Mister Reid (CEOs of Kink)

Chapter 1

Mira

Islammed my apartment door shut behind me and leaned against it, my pulse hammering in my chest. It wasn’t even four yet.

I should’ve been in my cubicle, pretending everything was fine.

Instead, my supervisor, Stan Mercer, had finally told me to go home after an hour-long lecture about company protocol.

If I heard either word again in this lifetime, I might actually scream.

The only thing he hadn’t done was tell me to clear out my desk. But I knew that would come Monday morning, right after my nine a.m. meeting with Human Resources about “insubordination.” Stan had handed me a printout of the email I’d yet to receive on my way out the door.

Sliding down the door, I dropped my bag and pulled my knees to my chest, staring into the living room of my one-bedroom apartment.

Normally tidy, with nothing ever out of place.

Now, it was chaos. Papers littered the coffee table, my laptop still open, news articles frozen on the screen.

I’d verified my information too many times to count. There was no way I was wrong.

It didn’t matter.

Monday morning, HR would fire me. My chest tightened.

I could already hear it: Thank you for your service, please clear your desk.

Security will escort you out. Don’t bother looking for another job as an analyst ever again.

Let’s make that anything working with computers.

You’re blacklisted. Maybe try your hand at retail or waitressing. I hear the corner diner is hiring.

A knock sounded at the door, jolting me out of my spiral. I froze.

Another knock.

“Mira? It’s me.” Micah’s voice came through the door. “Open up.”

I glanced at my watch. How had I lost an entire hour? Sighing, I pulled myself to my feet, and unlatched the deadbolt.

He stepped inside with a brown paper sack from my favorite Thai place down the street and gave me one long look.

“Rough day,” he said.

Not a question.

Of course he’d heard, even though he’d been off this afternoon.

There wasn’t much that happened on the analyst floor without Micah Carver knowing.

He was the type everyone liked and talked to.

A senior analyst with his own team I’d give anything to be on.

Talk about someone who could have you spilling your secrets in an hour whether you knew what you were doing or not.

“You could say that,” I walked across the room, leaving him in the hall while I dropped onto the couch, pulling my cardigan tighter around me.

He set the bag on the coffee table, grabbed two ciders from the fridge, handed me one and slid into the chair across from me. “When I left, I specifically told you to be careful. What did Stan say?”

My laugh surprised me as I pulled my legs underneath me on the couch, tucking into myself. “Told me not to worry about it. Something about it being above my pay grade.”

Micah nearly choked on his drink. “He did what?”

No one liked Stan, but he supervised the analysts.

In our world it wasn’t about personalities.

It was about skills though, I wasn’t sure what his were.

We weren’t there for Stan; we were there because Sentinel Tech was one of the fastest-growing cyber-security firms in the United States.

This last year, they had frequently been featured in Forbes and Wired for their cutting-edge threat detection.

“I heard the meeting got moved up,” Micah said, leaning forward.

I shoved both hands through my hair, tugging at the roots.

“That’s why I did what I did.” If I hadn’t overheard Stan talking to Mr. Reid’s temporary assistant, I wasn’t sure I would have known.

When he asked me for some numbers I had worked on for the project, it had confirmed the information I had.

The meeting wasn’t supposed to be until next week but for some reason they were in a rush and it just sent off red flags all over the place. At least for me it did.

Micah’s eyes narrowed, knowing exactly what I was capable of. “Tell me you didn’t—”

“Shut down the entire executive floor?” I let out a humorless laugh, shoulders lifting in a helpless shrug. “Yeah. I did.”

The words hung heavy between us. Others believed I was simply an analyst. Numbers, patterns, projections—that was the box they put me in. But I’d always had a knack for tearing systems apart and stitching them back together, and in that moment, I hadn’t cared about the consequences.

Micah blew out a sharp breath. “Jesus, Mira.”

“It stopped the meeting,” I shot back. “Bought me the thirty seconds I needed. Long enough to tell Reid to check his damn email.” In my defense I’d sent it half an hour before I’d done what I had but it hadn’t been opened yet. He’d been getting ready for his meeting.

“And?” Micah pressed, leaning forward now, his expression equal parts dread and curiosity. “What happened when he did?”

I didn’t answer right away but let the scene that had been replaying in my head since the moment I had committed career suicide take over.

Mr. Reid’s temp assistant barely registered my presence when the lights flickered.

Then the entire floor went dark. For a moment it was silent before everyone went into offensive mode and the security lights bleeped on.

I took a moment to walk past the desk to the main conference room just in time to see the power trio step out of the room into the dark hallway.

“What the fuck just happened?” Sebastian Reid snapped as he stepped into the hallway, his attention already on his phone.

“It’s just this floor,” Ethan Cross, the Chief Operations Officer, answered while Hale yelled at someone on the phone.

Reid’s eyes met mine, his black scruff-covered jaw tightening as his steel gray eye swept down, then back up.

Stan stepped out of the conference room, clearly pissed, and when he saw me, I could almost see the moment he put two and two together.

They’d been set to sign off on a major contract, one that would bring in a new client and require the analyst division’s full support.

Stan was there to pitch how our team would handle the integration.

How it would benefit all of us. But in truth, it wouldn’t.

That’s what Reid needed to see before it was too late.

Stan stormed toward me. “What the hell did you do?”

“Mr. Reid, check your email,” I hollered right before Stan’s hand clamped around my arm.

“What the hell did you do?” Stan asked again, and his fingers dug into my arm hard enough to bruise. Pain shot through my arm, but I refused to give him the satisfaction of a sound or flinch.

“Mr. Reid—check your email!” I shouted again, twisting in Stan’s grip. This was going to be all for naught if Reid didn’t look at that damn email.

“I told you to leave it alone,” Stan hissed, yanking me toward the elevator, reaching for my tablet as he did so.

“Stop.”

One word. Low. Commanding. Dominant. Reid hadn’t raised his voice, but everyone nearby froze. Reid had that effect on people. Every nerve in my body snapped to attention.

Victor lowered his phone, and they all stared at me while Mr. Reid flipped through the email I’d sent him outlining enough to get his attention with the fact that I could back everything up. It was bullet points of a much larger problem.

My heart raced, but I took advantage of everyone’s focus being off of me to undo what I’d done, and in seconds, the lights came on and the buzz of computers and systems rebooting filled the floor. I’d done what I’d come here to do. There was nothing left for me.

It was up to the trio now.

Reid handed his phone off to Cross, whose blood drained from his face as he flipped through it.

“Reid?” He turned to him, brow raised, looking like he wanted to be sick.

“I know.” Reid’s growl reverberated down the hall. He made a sharp gesture toward the conference room. “Meeting’s over. Everyone back to their goddamn jobs.”

His hand twitched, forming a fist and then releasing it for a split second before he turned on his heel. “Cross, Hale, my office, now.”

They both looked at me. Cross nodded toward the elevator.

“Stan, a minute?” He stepped closer to Stan, and I used the distraction to escape the floor, sliding into the stairwell, not willing to wait for the elevator and return to the sanctuary of the fifth-floor analysts’ cubicles.

For all of five minutes, anyway. Stan found me soon after that.

Maybe I should have packed up and left. I knew that was where I was headed, anyway.

“You did what?” Micah’s voice pulled me out of my head and back to our conversation.

“I hacked into Sentinel’s system and pulled the plug. Right in the middle of Reid’s meeting.”

For a long beat, Micah was silent. Then he exhaled slowly, shaking his head. “That’s… bold.”

“It was stupid.” My voice cracked. “The way Reid looked at me. Cross and Hale too. I was sure the floor was going to open up and swallow me whole. HR wants to see me first thing Monday. Which means I’m fired.” I’d received the email before I left the office.

“Or it means you saved the company,” he said evenly. “Both can be true.”

I let out a shaky laugh. “So what? I’m a hero and unemployed at the same time?”

“Maybe. But you did the right thing.”

I stared down at my hands, wishing I believed him. Wishing I hadn’t been running everything over my head, wondering if there had been another way to handle it, but I’d come up empty. If only Reid had opened the email earlier, but I knew the minute Stan had gotten onto the elevator time was up.

Micah leaned back. “Look, you’ve been living in your own head for too long. You need a break. Clear some of that noise.”

I groaned. “If you say tequila—” Not only did I not like the taste, it did bad things. Terrible things.

“Not tequila. There’s an event at the club tonight.” His gaze met mine, a smirk on his lips. “Come with me.”

I blinked. “The club. As in—”

“As in that club, yes. You don’t have to do anything. Just… see it. Get out of your head for one night.”

My stomach dipped. “Micah, I don’t—”

“You don’t have to know. That’s the point. Let go. Watch. Breathe.” His voice softened. “Trust me. Noah will be there too.”

I hesitated. Monday loomed over me like a storm cloud. But Micah’s steady gaze anchored me, and for once, I was too tired to argue. Noah, Micah’s husband, would make sure we both got home safely.

“Fine,” I whispered. “One drink.”

His mouth lifted just a fraction. Not smug. Just… relieved. “Good.”

Somehow, I doubted it would be good. Trouble had already found me once today. What was one more bad decision?