Chapter Eight
Eight
Axe
“She’s been waiting for twenty minutes, sir.
” My assistant meets me at the door of the SynthoTech offices, handing me a file folder as we walk through the lobby, a place I had a hand in designing.
It’s a mix of organic—wood beams and rafters, paneled-oak floors—and innovative, with sleek wall touch screens that light up when you approach.
Like an ancient ship repurposed for modern times.
“Fuuuuck.” I rip off my Bluetooth earpiece as I jab the elevator button.
My meeting with Josie was supposed to start at three sharp, and I’m already screwing it up. It was the one thing I did not want to mess with in a day that started in Miami and feels like it’s been a hundred hours long. I should have taken the chopper directly to the office instead of home.
Vanity won out—I wanted to quickly shower and change far away from my colleagues.
Just this week, I had to talk Josie off her high horse about my AI assistant.
Convincing her I’m not out to steal human jobs was harder than a Senate hearing, and getting her to commit to today’s meeting felt damn near impossible.
I have a hunch my twenty-minute delay has gotten her climbing right back into the saddle, even though she now knows I employ hundreds of people.
She was all spit and vinegar about AI Jack—apparently, I’m not only bringing on the end of days but doing it with bad manners.
If he weren’t AI, I’d have sacked Jack’s ass on the spot.
After that start, it’s a goddamn miracle that she showed up.
I knew I was cutting it tight this morning, but I didn’t have a choice.
Petrov was a right brute, keeping his girls in line through sheer force, and his business trafficked women into the country through Miami.
With him gone, it was time to move on to the rest of the crew and get the girls transported to safe houses immediately.
All I can hope is that now they can cut loose with enough—
The elevator doors pop open, and Josie’s standing smack in front of me. Green eyes blazing like two hot pokers. Her hair tumbles loose around her shoulders, and the light from the window catches the red, setting it aglow.
She looks like a character from The Avengers.
“I’ll have you know,” she starts, “that I had to rearrange my whole day around this top secret cloak-and-dagger meeting where, supposedly, you’d present your so-called proposition.
Which, by the way, you are now twenty-two minutes late for.
So forgive me if I fail to grasp whatever bizarre system you use to manage your priorities. ”
“Easy, lass.” I take her gently but firmly by the elbow, but she’s stubborn and won’t walk, so now she’s got me rooted to the spot.
I’m not sure what to do. My reaction to her is ridiculous. She’s pure temptation; I want to press myself against her body, revel in every last bit of her curvy, peachy softness. But she’s here for a business meeting, and I’m undressing her with my eyes.
Bloody ridiculous, I am. Not to mention unprofessional.
“Also, don’t easy, lass me,” she says in a terrible Scottish accent, which makes me want to laugh. “That’s like telling someone who is stressed out to relax. Doesn’t work. Never works. Not once. Not ever.”
“Are you stressed, lass?” I ask, thinking about how she’s always so chummy with everyone else and so feisty with me. I enjoy being the exception. It’s like I have a backstage pass to the real Josie. “It was a scrimpy twenty minutes! You should really just relax—”
“Oh my God,” she says, her chin up. Still, I sense a ghost of a smile.
We’re in a stare-off and I cannot look away. Is this why I always say the wrong thing? Because I can’t stop staring at her?
“I’d better go. I don’t know why I came in the first place.
” She breaks eye contact as her finger presses the elevator call button.
Her pointy nails are painted a glittery silver and look like cute, tiny knives.
The door opens, Josie gets in, and I stride after her.
This time, before she can press down, I press up.
We’re off.
“FYI, this is the old freight lift,” I say, watching Josie’s face twist in confusion.
It’s a rookie mistake, aye, but a common one—especially if you park in the old lot and come in through the back of SynthoTech.
Not like the sleek front lifts, but now we’re both stuck in this wheezing old bastard, crawling its way skyward.
“As soon as we get to the top, I’m going right back down,” she says, all business. I’d wager that her nipples are a softer, rosier shade of her strawberry-blonde hair—and now all my blood is going to my dick instead of my brain.
I should have more sense than this.
“Sounds lovely,” I reply with a grin. “I like the ride both ways.”
She presses her lips into a thin line. “I knew this was a bad idea. This is madness.”
“Nah, lass. This is Shelton.” Ach, another terrible line. No shame, MacKenzie. But I’m too distracted for shame.
“Honor told me to hear you out.” She sighs, clearly exasperated. “I was looking for a sign I shouldn’t be here—and then you showed up late, so it’s pretty clear—”
“Josie. Please,” I interrupt, hoping logic will outweigh her superstitions. “My being late isn’t a cosmic sign of anything, all right? It just means air traffic control had us stuck on the bloody tarmac, and afterward, I needed a shower.”
“Air traffic control?”
“I started my day in Florida. Let me explain,” I say.
“You were in Florida? Today?”
“The Everglades, yes.”
At that, she looks a bit curious.
“This morning?”
“Aye.”
“See any alligators?” she asks.
“Yup, and some flamingos, doing the whole one-leg thing. Goddamn show-offs.” Josie feels impossible to read, but when she smiles, I decide to take it as a peace offering.
“I saw lizards, too. Should have brought one home for you. I bet you’d make a whole terrarium for it, complete with a sequined nest.” Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, I’d love to see what she’d do with a pet lizard.
She’d probably make it a bedazzled leash and walk it around town and cuddle with it at night.
Jesus, and now I’m jealous of a fictional reptile.
I need another cold shower and a stiff drink.
“You are a ridiculous human being,” Josie says, but she’s grinning.
With a ping, we’re on the SynthoTech roof, and I set the lightest touch of my hand on the small of her back to guide her through the glass doors.
When she sees what’s in front of us, she gasps. Just as I hoped she would.
“Wow,” she whispers. We’re looking at my natural wonderland: a two-thousand-square-foot heated hydroponic garden full of imported trees from all over the world, with an unrivaled view of downtown.
“I love it up here,” I admit. “This is where I come to think.” She seems struck by the giant vertical green sweep of it all—the citrus trees, the orchids, the vines trailing up the trellises—though there’s also a fear in her eyes that I don’t understand.
“Are there, um, any bees out here?” she asks.
The dossier on Josie, which I’ve got seared into my brain, says she did not exactly have the cheeriest childhood.
Her hospital records alone are as thick as a brick.
I did not read them—just skimmed the summary my assistant pulled together.
Digging into all her medical details felt too bloody intrusive, a line I was not ready to cross.
“No bees, I promise. Allergic?”
She nods, relieved.
“One sting could kill me.”
“Not on my watch,” I say, making a mental note to carry not only snacks but an EpiPen for her, too.
“This rooftop is a secret paradise.” Josie slowly circles to get a full view. “I’ve never seen anything like it. You built this?”
“Aye,” I say, and keep my voice blasé, though the truth is I might be prouder of this garden than I am even of SynthoTech.
The sun is hitting my big thinking chair just right; if Josie weren’t here, I’d treat myself to a lie-down.
The air’s so fresh up here, and the view of Shelton spread out below shows you the whole city at a glance.
“The garden’s slower-growing this time of year, even with the hydroponics,” I tell her.
“But in the summer, when all the roses and the Japanese cherry trees are blossoming, it’s like a natural wonderland. ”
“Incredible.” When she stops by the koi pond, she drops down to her knees to get a better look—and I’ve got to hold back a smile.
I’ve noticed how easily Josie finds moments of childlike joy, and I’m envious of that.
My guess is she didn’t get a lot of that, growing up in examination rooms and hospitals, and I’m impressed it’s left her curious as opposed to bitter.
As she stares into the water’s depths, I take advantage of the moment to enjoy her soft reflection wavering on the water’s surface—I trace the curve of her neck, and I stop at that sweet little spot at the nape where those reddish-gold curls soften like candy floss. I swallow hard.
“I can’t believe something like this exists in the city,” she murmurs.
I take a deep breath and shake off my overwhelming and irrational desire. It has no place here. I’m not that sort of boss. “Josie, I mentioned I asked you to come here for business reasons.”
At that, she bolts up to stand, smoothing her skirt, her curiosity working against a new suspicion in her face. “Yes. What’s up?”
I shift my weight, cross my arms. Glance up at the canopy of trees and the skyline beyond. Get it together so that I can stare her down. Be fucking Axe MacKenzie, CEO, former CIA and all-around arse-kicker, and not Awkward Axe, who spent more time coding and reading books than talking to girls.
Christ, what is it about her that gets me so tongue-tied?
I give my head a shake, forcing the thoughts to line up.
This pitch is a tightrope—the last thing I need is for Josie to think she’s my idea of the perfect prototype.
That would be both embarrassing and borderline creepy given the professional context.
“We’ve been working on a project at SynthoTech. An AI partner.” I make sure to sound all-business. Keep my eyes trained on hers. Not a glance south, not a bloody twitch. “We’ve put years into development so far, and we committed an eight-figure budget to it.”
Her brow furrows slightly. “Okay…?”
“I know how you feel about AI. But again, this is not about taking away any paying jobs. At least, not legal ones.”
“Wait. Did you say eight figures?”
“Aye, I did,” I say, rushing the words out.
“And we need a source model, a baseline for the simulator. So the team was wondering if you might consider it. The data we’ve been gathering on you—not in any dodgy way, just, ah, observational—suggests that your, ah, personality, your mannerisms, your…
your…everything would work. You’d be well paid. ”
Fuck, that couldn’t have come out worse if I’d written it down beforehand.
Come to think, why didn’t I script it? Because I never script anything, most likely.
And because I spent the morning chopping Petrov’s right-hand man into bite-size pieces.
Wasn’t lying about the gators. Turns out they’re brilliant coconspirators—they love the taste of human flesh, and, of course, they can’t talk.
My words are met with a moment of silence.
“You’ve been gathering data on me?”
Oh, bloody hell. I think of the mountain of files in our Dropbox that my research team dug up on Josie.
Leukemia at age six. Years spent in and out of hospital wards. Her mum scraping together the cash, by hook or by crook, to make sure Josie got the care she needed.
Josie hides her shadows so well. And wears her resilience admirably lightly.
Apparently, late at night, she likes to read romance novels or watch old episodes of Antiques Roadshow while crafting away—I know this from Honor, not my private investigator.
If I had to guess what kind of gun she keeps, glue would be my first bet.
“No, no—it’s, it’s not like that. Not…stalkery,” I say, tripping over my words, which is not something I do. “At the party. The team couldn’t help but, well…notice you.”
“I don’t think I understand,” she says, blinking up at me. “What does it mean to be your source model? Like, you’d borrow my voice or something?”
“Not just your voice. Your…countenance. And disposition.”