Chapter 4 #2
Annie offered a smile that was all teeth. “Nice to meet you.”
“And this,” Dawn continued, turning toward me, “is Thomas, Hunter’s friend.”
Annie’s eyes finally, finally landed on me. I readied myself for the inevitable. The widening eyes, the parted lips, the slight flush that always accompanied the first assessment of my face.
I braced myself for my own fucking disappointment.
The swooning never came.
Yes, there was a flicker of appreciation, I’m not blind to the symmetry of my own face, but it was perfunctory. Instead, her gaze sharpened, like she was trying to solve an equation and finding the variables suspicious.
“Nice to meet you, Thomas,” she said, extending her hand.
The contact was fucking electric. Her fingers were warm, her grip firm. I wanted to yank her across the table and pull her against me, bury my hand in that soft brown hair, and taste her again.
“The pleasure is mine, Annie.” I let my natural Scottish accent roll thick and heavy, a velvet shroud over the flat, American cadence I had used to taunt her as Cipher. It was a tactical deployment of syllables and tone.
Her electric blue eyes widened, just a fraction. My voice triggered something, a phantom echo of violence and rain she couldn’t quite place. It threw her off balance and I deeply enjoyed the stumble.
Our hands stayed connected longer than they should have. Three seconds. Four.
She continued to stare at me, searching. Logic dictated she couldn’t know who I was. There were plenty of tall, muscular Supers in the League. Some with dark hair. Without the mask and my suit, I was just a civilian anomaly to her.
But the arrogant, possessive monster scratching at the inside of my skull didn’t care about logic. I wanted her to know me. I wanted to see the exact moment the realization clicked into place.
She finally pulled her hand from mine, severing the connection and breaking the stare. She took her seat, smoothing her dress.
My brain immediately discarded the restaurant, the ambient jazz, and Dawn’s cheerful chatter, trying to figure out how to isolate her.
I needed to get her alone so I could strip away that soft civilian disguise and make her look at me with the same desperate, beautiful hate she’d aimed at my throat earlier.
“So, Hunter,” Annie said. “Dawn tells me you work in security consulting?”
The emphasis she placed on “security” was subtle enough that Dawn wouldn’t notice, but Hunter did. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard.
“That’s right,” he managed, his voice only slightly strained. “Helping people identify vulnerabilities in their systems.”
“How fascinating,” Annie replied with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I’m sure you find all sorts of unexpected weaknesses to exploit.”
A bead of sweat appeared on Hunter’s temple. Dawn, oblivious, just beamed proudly at her boyfriend. Her fingers stroked the back of his hand, blind to the high-voltage subtext crackling across the table.
Hunter swallowed hard. He was a master strategist, but cornered by a Keeper who held the power to detonate his civilian life, he did what any desperate man would do.
He used me as a human shield.
“Thomas here is my colleague,” Hunter said, his voice tight as he redirected her crosshairs. “We’ve worked together for years.”
“Is that so?” Annie’s gaze slid back to me. “And what do you do in this security business?”
My evening had just improved exponentially. Watching Menace sweat through his disguise was a mild diversion. Having Annie Bishop look at me with that potent cocktail of suspicion and raw intelligence was fucking intoxicating.
“Hunter consults for me in the security division of Smith Industries,” I clarified. I let the Scottish accent bleed heavily into the words. “He helps me find cracks in systems that people believe are untouchable.”
Dawn blinked. Her hazel eyes darted between Hunter and me as the name registered. “Wait. Smith Industries? You’re that Thomas Smith?”
I gave her a polite nod. “Guilty as charged.”
Society possessed a profound lack of imagination.
The corporate ruthlessness and staggering wealth of Smith Industries anchored me in the civilian world as the owner.
It built an impenetrable wall between Thomas Smith and Cipher.
Never mind the fact that I didn’t actually do any of the day to day work for the company.
Annie absorbed the weight of the revelation without batting an eye. She remained unimpressed to be on a date with a tech magnate.
“And what do you do when you find the cracks in the systems?” Annie asked, not thrown off by Dawn’s diversion in the slightest.
I tear them wide open. I ruin them.
“I exploit them. Hostile takeovers are a personal favorite.”
“Interesting,” she said. “I work in regulatory compliance myself. Ensuring people follow the rules.”
“Rules,” I echoed. “I’ve always found those to be more like suggestions.”
Her eyes narrowed, the blue sharpening. “Some might call that a dangerous philosophy.”
“Only those who lack imagination.”
Hunter coughed across from me in a not so subtle attempt to stop our conversation. “Dawn was just telling me about that new exhibit at the museum.”
“And do you find your corporate conquests fulfilling, Thomas?” Annie asked, ignoring him.
The way she said my name, testing the syllables for poison sent a jolt of adrenaline through my system. My cock hardened in spite of the fact that I hated being called by my given name.
“Immensely,” I replied, my voice dropping low. “There’s nothing quite like the moment a stubborn entity finally yields. When the walls come down and you see what’s really hiding behind their defenses.”
She cocked her brow. “I imagine failure at your level comes with significant consequences.”
“I don’t fail, Annie,” I said softly. “I just adjust the pressure until something breaks.”
The server materialized beside the table, an irrelevant distraction. “Can I get you folks something to drink, maybe an appetizer?”
Neither of us looked away as Hunter ordered something, his voice sounding far away and bleeding panic.
“I find,” Annie continued, her gaze dropping to my mouth for a fraction of a second before snapping back to my eyes, “that victory is sweetest when it’s achieved with honor.”
“Honor is a bedtime story for people who lose,” I countered.
“Or for those who understand that unchecked ambition creates chaos.”
“Chaos creates evolution.”
“It destroys,” she shot back.
“Only the weak.”
My universe had shrunk down to just Annie. She was fighting me, word for word, look for look. She had absolutely no idea she was flirting with the man that was going to eat her alive.
I opened my mouth to respond, ready to push her right over the edge, when Dawn interrupted.
“Annie, did you ever find out if Deadlock has to pay Havoc back for the helicopter he crushed?”
Annie blinked. The intensity in her eyes didn’t fade immediately, she was reluctant to lower her guard, but she finally broke our staring contest to look at her roommate.
“Not yet,” she said, her voice shifting from razor-sharp to conversational as our dance ended.
The server returned with wine and I couldn’t look away as Annie lifted her glass. I tracked the slide of her throat as she swallowed, the flick of her tongue catching a stray drop. I wondered if she made that same little satisfied sound when she—
“I need to freshen up,” Dawn announced, rising from her seat. “Be right back.”
The moment she disappeared around the corner, Annie’s entire demeanor transformed. The pleasant smile vanished, replaced by a cold fury as her eyes locked onto Menace.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she hissed, leaning across the table. She looked like she wanted to reach out and strangle him with his tie. I’d pay good money to actually see that happen.
Hunter raised his hands. “Bishop, it’s not what you think—“
“Not what I think? You’re dating my roommate! My civilian, non-Super roommate who has no idea she’s sleeping with a League member!”
“Keep your voice down,” Hunter whispered frantically. “And for your information, I like Dawn.”
“Oh, please. What’s the angle? Access to the museum’s Super artifacts?”
“There’s no angle! She’s smart, she’s funny—“
“She doesn’t know what you are!”
I chuckled. I couldn’t help it. The entertainment of watching Annie Bishop verbally eviscerate Menace was too delicious to contain.
She whipped her head toward me. “Something funny?”
The urge to maintain the facade of Thomas Smith, evaporated. It was suffocating anyway. I let the mask slip, just a fraction and gave her Cipher’s smile. It was the smile that showed too many teeth and never quite reached my eyes. It was the smile I wore right before I broke something.
Annie’s eyes snapped to my mouth.
For just a second, time suspended itself as she brought her hands up. They trembled slightly as they hovered over the upper portion of my face.
There was no way. There was no fucking way she could know who I was.
But a perfect cocktail of horror and recognition spread across her face. She knew.
Her hand darted out and snatched the steak knife from the table.
My world narrowed to the point of the knife digging into my suit, right over my stomach, and the frantic, rabbit-fast pulse hammering in Annie’s throat. Everything around us vanished, replaced by the rush of my own blood and the sudden tension coiling in my muscles.
“Did you plan this?” she whispered, her voice barely a breath.
“If I’d planned this, Bishop, we wouldn’t be in a restaurant,” I murmured, leaning forward slightly. “You’d be cuffed to my bed by now, begging.”
She pressed the knife harder against my abdomen and it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
My hand moved faster than she could track, snapping out to crush her fingers around the handle. I forced the tip against me harder, forcing her to feel the unyielding resistance of my skin beneath the material.