Boom (Aces and Knaves, #2)

by Gadot, Helene

  Maddox held the door to the cafe open for her. "Tons of people commute farther and earlier. We do sometimes. It's a nice drive."

  She walked inside, searching for Cormac or Reese. "I already have enough trouble getting up in the morning."

  "Hire someone to open." Maddox gave the hostess a pleasant smile as he asked for a table for two.

  Ridley waited until the hostess seated them and left before replying. "I'm not made of money."

  Maddox’s grin was completely unrepentant. "I'm just trying to come up with alternative options."

  She thought he wanted her to be professional. "Why do you want me to move in so badly? I haven't even agreed to try anything with you guys. I'm definitely not going to move in first."

  He leaned across the table and kept his voice low. "I like having my team live together. It brings us closer and it helps us work smoothly."

  "I can't figure out if you want me to join your squad or date you."

  Maddox’s mask of the white guy’s boring pale blue eyes sparkled with mirth. "Both."

  "Even if I joined, I'm not living there and I would only work with you part-time. If I decided to date you, I would definitely not move in so soon. Deal with it."

  Maddox faked a pout. "You're no fun. I thought you were an adrenaline junkie and would leap before looking."

  "Physical adrenaline junkie. Not an emotional one. With that, I'm extremely careful."

  Maddox sat back. "Careful? or running scared?"

  "They're the same thing, really, but it's rude to point it out."

  Maddox shrugged and opened his menu. "I'm always going to tell you the truth, babe. Whether you want to hear it or not."

  "You're not exactly selling yourself with that."

  "Bullshit."

  Ridley couldn’t hold back the laugh as the waitress placed glasses of water on the table.

  She spotted Reese and Cormac watching them from the other side of the cafe as they left, but pretended not to.

  She glanced out the window at the perfect view of the front door of the Legion office. They could see everyone who came and went. Cormac and Reese walked by the window, barely cutting their eyes to her and Maddox before continuing down the sidewalk. She had no idea how they knew it was them.

  Maddox checked his phone. "He didn't come out for lunch yet, so we should start with coffees in case we need to get out of here soon. We can order more once we're confident he's not going to take a lunch break."

  "What's he been up to all morning?"

  "Reese and Cormac followed him from his house, to the gym, to the drycleaners, and then to the office. No sign of him since."

  "Is there another exit he could have taken?"

  "Yes, but only if he thought he was being followed. There's no way he clocked those two."

  Ridley wanted to argue, but she knew he was right. Even without Cormac's invisibility powers, they were professional and Misner had no reason to suspect anyone gave a shit what he was up to.

  "So, no dirty secrets yet?" It was foolish to expect to find something on their first day of surveillance.

  "Nope."

  She blew a raspberry at him. "Boring."

  Maddox chuckled. "Damn, I missed you. Life is certainly more interesting when you're around."

  "Obviously. I'm hilarious and awesome."

  "You are."

  She fought a flush, glad she was hidden behind a mousy-headed hipster with huge glasses. "Don't get all gooey on me now, dude. It makes me uncomfortable."

  Maddox leaned across the table again, and pitched his voice even lower and deeper. "Would you rather I talk about how I still think about your naked body wrapped around mine? How sweet you tasted? How much I want inside you again?"

  She swallowed hard, refusing to shift in her seat and let him see the effect his words had on her. "I certainly prefer that to mushy shit."

  "Sometimes I really think you're Cormac without the dick."

  She gasped in outrage. "Take that back, you asshole."

  "Why? I've seen the way you look at him. You want him."

  "Sure. He's hot and his accent is a panty-melter. Doesn't mean I'm unaware of what a butt-faced crapbag he is."

  He chuckled. "He just takes a little getting to know. Not completely unlike yourself."

  She sniffed. "I'm a fucking delight from the very beginning."

  "You certainly were that night at the bar."

  The back of Ridley's neck warmed and she was grateful at the appearance of the weary waitress. "Can I get you two something?"

  "Two coffees please. Black with creamer on the side."

  "Anything else?"

  Maddox smiled in apology for the shitty order. "That's all for now. We're waiting to see if our friends are coming or not."

  "Great. I'll have it right back out." The waitress stomped off.

  Maddox winced. "We need to leave her an excellent tip if this ends up being all we order."

  Ridley grinned. "Agreed."

  "Now, where were we?"'

  "We were remembering that we're here for a job, not flirting." Ridley glanced out the window, and scraped her chair back as she leapt to her feet. "And now it's time to go."

  Maddox followed her gaze and fumbled for his wallet, pulling out two twenties and dropping them on the table. Misner was on the move.

  Damn. Ridley had really wanted that coffee.

  Chapter 10

  Cormac

  MADDOX AND RIDLEY PLODDED into Ridley's garage, exhaustion heavy on their faces, especially Ridley's. Looked like she overused her powers. Again. Bloody woman didn't seem to realize she had limits.

  "See anything interesting?" Beckett asked.

  Ridley shook her head. "Dude is boring as hell. Work, drycleaners, takeout, home. Talked to no one suspicious, went nowhere suspicious. Granted, that's not too surprising. It's not like the first day we decided to watch him he'd be doing something illegal."

  "Were you able to clone his phone?" Beckett asked.

  Maddox tossed Beckett his phone. "Yeah. It's done."

  Beckett plugged the phone into his computer, his fingers flying across the keyboard for a few moments before he looked up with a frown. "Nothing helpful on here, looks like it's routinely wiped per the Legion's protocols, but we'll be able to see everything he gets from now on and listen in to any calls. We won't be able to use anything we learn in court, but it should give us a place to start."

  Maddox looked over at Reese and Cormac. “Anything at his house?”

  Cormac shook his head. “No. Other than the man is an utter slob. I already took one shower and I need another.”

  “It wasn’t that bad.” Reese rolled his eyes.

  “He had moldy takeout containers on his counter and his floors were sticky. It was disgusting.” Cormac shuddered at the memory. He detested mess.

  Beckett cursed. "We can't just keep following them around and hope they slip up. That could take months and we don't have the manpower for it."

  "Agreed. I just want to watch both for a couple days, discover who their contacts are and then start asking some questions. We'll check Wallace’s place tomorrow and get his phone cloned as soon as he returns. We have a better chance of finding information that way than following them."

  Ridley hovered at the edge of their group, not adding anything to the conversation, looking like she was miles away, her face pale and drawn. Usually she had plenty to say.

  Beckett kept tapping at his keyboard, juggling his computer, phone, and his tablet. "I'll go through and research the contacts in his phone too. See who he's involved with."

  "Good. I want to know what jobs they're working right now too. Can you get that off the Legion's servers?"

  Beckett nodded. "I'll have that by morning. It'll take me that long so they won't know I'm there looking."

  "Excellent."

  Reese stood. "We should probably get going, then. We've got a long drive home." It was the first thing he’d said since Ridley and Maddox returned. He was as diffe
rent from usual as Ridley and Cormac was worried about him. About both of them.

  Beckett tossed the tablet onto the coffee table. "I'm not cooking tonight. I have too much to do. Why don't we have a pizza delivered here while I keep working?"

  "We could have one delivered to our house by the time we get home."

  Cormac rolled his eyes. Reese was being a brat, determined to punish Ridley for leaving, even though everyone knew he wanted her, was half in love with her, and would forgive her eventually.

  Cormac was glad she was back in their lives. Maybe now, Reese would stop pouting around the house and get back to normal. But he needed to make sure Ridley wasn't going to disappear on them again. Cormac wasn't going to watch his team go through it again. The bloody woman had too much power over them and Cormac was going to make sure she didn't hurt his squad again. Especially Reese.

  Ridley all but ignored them as she scrolled through her phone, a frown deepening on her face.

  "Ridley? Feel like pizza for dinner?" Maddox asked, trying to draw her into their group.

  "Pizza's good. I've got beer up at my place I can grab." She didn't look up and Cormac wasn't sure she even knew what she was saying, her attention glued to her phone.

  "Is everything all right, babe?"

  "I like ham, pineapple, and banana pepper pizza. But pepperoni is fine too." Her bottom lip trembled and twin flags of red stained her cheeks.

  "Uh, good to know."

  Cormac kicked her boot. "Oi. What's the problem?"

  Her head jerked up and she glared at Cormac. "What the fuck was that for?"

  "It was to get your damn attention, pet. What's so fascinating on that phone of yours?"

  She shoved her phone into the back pocket of her jeans. "Nothing. I thought someone mentioned pizza. I'll go grab the beer."

  Cormac exchanged a glance with Maddox, who stepped in her way while Cormac's hand darted out and plucked the phone from her pocket.

  "Dammit, Mac. Give it back, you nosy bastard." She made a grab for it, but Cormac tossed it to Reese, who swept it from the air and glanced at the screen, blanching at what he saw.

  Ridley slumped onto the shitty couch with a harsh sigh.

  "What is it?"

  Reese handed the phone back to Ridley. "Her father made the front page of Time Magazine. Apparently, he's being celebrated at some gala at the beginning of the year after the holidays."

  Well, hell.

  Chapter 11

  Ridley

  THE GUYS GAPED AT RIDLEY, alarm and fury warring on their faces.

  Ridley shrugged. "It's not that surprising. He's had shit like this thrown for him before. Never made the cover of a national magazine though. That's new." She tried to hide the quakes trembling her hands by crossing her arms across her chest.

  "This could work with what I told you about yesterday." At the confused glances from the other guys, Maddox explained further. "I told her we'd been throwing around ideas of how to bring him down. She didn't want to hear it."

  She glared at Maddox. "Because it's too dangerous and impossible."

  "You're helping us with Maddox's brother's case. Why won't you accept help from us with your problem?" Beckett asked.

  Why did they keep pushing this? Did they want to die? Or worse?

  She fought back the memories of her father’s rage-fueled face as his fists and feet drove into her flesh over and over and over again. Memories of her mother broken and bruised on the floor.

  He was a monster who looked nothing like the suave and charming man photoshopped onto the cover of a magazine, looking like some great patriot.

  "Because for Maddox, we have one poison generator to go up against. With my father, it's the entire Legion, all this money and political power, and his ability is invulnerability. We can't hurt him physically. He'd be next to impossible to arrest and lock up."

  Maddox shrugged like it was no big deal. "Then we just need to get a little more creative and hit him where we can hurt him."

  "Like where?" Ridley had never found the bastard’s Achilles Heel.

  Beckett’s lips spread in an evil smile. "His money. His reputation."

  "The bloody president is going to this gala." Cormac explained as he looked at his phone, apparently, he’d pulled it up himself.

  Ridley snorted. "Yeah. He got a bullet bump after my mother and I were "killed." He was considered a hero when he claimed our deaths were revenge for his work as an ace. Brilliant, really."

  "None of us are blind to the issues in the Legion,” Maddox said. “We never planned on staying in this long. We just need the access it gives us and honestly the money we can put away so we can retire young."

  "We considered trying to take down the whole organization a few times, but so far we haven't come up with a way to handle it."

  Ridley shook her head at their combined insanity. "The Legion is too big to take down. All you can do is take on one crooked ace at a time or you can do what I do and focus on the people who fall through the cracks of the supposed justice of the courts and laws."

  It was frustrating as hell, especially for someone with superpowers, but life wasn’t an action film where a ragtag group of people could save the world from damnation. There was no such thing as a chosen one. Heroes and good guys had rules, laws, lines they couldn’t cross. Villains had none of that holding them back.

  "You said ham, pineapple, and banana peppers on your pizza?" Reese asked, his expression a little less stiff for the moment.

  "Yeah."

  Reese finished putting in the order before hanging up. "It'll be fifteen minutes. Way faster here than at home." He eyed Ridley. "Once I gave her the address, she added two orders of breadsticks for free."

  Ridley hid a smile. "I tip well." And she'd helped the owner out of a jam a while back.

  Beckett raised a skeptical brow, but didn't question it. "We're going to figure out a way you can be free from that bastard."

  "I'm as free as I'm ever going to be." Did they think she'd never considered ending the man who ruined her life? Her mother's life? She'd gone over dozens, maybe hundreds of scenarios. They all ended up with her dead or imprisoned or worse. "I'll go grab the beers before the pizza gets here." She pulled some cash from her bra and dropped it on the coffee table.

  Their eyes followed her as she made her way up to her apartment, needing a moment alone where she didn't have to pretend she wasn't rattled by this news. Had her mother seen the story? She must be horrified and scared. Ridley wished she could contact her, but she still had months before they exchanged their yearly Christmas email.

  Dammit.

  Those stupid shitheads had gotten into her head, making her want something different, something more. She didn't have any room inside of her for hope. She lived in the real world where more often than not, the villains won. And those idiots knew it as well as her.

  She grabbed the six-pack in her fridge and headed back into her garage where they guys still sat, chatting in low murmurs.

  Beckett handed Ridley her laptop in exchange for the beer. "I got it all set up for you. It might help in keeping an eye on your father's movements and it'll help you look into the people you help."

  "Thanks, Beckett. This is awesome." She was itching to play on his programs. She wished she had his skills. She was a decent researcher, but coding and programming was way over her head.

  "It needs your fingerprint on the mouse pad to access them and the webcam will do a facial ID as well. I have it hidden under an app that looks like a panda game."

  She eyed him in suspicion. How’d he know she loved pandas? Was it a coincidence? Damn nosy bastard.

  "I'll check it out later." She set the computer aside for now.

  "Ok. Also, your cut of the last job we did has been transferred to your PayPal account."

  "What?" Her head jerked up so she could glare at them all.

  Maddox explained. "We finally got paid for it last week and we've been waiting to pay you what we owe you."

&nb
sp; "You don't owe me anything."

  Maddox frowned at her. "It's not charity, babe. You were a huge part in taking down Gregory. Hell, you did most of the work. Don't make us the assholes who didn't pay you for your help."

  He had a point and she could use the funds. "Fine. But I don't want shit for this job."

  "If it ends up being something the Legion pays us for, you're getting your cut. Quit being stubborn. If you don't want to use it on yourself, put the money towards the women you help."

  "Fine." She needed the money. She needed to rebuild her savings. This money would do that and with the funds from Lani, she'd be better off than she'd ever been.

  A knock at the door broke up the conversation and Cormac scooped up the money she'd left on the table and pulled out his own wallet, heading to the door to pay.

  Ridley grabbed a beer and curled up on one of the chairs, watching as the guys settled around her shitty coffee table and spread out the food. Maddox handed her a slice of her favorite pizza on top of a napkin and she smiled at him in thanks.

  She'd forgotten how much they could eat. Beckett ordered five large pizzas, a thing of wings, and they had the two orders of breadsticks. That was enough for her to eat on for two weeks and based on the way they tore into it; the food wasn't going to last an hour.

  "I've got some business to take care of tomorrow afternoon, so Beckett, you go with Ridley to watch."

  Shit. She was busy tomorrow afternoon too. "Can Beckett and I take the morning shift instead? I have a meeting tomorrow at two."

  "Anything you need help on?" Maddox asked.

  "It's not an abuse victim. I'm meeting a realtor."

  "You're moving?" Cormac actually looked furious at the idea.

  "Nope."

  Beckett’s brow furrowed. "Opening up a new garage?"

  She shook her head. "Nope. I can barely handle this one. I have no interest in opening a chain."

  "Is Malia moving?"

  Her lips quirked as they each tried to guess her business. "No."