21. Smith
Chapter 21
Smith
M y place in Miami is luxurious and run by dedicated staff who keep it ready to go at a drop of the proverbial fucking hat.
There’s an office. One that’s got class and is locked down like Fort Knox since it’s the only place where my computers and guns are kept.
My fellow Knights also use my place on occasion if they need a Miami base. But right now, those Knights who have business here have hotels or are staying elsewhere. So it’s a perfect high-rise slice of luxury where once inside, Calista will have no way out. At all.
I pour a drink, offering her one. She shakes her head, perching on one of the stools in the gleaming open-plan kitchen.
I lean against the counter, glad the marble and stone island is between us.
Because what I really want is to hunt her down in the penthouse. Honestly, it wouldn’t be much of a hunt, but I’ve already caught her once tonight. Anything else would be a bonus.
I stare down at the amber liquid as she pulls off the wig and dumps it on the island.
She looks her age when she’s not wearing it. Her natural hair brings her down into her truth of experience level. Who she should be with. And that ain’t me.
With the wig, she gains a whiff of femme fatale, a woman with a load of experience, and if I don’t think too hard, one who could be between late twenties and early thirties.
It doesn’t add years to her.
Just the illusion of a lived-in life instead of a very smart girl handpicked by the CIA for her hacking skills.
Skills that tell me she spends most of her time behind a computer.
Looking her age makes my guilt rise.
What it doesn’t do is squash the need for her again. The desire to own, claim, fuck her every which way.
“I thought we weren’t finished.” She goes pink in the cheeks, but her chin rises defiantly. “You said we were going to finish and then talk.”
Oh yeah, I said that. I really am a sleazy fuck.
She gestures, crossing her legs, showing me a whole lot of sleek, slender thigh. Knowing she’s naked under the dress, all it would take is me walking over to her and pulling the tie to let it fall open.
She could take it off, too.
Fuck. I run a hand over my face. Because yeah, I really want to strip her down. Worse, I want her to do it for me.
“I changed my mind.”
“What do you want to know? I told you what I have, which is nothing. At least from what I could decipher. Just encrypted, and I mean really encrypted files I haven’ t had a chance to try and break into. Stuff I collected for Johnny, things he had stored.”
Johnny, her field agent. I frown. “For him?”
“He was out with an outlier group that wanted to make money selling weapons. The CIA was trying to find out who ran it and if they had any of the weapon blueprints. Small parts of them kept showing up on the radar.”
She’s very clever. I take a swallow of my drink. The small snippets are truth, and maybe the rest is too. But she foreshadowed that information by telling me she hasn’t yet cracked into anything substantial.
Calista’s given me nothing.
I look down into my glass for a long minute and nod. “If I said this could save your brother?”
I’m still looking down, but I can see her from my periphery. Her head shoots up and she turns almost green, that shade that comes from being nearly sick and so full of absolute fear, it’s debilitating.
I’ve seen it in others before.
When we were in Cuba and those fucking animals I killed touched her, she was angry, scared, defiant. Full of hate.
But my words right here are the things that threaten to bring her to her knees.
“If—if he is killed and you’re behind it, I’ll kill you.”
“He’s been watched by the CIA, Calista. What do you think, person of fucking interest?”
“That I need to get the fuck out of here and find my brother.”
I shake my head and take another swallow, straightening up and crossing to the island, setting my glass down with a click. “You’re trained but you can’t take them on. I might not be able to keep you from their reach, but we can hold it off, and I can make sure your brother doesn’t go down, too. If you tell me what you know, what you really know.”
“You mean, work with you?”
My phone buzzes but I ignore it. Whoever it is—and it’ll be a Knight—can wait. It’s the phone Jones gave me.
“I’m trying to help.”
Calista looks at me. “I know. I’m just not sure if it’s me or yourself.”
“The greater good?”
“Do you even know what that is?”
“Calista.”
She sighs and slides off her stool. Then she comes around the island to grab the bottle and drink straight from it. “I told you. Johnny disappeared and said he was onto something just before that, a way of letting me know not to report him missing if that happened. Not immediately, anyway.”
“When he didn’t show, I started poking around, putting together more information from areas I shouldn’t have been in.” She lifts her head. “I hid what I found but I haven’t looked at much. And I can’t make heads or tails out of some of it. Blueprints, coded notes.” She shrugs. “And I… I also took them after the generic threats came in. That’s all.”
I push a hand through my hair, then shrug off my jacket. I think she’s giving me the truth, but I need more. I need to know where this stuff is. She mentioned the cloud, but I doubt she gave up the one where she stored everything. No agent worth anything—especially one who is a hacker—would do that.
Slow and steady. I’ll get my hands on the data for a look before she’s handed over. Before I hand her over. And if she won’t give it to me, what did she say?
Every hack leaves a trace, or something like that .
I’ll get someone at the Obsidian Knights headquarters to get onto it soon.
But first. “Estonia and the Collectors?”
“What about my brother?”
I don’t face her. Instead, I check my message. Seems like I’m going to that sex club tonight, after all.
The gun I tucked into the back of my pants is something I can’t take with me. So I pull it out and leave it on the edge of the island while I buy time and wait for her to tell me whatever it is she has.
“My brother?”
Deliberately, I shrug. “Tell me what you know.”
“That they’re pieces of shit and they got ripped apart. One arm of them. They make you seem nice.”
I let that slide. “Why are you so interested in them?”
“A man. He’s supposed to be dead, but his accounts, his secret accounts are active. And I had to dig into some dark web stuff to find that out. But his wife—widow—whatever is in New York, and I want to find her. See what she knows.”
“Why?” I type back a message and tuck the phone away.
“Because I’m pretty sure he raped my mom. When she was young. M-my brother?”
With a sigh, I turn.
The gun’s in her hand, pointed at me.
“What are you going to do? Shoot me?” I ask her softly.
“If I have to. Promise you’ll help him.”
I walk up to her slowly. “If you cooperate. And if you’re going to do it, pull the trigger now.”
“I will.”
Calista’s hand doesn’t shake, I’ll give her that. And she holds the gun in the proper position, a CIA girl down to the bone. What I’m not sure of is if she’ll actually pull the trigger. I walk right up until the barrel presses against my chest .
Then I close my hand around hers.
“Do it, Calista. Pull the fucking trigger.”
“You don’t think I will?”
“I don’t know. Will you?” I counter.
“If you push me.”
She still doesn’t shake, even now, but her eyes get wild, a little bloodthirsty and it turns me the fuck on.
So I help her. Slide my finger in over hers and she jerks, pulling the fucking trigger.
The gun clicks.
“Empty. I didn’t put a clip in it. But good to know what you’re capable of.” I ease the gun from her hand and slide a thigh between her legs, pressing up against her pussy. I lean down to graze my mouth along her cheek and up to her ear. “There are different kinds of chases, Calista. And this one is fucking exhilarating.”
“You’re a sick bastard.”
“You’re the one who picked up my gun and threatened me.”
“I…”
I kiss her, tangling a hand in her silky hair. I angle her head and slant my mouth more fully over hers, invading her depths, tasting her. The scotch and the fear. The anger and the desire. Her claws and the rivaling softness as she goes down for me, fighting as she gives it up with a whimper of need.
She’s hot and wet and rubbing on my leg, her tongue fucking and twining with mine.
Her small sounds of pleasure slide down into my bones, burning the center of me. I’m hard, of course, I’m fucking rock-hard.
The kiss is the perfect precursor to sex in and of itself. And she fits. We click. There’s a thing there, the chase and hunt, the defiance and submission, the delirious pleasure in catching her. That’s all the kink, the deepest part of me.
But the fact our lips and tongues and bodies meet and make the other flicker works on a fundamental level.
If I had to take her, right now, we’d just have vanilla sex. Fuck, if I had to light some candles and wine and dine her to bed I would, and I think it might be just as good as the adrenaline-soaked rush of a physical chase. Just as good as the gun pointed at me and the will she, won’t she pull the trigger.
Sure, I knew it wasn’t loaded.
She didn’t.
She didn’t even check.
Right now, I want to say fuck everything, ignore what I’m planning and just enjoy the ever-loving shit out of her right up to handing her over and collecting my paycheck.
I kiss my way along her throat, her skin soft and delicate, the heat of her rapid pulse a delight on my tongue.
I don’t need to do this. Dig into her secrets, find out more about the guy who’s interested in sex slaves and new, classified weapons. I can just hand her to the CIA and still poke around for Jones later.
“Fuck.” I break the kiss, brushing back her silky hair as her glazed eyes try to focus. I keep one hand tight on her because she’s swaying a little too much. “Fuck.”
“I didn’t… I wouldn’t…”
“Pull the trigger?” I brush her lips with mine. “Don’t ruin it. I have to go.”
She wrenches free, grabbing at the island. “Where?—?”
“Not your business.”
“Are you going to keep my brother safe? Maybe help me with this guy who—” She stops, swallows, and something cold and sticky moves down my spine at what she might not be telling me. “With the guy? ”
“I need to go.”
She snatches up the wig and puts it on. “The sex club? The creepy one? Is that where we’re going?”
“Where I’m going, as in not you, not we. Fucking me .”
She looks around, frowning. “If you had a knife block, I’d grab one and?—”
“Hit me with the block? Stab me with a knife? Slice my neck?” I smile. “I’m honored. Two bloodthirsty threats from you in one night. You’re staying the fuck here.”
“I won’t be here when you get back. You’ll never find me.”
“And how do you think you’re getting out?”
She stomps off through the living room to the floor-to-ceiling glass window that reflects back a ghostly reflection, and she uses it to fix her wig. “I have my ways.”
She probably does. I sigh. “Fine. Come on, but don’t say I didn’t fucking warn you.”
I’m not her father. I’m not her protector. I’m here to make sure she gets handed over. This is a detour, and if she wants to come… Hell, she can fucking come.
But I do make contingencies. I provided a mask and private suite in case she freaks out.
The car takes us there. She’s both dressed right and wrong. A rich woman who isn’t sure she wants to partake. I wanted my persona to be a man who does anything. But I can make it work. And yeah, the wig and the dress with nothing beneath is still hot as fuck.
Couples fuck as we make our way down to the lower level. Some people wear masks, others don’t. I grab a mask from a naked hostess with piercings in all the right places on her waxed body, piercings at her cunt set up just so her slit is open just enough to show off her swollen clit that glistens with juices.
As I fix the white lace mask, which announces she’s taken, onto Calista, I sit down on the sofa in the members’ section. One man is getting a very hands-on lap dance, and another is fucking a girl’s ass while another man feeds her his cock. A mistress makes her slave literally lick her boots.
“I’m not sure who this guy is,” I say to her, pulling Calista onto my lap and sliding a hand up her skirt to stroke her pussy, “but this is the designated area.”
Calista stills. “He’s heading this way now.”
I look around. “How do you know that?”
“Because,” she says, something like panic and betrayal quaking her voice, “I know him.”
I’m about to ask who when it dawns on me.
Right as she says it.
“It’s Johnny, my missing field agent.”
Fuck.