if he’s trying to see into my soul.
I look away, unable to hold his stare as guilt eats at my insides. Crap.
“Look at me,” he says, his voice calm and cold.
I meet his gaze and I’m certain that without being a product of Lady Theodosa Crenshaw, who had one of the meanest stares I’ve ever encountered, I would be begging for my life after glimpsing Frank Stein’s mad face.
God, he’s hot.
“Tell me you didn’t hack into my company, Miss Crenshaw, and you’re free to go.”
I lick my lips, and he tracks the movement with his gaze, sending my stomach somersaulting.
Oh, fuck me. No one should be allowed to be this handsome. His size and overall demeanor are having the opposite effect he wants because I’m pretty sure Frank would rather me quaking in my boots instead of my lady bits tingling.
“I didn’t exactly hack your company—sir,” I toss in for good measure, and his nostrils flare. Oh my.
He takes a purposeful step around his desk toward me, and my chin goes up, and up, as he moves closer. Oh my god, he’s huge, easily the tallest man I’ve ever laid eyes on. My gaze lands on his massive fists balled at his side and a nervous flutter roll through my middle. He’s a very big boy.
I can make out the gunmetal gray of his eyes as he gets closer, and how clear and flawless his skin is, like cut from marble. His skin tone is pale, as if he never gets any sun and now that I think on it, never once in any of his posts did I ever see him on the beach.
A majority of his media posts are related to his interests, like a new aquarium he created for the dolphins and penguins misplaced by the recently-melted iceberg.
He has been the secret wet dream of almost every woman I know in Atlanta, and if everyone else knows about this guy’s animal magnetism, they would understand why, because just his nearness sends desire flooding through me.
“Tell me then, how does one not exactly hack into my corporation?” he stops just before being close enough for me to reach out and touch him, and my heart gallops in my chest so fast I begin to shake.
I fight the urge to wring my hands and glance around, my gaze catching on the comfortable looking chairs I wish someone would ask me to sit in.
Maybe then the way my legs are shaking won’t be so noticeable.
“I don’t know. I didn’t really try to gain full access to it, and what I did find was encrypted.
Trust me when I say, I did not take the time to delve into any of Talbot’s files, and I’ve no idea what you’re even talking about.
I definitely didn’t take any money, and there was nothing important that I saw.
I swear to you I didn’t mean any harm,” I say truthfully, not liking how the twins are back to blocking me in.
“You didn’t mean any harm?” he asks coldly.
“No, I didn’t, I—just wanted—” I start to say, but have no idea what to say to get me off this hook. Think Bernie, think.
I avoid his gaze as nervousness eats at me, unwilling to divulge that I was only looking into his company because my best friend slept with a vampire, and I found his name in Talbot’s database.
“Look at me,” he says, and then he snaps his fingers in front of my face.
A gasp of outrage leaves my lips as my hand raises to slap the absolute shit out of him. Whack. The sound ricochets around the room, and my hair raises at how the shallow sounds of my heavy breathing thunders in my ears.
Oh my god, I’ve lost my mind.
I just slapped Frank Stein, after I hacked his company two months ago. He snapped his fingers in my face like I was a dog.
Whatever was left of my brain must have left the building when he did that. Maybe it was the kidnapping, or being scared entirely shitless, but I just reacted and now he’s staring down at me like a big goliath, extremely large and intimidating.
An involuntary shiver rolls over me when his gray gaze passes over me and clearly finds me lacking.
“Take Miss Crenshaw to her rooms. Some time to compose herself may do her some good. I’ll send for her when I have need of her later,” he says, nodding at his goons.
“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean? I’m not just some dog you can summon you know. I didn’t do anything,” I blurt, unable to keep my mouth shut.
He glares, his gaze cold and unyielding, and I decide against arguing.
Shit.
The meatheads tug me away, and my brows come together on my forehead as I try to figure out what just happened and why do I feel bad, when I’m the one that got abducted, knocked out and cuffed, and brought to another city. Frank Stein is a complete asshole.
FRANK N. STEIN
“Tell me exactly what happened,” I grate out, attempting to keep the rage coursing through me from impacting my powers. The last thing I need is a rolling blackout because one insignificant human decided she wanted to play with her own existence.
Mikael raises a brow at me from across the desk of his office a few floors below mine, the whole floor dedicated to his handpicked cybersecurity team. I glance at the logo on the small pin attached to the pocket of his suit.
“After locating the human’s computer, we were able to decipher how Pelican Group got ahold of the shipment.
The hacks bypassed our defenses because they were done simultaneously.
My best guess is that the Pelican’s security team were waiting for such a thing to happen.
When Miss Crenshaw attempted to infiltrate Talbot, they stepped in behind her with us none the wiser. ”
“How?”
Mikael’s thick brows push into a frown, the blue of the screen overtakes his face as he types faster. “They used her as a shield essentially and got inside, then covered their tracks well. We weren’t able to see it without her credentials.”
“Where are they holding it?” I ask, it being the moonflower formula, unsure how such a thing could have occurred. But the important information is where it's being held now.
The last two months have been one disaster followed swiftly by another, to where my task force is scattered, putting out fires as they arise because of human greed and stupidity.
Talbot Corp operates at the level it does because of the strength and tenacity of the ghouls, but in recent times, the supernatural are restless, seeing humans as docile, and not what they are in truth.
It pits the supernatural factions against one another when the humans idiotically decide to attempt to take what doesn’t belong to them. If it weren’t for the ever-increasing use of technology and covert groups arising from times of catastrophe, this would never be an issue.
Just last week, an explosion was placed outside one of Talbot’s new surgical facilities.
The irony is that ghouls are self-healing and practically immortal.
So indestructible, the only way to incapacitate one is to remove its head, and the building attack only served to wound and injure the human population at work near the premise.
Another blunder instigated by Pelican Group, I’m sure. The greed of humans knows no bounds.
“We already have an extraction team in place, but it’s clear by what notes we discovered when counterattacking their security, they’re wanting to administer it to humans.”
Which means we are running out of time. If the humans take the concoction themselves, they’ll be turned ghoul, and worse.
“Find it,” I bite out, unwilling to accept that a handful of idiotic humans have caused so much chaos.
“She got into our security easily. She could do the same to Pelican,” Mikael says.
“No. I don’t want a human here.”
“She may be the only way,” the hardened ghoul who has been by my side since before erecting my empire says, catching my attention with his brown gaze.
Fucking humans.