Dan
It has to be an inside job. There is no way law enforcement could get here without me knowing. Impossible.
I turn to Tom. He’s pale, his eyes wide and lips tight. I move quickly, fisting his thin T-shirt and slamming him up against the wall. “What did you do?” I demand, my voice a low rumble.
“Me?” he stammers. “I, what? I’m…”
I lean my face closer to his. “You’re the new element.”
“But...what? No.”
His eyes are holding mine. Confusion, innocence. “I can’t be the only new person here.”
He’s right. But I’m not going to tell him that. “You’re coming with me,” I say, pulling him off the wall and releasing his shirt. “Go, to the stairs.” He starts to walk, his steps unsteady. “Run!” He breaks into a jog.
“I swear, Dan, I have nothing to do with this,” he yells over the alarm.
“Shut up.”
He does. The lights come back on as we push into the emergency stairwell. Tom turns to me. “Which way?”
“You go to Anita.” He nods, relief washing over his face, and starts up the steps two at a time. He loves her. But would he betray her?
We so often betray the ones we love…often when we don't even mean to.
I wait for Tom to disappear then check my phone—the Wi-Fi is still out.
Shit. I dash back out through the door and to the left, where the emergency cabinet for this floor is located. When I arrive, there are already two members of the security team grabbing weapons.
“What’s going on?” Tanya raises her voice to be heard over the still-wailing alarm as she straps a pistol to her hip. A former sex slave turned vigilante, Tanya has worked with Joyful Justice for years. I know I can trust her. I monitor all communication that comes and goes from the island. I am fastidious about checking people out before they arrive—I’m all up in their business, in their family. How could this happen?
Tom is the only person here I didn’t invite. But I checked him out too…the alarm stops screaming. “Our security system has been breached,” I answer. “But I won’t know how until I get to my computer.” I grip my phone, willing the Wi-Fi to return. “I’m going to head down to the command center. There is a battery room at the end of this hall. I think that’s where the smoke is coming from.” The smoke is thin and tinted with the scent of hot plastic. “Check it out, please.”
She nods, pulling a radio from the utility closet and handing it to me. I test it and hear the harsh crackle of communication. “Thanks, let me know what you find.”
“Good luck,” she says, her voice heavy with a lifetime of bad breaks. She expects the worst.
“You, too.” I turn and run back toward the stairs. Tanya and her team will secure this floor. There are teams assigned to every section of the compound. We are not vulnerable.
My steps echo in the concrete stairwell, and I’m huffing for breath by the time I get down to the command center. I put my ten-digit code into the keypad and enter.
The scent of plastic and ozone envelops me in a comforting cloud. I’m in my element. Striding quickly into the main room, I scan the desks.
The computers are on; the large screen is showing surveillance footage from around the compound. A feed from the backup battery room on the sixth floor shows a cloud of smoke, but also figures moving through the gloom, wearing fire gear and working to extinguish the off-screen blaze.
My second in command, Mitchel, is standing at the back wall, talking quietly into his headset. A little shorter than me, with bright blue eyes and sun-streaked brown hair, Mitchel is a brilliant hacker whose reputation started when he was ten and broke into his school’s system to cancel exams.
The three teams I left here thirty minutes ago are bent over their consoles, hard at work.
Mitchel looks up and meets my gaze, relief crossing his features as he starts to move in my direction. We paddleboard together most days, and he moves with the assured elegance of an athlete. “Get that contained,” he’s saying into his microphone, “and then check on servers in room seven. I’m seeing high temperatures there I do not like.”
“Catch me up,” I say, still walking, headed for the center of the room so I can see the entire screen and everyone working. Mitchel falls into step with me.
“Someone set off an explosive in Battery Room C. They put the cameras on a ten minute loop, but I’ve got Rachel working on it now.” I nod. Rachel is good at uncovering what people try to hide. “We’ve also lost Wi-Fi to the compound.”
“I noticed.”
Mitchel nods, his mouth drawn down into a frown. “This is an attack.”
“Yes, but what are they trying to do?” I ask, my gaze raking the main screen as I stop at the top of the center aisle. On screen, I can see the most sensitive areas of the compound—all our server rooms, the weapons caches, our generators and solar fields, the wind turbine, and the most important egress points. “This is minor. We’ll recover quickly. They must be trying to distract us.”
“I’ve got Melody on watch; she’s scanning all our systems for a breach.”
“Good.” I turn back to him. “You did really well. I was stuck on an elevator.”
A smile tugs at his lips. “Stuck on an elevator with no Wi-Fi. You must have gone almost insane.”
I shrug, giving him a half smile. “I survived. But I’m worried, Mitchel. This is strange. Obviously an inside job.” My gaze scans the room again, looking for answers and finding none. “There will have to be a full investigation. First, let’s make sure everything is secure.”
“Yes, sir.” Mitchel follows me as I head to a console and pick up a headset. My voice travels to everyone in the command center. “Okay, folks. What’s going on?”
Their answers start coming in as my eyes stay on the screen, monitoring the video feeds, temperature readings, and system alerts—taking in all data points. With enough data, we can figure this out. With enough data, we can change the world.
Lenox
The office windows open to the gardens, formal and rigid, with tightly cropped topiaries and white gravel that sparkles in the moonlight. Beyond the gardens the forest hunkers, a dark, shaggy wall against a star-draped sky.
Petra’s desk, made of thick, glossy, marbled wood, is clean—not even hinting at the wildly passionate woman who does her work here. I sit in Petra’s seat, the leather slippery and cold against my bare skin. Her perfume permeates the space, a blend of jasmine and rose with just a hint of sandalwood. Petra’s scent, like her life, is feminine with a shadow of masculinity.
It’s all sex.
I run my hand over the forest green blotter at the center of the desk, feeling indentations from her pen. My hand traces the invisible lines, and I close my eyes. It’s just a jumble. Too many words written over each other. Most of it is in Czech, I figure—the language of Petra’s homeland. Though it's been many decades since she lived there. This estate, a castle really, in the Romanian countryside has been her base for the last five years. The air is fresh, the water clean, and the government unconcerned with her activities or the source of her wealth.
Opening my eyes, I pull out the top drawer to my right and find checkbooks, packs of matches from a local restaurant in the village nearby where we had dinner tonight, pens, and stationery. I sort through the sparse contents finding nothing out of place. Nothing of interest.
The next drawer down is equally mundane—paperclips, a stapler, a silver letter opener with Petra’s initials engraved into it, blank envelopes, and a calculator. The file drawer is locked. I can’t force it with the letter opener so leave it to explore the other drawers before searching for the key.
The rest of the desk proves to be as boring as the first few drawers. I push back the chair and look under the desk, expecting to find the key for the file drawer secured there but am disappointed. Turning to the bookshelves, I scan them, hoping to discover a false volume in which a key might be stashed.
The books are leather bound with gold lettering—English, French, Russian and Czech dominate, but I see a few Spanish volumes as well. Petra and I spoke French and English to each other when we first met. My mother made sure I knew the languages of my clients. “Speak to a person in their language, and they will feel safe with you, trust you, and eventually even love you. Once they love you,” she smiled, her eyes glittering, “they will give you whatever you want.”
She was right about that and so many other things.
I trace my fingers over the volumes, pausing randomly to pull them forward, to test they are real. A mother of pearl box, its ghostly white surface gleaming in the darkness, catches my eye. It’s small enough to fit in my palm and sits on top of several books, pushed to the back of the shelf. I reach in and take it out. It’s heavy for its size, and when I open it I find a gold key, large and old-fashioned—something from a fairy tale—sitting on a cushion of velvet.
Removing the key from its plush nest, I weigh it in my palm. What a pleasant object. But far too large for the filing drawer.
A sound in the hall makes me pause. Footsteps are approaching. I quickly return the key and its box to their place. Taking down a French book of poetry, I head into the attached den where I settle into a chair by the window and turn on the reading light.
Petra enters the room as I flip through the pages. She’s pulled on a black silk robe but not cleaned up her face. Mascara darkens under her eyes, and the remnants of her lipstick accentuate the puffiness of her lips. “What are you doing?” she asks, her voice gravelly.
I hold up the book. “Reading.” Her eyes narrow with suspicion and then scan my chest, taking in my near nudity. “Sorry if you missed me.” Her lips part as her gaze reaches my crotch. “Come,” I say, laying the book aside and waving her to me. She follows my command, dropping to her knees in front of me.
I cup her cheek and lean forward to kiss her. She moans, one petite hand running up my arms and circling my neck. I pull her onto my lap, cradling her as I devour her mouth.
Petra twists quickly, and her lips leave mine as a cold blade presses up against my inner thigh. “What were you doing down here, Lenox?” she asks again, her voice clear now, eyes burning into mine, as the knife in her fist moves slowly closer to my manhood.
Adrenaline floods my veins as I stare at her. A minx in rabbit fur.
“Reading,” I say again, my voice low, my hands gripping her waist. I could push her off me, but I’d risk getting cut.
“Liar,” she says, the blade pressing closer.
“I should have tied you up,” I say, dropping my voice down to a dangerous purr. Petra bares her teeth. Her robe has fallen open, and I lean down slowly to kiss her collarbone. She shivers under me, the press of the blade softening. I pull the tie of her robe free as I lave her neck, and then slowly cover her hand with mine, pulling her wrist forward and the knife away from my flesh.
She lets me, giving no resistance now, opening to me like a flower blooms for the sun. My fingers sink into the silky tresses at the base of her neck, and I take full control. She is mine now.
The knife drops almost silently to the carpeting, and I shift her so that she straddles me, her robe spread, her legs around my waist. The hand that held her knife now reaches for me, loosening me from my boxers and guiding toward her center.
But I stop her, my large palm engulfing her. “Not yet,” I say. “I want you to beg.”
She whimpers against my lips, her body quivering. Petra needs so much, has so much, and yet can’t ever get enough. A curse or a gift, hard to say, this insatiable devotion to moving forward, going faster, getting what she wants.
“Please.” Her voice comes out a soft whisper, and I smile under her. Petra’s hair falls around us, tickling against my bare skin, sending shivers of desire racing through me.
I enjoy the sweet sensation of delay. The moments when a train is hovering at the entrance to a station, the rev of a plane’s engines before it takes flight, the scent of a woman before she releases around me.
My lips grace hers, softly, barely…then her chin, the small point of it…her jaw—elegant, sharp, delicious. Petra’s head falls back, tendrils of hair reaching my hand where it grips her lower back, curling around to hold her ass. To stop her from moving how she wants. To maintain my control.
My lips find her collarbone again, nipping at its length. I push her back, bending her so that her breasts face the ceiling, her head in my one hand, ass in the other, laid out in front of me—any straight man’s fantasy, and my profession.
The lamplight glows against her skin, gets lost in the darkness of her nipples. “Please,” she says, again, louder, her body quivering with desire, with unmet passion.
“Say my name,” I command, my voice rough against her nipple. I pull it between my teeth, and she cries out in that sweet tone of pain and pleasure.
“Lenox. Please, Lenox, fuck me.” Petra’s voice has gone all throaty, all desperate. But I know she can beg more. She can threaten and cajole. I won’t take her until she is a bundle of need, a desperate creature ready to tear me apart.
My foot brushes against the knife, and it sends a thrill up my leg right to my crotch. A hushed moan escapes me at its cool touch, at the danger this woman in my arms presents. God, her power is sexy.
“Dammit, Lenox!” Now she’s getting mad. I love making her angry. “Fuck me, or you’re fired.”
I bite harder, hurting her now, so that she almost struggles to get away, but I grip her harder through the silk robe, digging my fingers in as a warning and a promise. I will take you the way you want. The way you need.
“Now!” she screams, the banshee released, the desperation undoing her so she wriggles and fights to close the distance.
“Now?” I ask, letting my tongue grace her skin as I speak.
She makes a strangled sound, can’t even form words anymore. And that is my moment. That is the final push of the jet, the rumble of the steam engine, the moment I love. Slowly I pull her onto me.
She’s starving and melting, and I bury my face in her chest. Petra arches over me, wrapping her arms around my neck, her mouth finding my earlobe and pulling it between her teeth.
“Yes, Lenox. Oh, yes,” she purrs.
I keep one toe on the blade of the knife, reminding me of the danger that rides me, that begs for me, that needs me…and that, perhaps, I need in return.