Chapter 5
FIVE
The Accountant.
Not an accountant or even the accountant.
Ash was pretty goddamn certain Ellory’s job description came with capital letters.
As they entered the mansion, she drew her shoulders back and lengthened her strides like she had an agenda.
He took note of the change the way he’d taken note of her breakdown after the shooting. He noticed everything about her…including the fact that kiss had changed them too.
As they progressed down the hallway to the war room, doors opened and people stepped out to watch them pass.
“Ash. You good?” Sinner called from the kitchen.
“All green.” His words meant they were functioning normally, but he wasn’t so sure it applied to the woman walking a step ahead of him.
Steele stepped out of Con’s office. “Con says he’ll be with you two in ten minutes.”
“Copy.”
Steele faded back into the office, and in one step, Ash placed himself in Ellory’s path. She almost barreled into him. Her hair swung forward as she jerked to a stop, and her hand hovered over his chest like it needed a place to land.
He curled his fingers around her elbow, steadying her. Leaning in, he searched her face. “Are you okay?”
“Of course.” She started to pull away, to move around him, but he held her firm, forcing her gaze back to his.
“This is my job, Ash.”
He studied her for another heartbeat, then let her go. She stepped around him and entered the war room.
He hesitated for a moment before following her. Sophie and Opal were poring over documents spread across the table, and they looked up as Ellory entered. Sophie let out a small noise and rushed toward her.
“We heard.” Sophie shifted her attention from Ellory to Ash. “Thank god you’re both okay!”
He gave her a brief nod. “Con will be here in ten for the debriefing.”
He felt more than saw Ellory turn her head ever so slightly like she was just as aware of him now that he’d pinned her to that wall and stolen a kiss.
He circled the table, watching her from the corner of his eye to make sure she didn’t crumble. But she was speaking in calm tones to Sophie and Opal with no indication at all that she’d clung to his arm like a life raft back in the van.
He stared at the maps of Cipher’s holdings still plastered over the big screens, but he’d already memorized the locations. Instead, he tuned in to the rise and fall of Ellory’s voice as she conveyed what she’d seen on that computer.
“You don’t have to dive into the data right now.” The concern in Sophie’s tone had Ash’s own instinct to protect rising sharply. “Take a minute to regroup. I can get you some coffee, or water. Something to eat.”
“I’m fine.”
“Everything that just happened—” Sophie tried again.
Ellory cut across her. “Is over. I’m ready to work.”
Sophie locked eyes with Ash. Understanding passed between them. They both knew Ellory wasn’t okay, but work was her norm, and she needed that right now.
Accepting that she wasn’t getting anywhere with her argument, Sophie drifted over to the laptop. “Let’s have a look.”
Ellory slipped into a seat with the grace of a queen settling in front of her subjects.
He studied her for a long heartbeat, noting how pale she was despite her composure on the surface, before lifting his gaze to Opal.
She was watching him.
In slow steps, he rounded the table, and she met him near the door. He pitched his voice low. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
In unspoken agreement, he walked out of the war room and Opal kept pace. He stopped at a room filled with equipment and pushed open the door. “In here.”
Once they were inside the dim room, he turned to Opal. “I need more on Ellory.”
Her expression was serious, and the small crease between her brows that had never left her entire first month on base, returned. Then she nodded, and her expression cleared like a storm cloud blown away by a warmer breeze.
“Ellory is brilliant. She sees things no one else does. Her brain…” She shook her head. “All I can say is whoa. I’m sure you discovered how amazing she is.”
“I figured all that out. Opal—”
She went on, gushing over the woman who had as much mystery surrounding her as Opal herself did. While the team now knew Opal’s origins, Ellory was still an enigma. “I’ve never seen a harder worker. When we worked a case, I swear she never slept.”
“Is Ellory part of Project Lazarus, like you and Sinner?”
A quizzical look passed over her face. “It’s not out of the question, but I’d be really surprised.
She doesn’t have training the way Sinner and I do.
What she has is natural talent. Her abilities with numbers and patterns is insane.
When we worked on that case, a bunch of people involved gathered in the room just to see her in action.
And men? They love watching her, period. ”
He made a sound in his throat that was too grating to not be a growl.
“But she’s oblivious to it,” Opal went on.
That tripped him up. “What do you mean oblivious?”
“My jackass handler was drooling all over her, and I offered to punch him for her. She wasn’t even aware of his interest.”
“How is that possible?”
Opal smiled. “Brothers. All older brothers. She told me once she’s the youngest. Also, here’s something else you need to know, Ash. She’s really by the book, and she never backs down.” She folded her arms and cocked her head to study him. “Now…it’s time for you to tell me what you think of Ellory.”
She’s smart and sexy and she’s driving me crazy.
And I want to taste her again.
“We only have six more minutes until debriefing.”
She leveled him with a sharp look that would make weaker men whimper. “What…about…you?” she pushed.
“What about me?”
“Don’t play games with me, Angelo Ash.”
His lips twitched. “Wow. My government name. I’m in big trouble now.”
Opal’s lips curved into a smile that was far too knowing for his peace of mind.
“I talked to Sinner about you. He told me you were a recruiter who couldn’t fill the vacant spot on Charlie.
When Denver left, you tried to get his brother Theo to fill his place.
But that fell through…and you took the spot instead. ”
He shrugged, but it didn’t alleviate the knot of tension sitting between his shoulder blades. “It made sense. I couldn’t leave the guys light.”
“Right.” She bobbed her head in mock agreement, her black eyes glinting with understanding he hoped like hell she was wrong about. “I think you joined Blackout because you wanted to be dead.”
The air stopped moving in his lungs.
She wasn’t just guessing—she was peeling layers back faster than he liked.
“So…be dead to the world, Ash. But you better not be dead to this team.”
He didn’t know how to react to that. “You’re the one pulling people together now? Not long ago, anybody who tried to get close to you risked getting a black eye.”
Opal chuckled. “Must be Sinner’s influence on me. Blame him.”
“I will. Are we finished?” He feared nothing—yet every instinct told him to put distance between himself and the hundred-pound woman who saw far too much.
As if sensing this, she blocked his escape route. “You hold everyone at arm’s length, and the whole team knows that’s my job. And even I’m more involved.”
Staring down at her, he heard the echo of Sinner’s words interwoven with hers. It was apparent that they’d discussed Ash distancing himself from the team.
That knot spread from his shoulders to his ribcage. “I hear you, Opal.”
Before he gave her another opening, he strode out of the surveillance room and continued past the war room without even glancing in to see how Ellory was holding up.
Opal might have only given him a few tidbits about her, but she’d dumped a hell of a lot more on him than facts.
He didn’t just have food for thought—he had a whole goddamn banquet.
He wasn’t hungry for knowledge about the woman who was taking up too much space in his head.
He wanted a taste of her sweet lips instead.
* * * * *
Ellory had built her career on flying under the radar. When the debrief began, she understood that invisibility was gone.
The way the entire Blackout team was gawking at her made her feel like she was in high school again, standing against the gymnasium wall, the last to be picked for a team.
Con stood in front of the screens, expression carved in stone. But inside, she was a wreck waiting for what came next.
He didn’t need to point out the footage from Ash’s body cam—they’d all see the moment go down in 4K HD.
The moment when the guy burst through the door and aimed a gun at her. And she did nothing.
She twisted her fingers together under the table, forcing her expression into a neutral one that anyone looking on—namely Angelo Ash—would have no reason to question.
The camera was angled at the office door. Though there was no sound, she knew right about now was when she and Ash would hear the key in the lock.
The camera shifted angles as Ash swung toward her. She saw herself, as she looked to Ash, shock crossing her face before his big hand filled the frame, urging her back.
The door opened. The man entered.
Her lungs were scorched from holding her breath so long, and she let it out in a controlled rush.
Dante replayed the moment in slow motion. The man’s mouth moved, but again, there was no audio. Then Dante isolated the clip and enhanced the sound.
“The Accountant.”
The words seemed to resonate around the war room, as loud as any bomb blast. Hot stares pierced her like shrapnel.
She didn’t breathe as the footage froze on the man’s face, and for a second she imagined she recognized him—some case, some deposition room—but the image yielded nothing. She’d never seen him before.
She felt it before she looked up.
Ash’s stare.
It pressed against the side of her face like heat from a nearby flame.
Mason leaned forward in his chair. “How does he know you?”
Ellory forced her hands to remain still in her lap. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen him.”
Ash’s voice cut across the table. “I’m certain it wasn’t her LinkedIn profile.”