Chapter 8
EIGHT
Ash dropped into his seat at the war room table, the chair scraping against the floor with a sound that seemed too loud in the tense silence. His body still hummed with residual energy from last night—the kind that came from finally giving in to something he’d been fighting from the start.
He rolled his shoulders, but it didn’t shake off the distraction. Focus.
If something big wasn’t coming, Con wouldn’t have called them all here. They had intelligence to crack and a mission to plan.
Con stood at the head of the table, arms crossed as he studied the main screen where lines of encrypted code scrolled past in endless streams. Sophie sat to his right, fingers poised over her keyboard while Dante leaned back in his chair, watching the code get interpreted.
“How are you doing that so fast?” Ash broke the silence.
Con gave him a chin lift to acknowledge he heard the question, but he didn’t respond until Sinner, Mason and Steele joined the group, taking their usual positions around the table.
Then Ellory walked in.
Ash’s entire being took notice of her body in dark pants and a fitted blouse, her hair pulled back in a way that should have looked professional but only made him remember the feel of it wrapped around his fist.
She carried her tablet and a coffee mug to a seat between Elin and Dante, but she didn’t look at Ash.
Not even a sideways glance.
His jaw tightened.
Con cleared his throat, drawing everyone to attention. “Let’s get started. Sophie, Dante—you had a breakthrough on the encryption?”
Sophie straightened, her screen mirroring onto the main display. “We did. Dante and I have been working on this for the past forty-eight hours. With Elin’s help, we finally created a program to help crack the codes faster.”
“How?” Steele asked.
Sophie swung her gaze to him. “Without going into full geek mode, I can tell you that thanks to the latest intel, I isolated three main patterns within Cipher’s code.
We created some keys, and Dante coded a program to run all ciphers through those keys.
If they don’t fit, they’re stored in a separate file that I’ve been working on manually.
But…” She waved at the screen, drawing everyone’s focus back to the words popping up there faster than they could read them.
“What was taking Sophie days is now taking hours.” Dante grinned. “We fed it every single piece of intel we have on Cipher and let it run.”
Ash leaned forward, elbows planted on the table, forcing his attention to the screen and away from the woman who was currently nibbling on the stem of her glasses as she listened.
That habit of hers was going to kill him.
Sophie’s words drew his attention to her instead. “We’re close to finding Cipher. Very close.”
“How close?” Steele’s back was rigid as if he was ready to spring up and scramble.
“I’d say within days. Maybe a week.” Con’s statement hit the group like a blast.
Ash watched the data scroll across the screen, his mind already working through tactics. If they found the money and cut the funding, it wouldn’t take long to dismantle Cipher’s network. Cut off the head and burn the rest to ash.
But his focus kept slipping back to the woman shifting in her seat the way she’d squirmed on his cock.
Ellory leaned forward to add something to the quiet discussion between Elin and Dante. Her voice was steady—not at all the rasp he’d heard when he’d made her come.
And she still hadn’t looked at him once. What the hell was that about?
When they parted ways in the darkest hours of night, they both knew what they’d shared was a physical release. But he’d still expected some acknowledgment today—a glance. A nod.
Hell, a flicker of an eyelid.
Instead, she was acting like he didn’t exist.
Like he hadn’t been buried nine inches deep inside her while she shook apart for him.
“What we have for now,” Sophie was saying as she pulled up a new screen, “is a location.”
The room went on high alert.
Con took charge. “It’s a zip code plus four digits.” A map appeared on the screen, and he swung toward it. “An obscure town on the East Coast.”
The map zoomed in on a stretch of coastline Ash didn’t recognize.
“Small town,” Con was saying. “Industrial area near the water.”
Chickie issued a low noise. “Shipping explosives?” He had firsthand experience with Cipher’s method of getting bombs where they’d do the most damage.
“Not yet confirmed. Dante, give me the satellite footage. Let’s narrow down the coordinates.”
Dante complied, and the screen transformed to aerial views that cycled through different times of day. Morning light revealed a cluster of warehouses. Afternoon shadows stretched across parking lots. Dusk painted everything in shades of gray.
Ash studied each frame. Then he saw it at the same time everyone else did. The entire table seemed to strain forward.
“There’s activity there,” he said.
Judging from the lack of urgency in his CO’s reaction, Con already knew what they’d find.
Dante enhanced the image, and thermal signatures bloomed on the screen—faint but unmistakable heat readings inside a building that should’ve been cold and empty.
“That’s our target.” Ash’s tone came out rough.
Con nodded once. “Ellory’s money trail flagged that warehouse this morning. It’s a logistics hub for Cipher’s network.”
He tapped the screen. “We take the men running shipments there, and they lead us up the chain to Cipher.”
Ash felt it then. The prickle of awareness that told him he was being watched. He didn’t need to look to know it was Ellory. Her stare pressed into his skin like a physical touch.
But when he glanced down the table, she’d already returned her focus to the tablet and her glasses were back in place on her pert little nose.
Trouble.
After what they’d done—after the way she’d writhed beneath him, demanded more—and left marks on his back that he’d felt all damn day—he had to wonder if she regretted it. If she was already writing him off.
But hell, he hadn’t gotten the taste of her out of his head. Every other goddamn minute he circled back to the sounds she’d made when he buried his face between her curvy thighs.
“We need to move on this fast.” Con’s statement dragged Ash’s attention to the front of the room. “A team deploys tonight. Before our targets have a chance to relocate.”
The meeting switched to planning mode. Sinner started mapping potential breach points. Mason pulled up weather data for the coast.
Con glanced around the table and called out names of the team of six who would be headed to the coast. He looked straight at Ash when he added his name to the roster.
Ash felt Ellory’s stare on him again, heavier this time. He wanted to look at her—needed to see what was written on her face. Concern? Indifference? The burning desire that was branded on his memory?
But he couldn’t risk glancing at her. Not with the entire team watching. Not when he knew whatever was blazing between them would show on his face the second their gazes collided.
He trained his attention on Con and the screens—anything except the woman at the end of the table whose presence filled every corner of his system with awareness.
Elin uttered a low sound that silenced the room.
“What do you got?” Dante was already leaning over her shoulder to see her screen.
“Intel on the guy from the office in New York. The one Ash took down.”
The man who’d taken aim at Ellory. Who’d known exactly who she was.
His spine stiffened.
“His name is Vance Freeley.” Elin typed fast, and a photo filled the big screen of a man with a buzzcut, dead eyes and the kind of face that blended into crowds.
“That’s him.” Ellory’s tone hooked a place in Ash’s chest.
She still didn’t meet his stare.
Elin went on, “Former military. Dishonorable discharge for conduct unbecoming. He was involved with a small terrorist cell in Oregon that we believe is part of Cipher’s network.”
Oregon.
Ash’s mind closed gaps even before Con made a decision. Blackout Sierra, the team he’d helped recruit eighteen months ago when Blackout was expanding their West Coast presence, operated out of Oregon.
“Oregon?” Ellory’s voice cut through his thoughts like a blade. When he looked up, she was staring directly at him. A ghost of a smile played at the corner of her lips he’d spent far too little time exploring.
It was also the first genuine expression she’d aimed his direction all day.
“Is there another former member of Charlie team in Oregon to pull into this op?” Her question was light and teasing. And it made his balls clench with desire.
“Actually, there’s a Blackout team in Oregon.” He watched something flicker in her intelligent eyes. “I recruited every man on it.”
“Chase, coordinate with Sierra.” Con’s order had Chase reaching for his phone.
The discussion shifted to logistics, like all ops did. Ash contributed where needed, even as his body attuned to Ellory’s every move. She’d gone back to her notes, but he’d seen her lips tighten at mention of the man who’d almost shot her.
When she finally looked up—their gazes met. In that moment, he understood the force of what was between them.
What happened the night before wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.
That had just been the flicker of a flame, and what was coming was an inferno. One he fully intended to throw himself into.
But first, he had a job to do.
* * * * *
Ash’s hands were moving over Ellory’s breasts, and he tweaked her nipples with tormenting little tugs that had her body arching. With a gasp, she twisted her mouth to his and—
A screech of a chair jerked her out of her daydream of the man sitting five chairs away. But ten seconds later, she was again drowning in the memory of his heated mouth working down her body…between her thighs.
I need to focus on something else. Anything else.
Three things I see.
She glanced at the tablet in front of her, numbers dancing in front of her eyes.
Her gaze dropped to her hand, but that wasn’t helpful when she saw her pulse thrumming too fast in her wrist.