Chapter Twenty-three
“No popcorn on the sheets!” Dax grumbles when Aiden aims a kernel at my face. I catch it in my mouth and wink at Dax, who shakes his head in sheer frustration. “Why do I get the feeling that our dynamic is going to predominantly irritate me?”
“Because you haven’t bothered to remove the stick you put up your arse years ago,” Aiden quips, but with an edge of truth that makes me need to diffuse whatever mood the comment might provoke.
“And here I was, hoping I would get the stick up my arse. Instead, you offer me Inception,” I nod to the movie playing across from us, “and number games.”
Dax slides onto the bed and presses up against me, kissing my temple. “I almost forgot about that,” he drawls lazily.
“Really? After torturing me with an orgasm to distract me, you forgot!?”
The raucous booming of Aiden’s laughter brings a smile to my lips despite trying to look outraged. Dax smirks and shrugs like it’s no big deal.
“Ready to test me?”
Dax sits up straight and eyes me speculatively. “Is it time-limited?”
“My memory? No, why?”
“If I ask you a question now and one in the morning?”
I shrug. “Do it. We’ll see what happens, won’t we?”
“Okay, little miss confident, the last series of numbers I gave you.”
I swivel around to face them both and kneel, sitting on my heels. “All of them?” Dax nods. My memory flashes to his mouth between my legs, and I blush from the immediate heat that floods my veins. I take a deep breath and recall the entire sequence. “17-23-AN-89-67-33-1.”
“Even I thought you’d have trouble with that one,” Aiden admits, a lilt to his voice suggests he’s impressed. “That’s…”
I push up to a kneeling position, pop my hip, and flick my hair. Showing off for once. “Correct? Impressive? Astonishing? Worthy of a reward?”
Dax leans in and grips my pyjama top, pulling me down to kiss my lips.
I kiss back, parting them in an invitation to deepen the kiss.
One he accepts. I crawl up Dax’s body until we’re both lying flat and then slip sideways into the gap between both men.
When Aiden slides his mouth along my neck, I melt.
“First sequence, second pair of digits,” Dax asks against my lips.
“05,” I moan into his mouth.
He pulls back, brows furrowed. “It’s that easy? You can just recall it?”
“Yeah, why?” I stretch and groan now that both men have withdrawn from the promise of good times. Dax stares at me as Aiden stares at him.
“What are you thinking, Nagano?” Aiden asks slowly.
Dax climbs out of bed and circles to the bedside table on Aiden’s side. He taps the wood to reveal a little flap built into the three-inch thick painted oak. A key panel appears, and he nods for me to come and join him.
“The third sequence.” He nods at the number pad, insinuating he wants me to use it. I crouch down and tap in the numbers, hearing the hidden door click beside me.
“That’s the passcode to this tunnel. The keypad at the other end requires the sequence to be entered backwards,” he explains.
“Cool. When did you add the keypad at this end, though?”
“While you were at Aiden’s. I figure if Ben knows this tunnel exists, then others might know.
I wanted it secure. The passage comes down between the apartment and some of the business suites.
It’s too high a risk to have someone listening in or hiding to sneak back in here later.
For the record, I was always going to give you the code. ”
“Thank you.”
However, Dax isn’t finished. He steps inside the hidden corridor, which is much nicer than the one between the boardroom and his office.
This one is finished with riveted steel sheets that line the walls and floor.
He disappears behind the door, and I hear the digital beeps and click of another door opening.
When Dax appears again, he’s holding a familiar, blood-stained envelope.
“What. Are. You. Thinking?” Aiden repeats forcefully.
The tension in the room ratchets up a dozen notches, while I just stand and stare at that envelope like it might explode at any moment and destroy us all.
From the appearance of Aiden’s temper, I could be closer to the mark than I realise.
The calm, cool Aiden Driscoll is livid, which tells me everything I need to know.
Whatever Dax is about to suggest is dangerous, foolhardy, and will probably put all of us in more danger.
I’m already looking at a death-sentence because of that envelope. What’s the worst that could happen?
Almost like Dax read my mind, or maybe my expression. He flicks his eyes between the two of us.
“If she’s suspected of it, anyway?” he mumbles hesitantly, despite his wide eyes and the calculations running behind them.
Aiden crushes that excuse. “The whole reason she doesn’t know what’s on that list is to protect her. If they get her, they’ll torture her for that information.”
“They’ll torture her, anyway,” Dax argues. The truth of it shuts us all up.
I’m the first to talk sense. “I’m fucked either way, but if I don’t know, Franz doesn’t win. I can’t tell him what I don’t know.”
“That’s…that’s for the best…but…” Dax can’t bring himself to say what he wants.
“But you’d rather lose everyone on that page than her?” Aiden reveals as though he’s had the same thought.
Dax slumps into the chair under his window. “Yeah, and that makes me a bastard, but they chose this. She didn’t. This isn’t right.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Aiden agrees. “But what good does it do? Giving her that information still won’t save her.”
“It might buy her time. In the worst-case scenario, it could buy her time for us to get to her. The list will be destroyed tomorrow. That’s why they’ve summoned you to head office.
” Dax stands and begins pacing. “The Secret Keeper is dead, and the master list is safely locked up in some unknown location. This one is a liability. They’ll employ a new Secret Keeper.
This is our only chance.” His argument sounds reasonable if it weren’t for the danger involved.
Aiden cradles his forehead in his hands, palms covering his eyes like he can’t bear to watch Dax struggle with this. “Dax…”
“You were thinking of making her the new Secret Keeper anyway, right? That’s why you’ve told them about her skills.”
Aiden’s head tilts back, his eyes narrow to slits. “How did you…?”
“Some of your boys are just as loyal to me, Aid,” Dax explains.
“Cas?” Aiden accuses without hesitation. He must have suspected already that Cas’s loyalties had split, but if they were on the same side, did it really matter?
Dax nods. “And others. We’re supposed to be in this together,” he argues the same point that I’m thinking.
“We are, but he is UACT first—or I thought he was. And trialling Jules as the Keeper is just an idea. Something we can talk about after we get her out of this shit.”
Dax jumps at Aiden’s admission. “What if we speed up the process? What if she carried the secrets? Won’t the bigwigs have to step up and protect her?”
Aiden shakes his head. He doesn’t even think about it, or perhaps he’s already thought this possibility through to an inevitable conclusion? “Do it now, and they’ll hide her, Dax. She’s already a target. UACT will fucking make her disappear to keep this shit safe.”
See, an inevitable conclusion. I sigh.
“What’s in the envelope?” I ask. “Not details…you mentioned a list. At least tell me that.”
“Names,” Aiden says.
“United Anti-Corruption Taskforce agent’s names,” Dax embellishes despite Aiden’s scowl. “All the undercover UACT operatives across the nation. Their code names and burn codes.”
Fuck. This is so much bigger than I expected. Aiden rockets to his feet just as I slam onto the mattress. “DAX!” Aiden eats up the space between them and slams his hand down on Dax’s shoulder.
Dax slaps his arm away. “Trust me on this.”
“I can’t do that!” Aiden reasons. “You might not care about the names on that list, but they’re people like me. People doing their jobs.” The pleading in Aiden’s voice cuts us both.
“Fuck.” Dax holds up his hands. “You’re right. Okay? You’re right. I just want her safe, Aiden.”
I pat the bed beside me. “I am safe. I couldn’t be safer, tucked into bed between two of my favourite people.
I mean, sure, it’s only a list of like six people…
” Ben’s face appears in my mind. “…maybe seven. But you’re both at least in the top five,” I tease to smash through the tension.
I can’t help trying to understand both sides.
Dax’s plan sparks an idea, but I’m missing a vital piece of information too, a part of the puzzle I can’t yet see, and without it, the whole argument we are having is redundant.
Truth is, whether or not I know what’s in that envelope, I’m in danger.
“What’s a Secret Keeper. I mean, I know what it sounds like but—?”
Unexpectedly it’s Aiden who answers. “They’re the solo point of contact for deep undercover agents. Only select Brass know who the Secret Keeper is. As soon as he has the lists, he goes into hiding off grid.”
“And your Keeper wound up dead.”
“They found a UACT agent dead in the river. His true identity was divulged after,” Dax explains, answering a question I didn’t know I was asking. How they knew who he was considering his identity was a secret.
“Okay. Thank you for telling me.”
Aiden shoots Dax a look, suggesting they leave it here for tonight. Dax nods, places the envelope on his bedside table, and frowns.
“I’m going to get some water. Anyone want anything?”
He’s going to pace his frustration away on the rug downstairs, but I want him to know I’m okay. I’m not hurt, or disappointed, or confused about what just happened, even if I’m all of the above.
“I’ll take a juice. Orange or apple if you have it?”
“Aiden?” Dax asks, tone defeated—the question perfunctory.
“Nah, I’m good.”
Dax nods and strides out of the room without a backward glance.
“He cares about you,” Aiden says to soften the blow.
“I see that.”
“I care too,” he appeals.
“I know.”
“I just can’t betray…”
“I know. I wouldn’t ask you to.”
“Are we okay?”
“Nope.”
“Wh—”
I pout, keeping my expression silly and free of accusations or true disappointment. “You two were getting me all hot and heavy and then bam, out comes the bloody envelope of doom and all hope for additional orgasms is gone.”
“Greedy girl,” Aiden laughs, reaching for me and pulling me back into bed beside him. He tickles me until I screech at him to stop, and then he tucks me into his body, big spoon style. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be silly. There’s nothing to apologise for.
Neither of you has done anything wrong and now I finally understand why Franz is insistent on getting to me.
I’m sure he’d do anything to root out the spies embedded in his operations.
Makes this whole thing a little more worthwhile if I helped protect people when I brought that envelope back to you. ”
“You have no idea.” I let Aiden’s warmth sink into me and pull me into a cocoon of comfort that borders sleep.
At some point I must succumb, because I’m startled awake in the dark room with Dax shaking me gently enough not to disturb Aiden. His eyes are ringed, red, and purple, from sleeplessness. I’m guessing he didn’t come back to bed.
“Come with me.” His words are soft as a caress.
I get up and follow, concerned that something has happened and too tired to question what it might be.
The passageway door is open, and Dax pulls me inside and around the door to find a huge safe standing open.
The door is as thick as my forearm. Soft blue lights illuminate the shelves within.
There are books, passports, money, gold bars, envelopes, folders, and photographs stacked neatly, but the shelf before me has three sheets of white paper dotted with faded brown smears.
They look like worksheets with tables printed on them.
The print is super small, and there must be fifty lines per sheet.
Names, codenames, coordinates, a phone number, and a random twelve-digit code per line.
I don’t need to ask what this is. Without my permission, in one mercurial glance at the page, Dax just made me a Secret Keeper.
He doesn’t give me time to react; he pulls away the first sheet and shows me the second.
Then does the same for the third. Some of the names have lines drawn through them and dates handwritten into the edges. Operatives already burned or dead?
“Got it all?”
I nod silently. Still too stunned to absorb what is happening.
“Good,” he whispers urgently. “If you’re about to die, you give them a name.
You hear me? Give them one name at a time.
Fuck. Make them work for it,” he hisses, then shakes his head.
“Just…” His eyes are thick with unshed tears.
“Just start at the top of the list. I’ve memorised the top five.
I’ll start burning them if you get captured, so it’ll be okay to give them to Franz.
He’ll be too late to capture them. It’s… it’s the best I can do. I’m sorry.”
I raise my hand to hold Dax’s blurred face. His tears are raining now. Mine too. He drops his head into my hand, pressing his cheek hard into my palm looking for solace or forgiveness. I understand his desperation. I just don’t think I deserve it.
“I know,” I tell him. “Thank you for caring so deeply for me.”
“We won’t let it come to that. I swear. I’ll figure out a way to keep you safe. To make sure he’ll be ending his own life if he comes after yours. I just need more time.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.” Dax nods, his lips tremble before he pulls me in and kisses me on the forehead. “Go back to bed. I’ll take care of this. Don’t tell…”
“I won’t,” I whisper.
He kisses me again, and I do as he asks, hearing the passageway door close behind me and knowing he won’t be back tonight. What he just did, what he made me do, places a heavy burden on both our shoulders, and if I’m feeling the edges of guilt, then he must be drowning in it.
I slink back into bed, feeling all the worse when Aiden’s arm automatically slides around my waist. His half-asleep drawl grumbles at me to, “Go back to sleep, Tiger.”
But there’s no sleep to be had. Only names that flicker through my mind. Faceless people whose lives are now firmly in my hands.