The Warrior: DERRICK (Cover Six Security Book 4)

by Lisa B. Kamps

  Mac's big hands closed over TR's shoulders as he led her back to the chair. "Babe, you should be home, resting. I told you—"

  TR cut him off with a quick wave of her hand. "I'm fine. I don't need to rest. How many times do I have to tell you that?"

  Derrick bit back a smile at Mac's throaty growl, already knowing that the man wouldn't argue with his wife, no matter how much he might want to. TR had him firmly wrapped around her finger—which would have been funny, given Mac's size and take-no-bullshit disposition, except that TR pretty much had everyone wrapped around her finger. There was something about her that ignited the protective streak of every single alpha at CSS, including Derrick. Hell, he'd even taken a bullet for her. That protectiveness had only increased when she announced she was pregnant five months ago.

  Derrick propped his hip against the edge of TR's desk and studied her. There was no hint of the fear that had clung to her for months after her abduction and attack, no sign of the wariness that she had tried so hard to hide for the longest time. Even so, Derrick knew that her pistol was close by, within easy reach in case she needed it.

  Mac hated the fact that she still carried it, hated that she felt the need for it. Derrick agreed with him, though he'd never admit it out loud. It didn't matter that TR could handle the weapon—Derrick had been the one to train her, and he'd made damn sure she knew how to handle it. What mattered was that she still felt she had to have the weapon close by, even here among all of them. That bothered him as much as it bothered Mac.

  Derrick pushed the concerns to the back of his mind and grinned at TR. "What names have you picked out this week?"

  She settled her weight in the chair then propped her elbows on the desk. "What letter were we up to?"

  "J."

  "James. Jefferson. Jacob. Joshua."

  Derrick shook his head. "Those won't do. I'm thinking Janice. Jennifer. Joanna. Jasmine."

  "Jasmine? That's something I'd expect from Sebastian, not you."

  "Why from Wolf?"

  "You know how he is with all those princess names. And you need to come up with boy names, not girl names."

  The growl coming from Mac increased in volume but Derrick continued to ignore the sound—and the man himself. "But we're not having a boy, we're having a girl—"

  Mac finally stepped around a smiling TR and frowned at Derrick. "You aren't having anything, Biggs. My wife. My kid. Go find your own."

  Derrick glanced at his watch then reached for his wallet and pulled out a five-dollar bill. "You were right, he lost it even sooner this time."

  TR snagged the bill from his fingers with a wide smile. "Of course, I was right. Was there ever any doubt?"

  Mac's scarred face twisted with confusion a split second before realization lit his eyes. "You were betting on me? Really, babe? That's so fucking unfair—"

  Derrick snagged the bill back from TR and placed it in his wallet. "Told you."

  "What the hell was that about?"

  "You know what it was about: your f-bomb." TR raised her hand and held it out, palm up, toward her husband. "Now pay up. And you can add five dollars since you made me lose the second bet."

  Mac narrowed his eyes then reached for his own wallet, muttering beneath his breath the entire time. Derrick gave TR a quick wink then pushed away from the desk, finally leaving the couple alone. He didn't need to listen to the whispered words fading behind him to know that his presence was already forgotten, just like he didn't need to turn around to know that the pair was now locked in a gentle embrace.

  Soulmates.

  According to TR, that's what she and Mac were. Derrick had scoffed at her the first time she'd told him that—and the second and the fifth and the twelfth. Just like he had scoffed at her when she asked him if he ever wondered if his own soulmate was somewhere out there, waiting for him. He'd almost told her that he didn't have one, that you needed a fucking soul to have a soulmate and he'd lost his long ago.

  But hell, she'd been so earnest about it, so damn serious and worried about him, that he'd kept his fucking mouth shut.

  Soulmate.

  Jesus.

  He unlocked his office door and moved into the room, let the cool silence settle around him for a full minute before heading to his desk. He turned on the complicated computer set-up with a quick flip of a switch then sat back as the system quietly booted and went through a string of security checks before coming to life with a quiet hum. Just like the joking with TR, this was another ritual he did each time they returned from the field. There was nothing special about it, nothing earth-shattering or even necessary. It was just a routine to get his head back into the real world, a way to ground himself in his new reality.

  He'd run a few systems checks, verify that their remote systems were operating correctly. Check email. Play a game or two of solitaire. Then he'd head home. Take another shower. Grab a bite to eat. Zone out in front of the television or maybe read.

  Convince himself that he was just a normal guy, settling in for a normal night at home.

  Yeah, sure.

  He skimmed the systems reports scrolling across the first monitor then glanced at the emails flooding his inbox on the second monitor. He dismissed most of them as unimportant, deleting them one after the other after giving them nothing more than a cursory glance. The last one finally caught his attention and he paused, staring at the innocuous subject line for a long time. It wasn't the subject itself that caught his attention, it was the short prefix in front of it. Just a few simple jumbled letters, something that could easily have been an accidental typo—

  If you didn't know what to look for.

  Derrick finally clicked on it, ran a trace on the header before even looking at the message itself. He frowned when he noticed the message's origin—not because he didn't recognize it, but because he did. It wasn't like Lee to route the email through a server he'd used already. The glaring mistake raised silent alarm bells and made him sit back for a few long minutes.

  Was it really a mistake? Derrick didn't think so. The hacker he knew only as Lee didn't make mistakes like this. He'd been working with the guy for eighteen months, had been surprised on more than one occasion by the information Lee was able to provide. Derrick was damn good at accessing systems that were impossible to get into...but Lee was a thousand times better. And somehow, in ways that Derrick still didn't understand, he had actually struck up a weird kind of friendship with the man.

  Derrick deliberately ignored what that said about him and focused instead on the email filling his screen. To anyone else, it would look like spam. An unsolicited advertisement for an all-natural male enhancement pill guaranteed to provide results or your money back. But Derrick wasn't anyone else.

  So was it a mistake—or something else? The frisson of awareness dancing along the back of Derrick's neck told him it was something else. Despite that, he still hesitated for several minutes. The date on the email was from two days ago, and there was no follow-up. Did that mean anything? If this was an urgent message, wouldn't Lee have sent another one?

  Maybe not. Lee had no idea what Derrick really did, any more than he really knew what Lee did. Sometimes they communicated daily; other times, weeks might go by before they talked. Lack of follow-up meant absolutely nothing.

  Derrick forwarded the email to a second secure program, one of his own design that would strip away any potential virus or malware that may have made it through the other checks he had in place. Once he was certain it was clean, he busied himself with reworking the code, breaking everything down to reach the encrypted message buried deep within the false advertisement.

  He read the message then sat back, not sure what to make of it. Was the frantic desperation he sensed hiding in the three short lines real, or merely a figment of his own tired brain? Or was this nothing more than a set-up? A way to get him to relax his guard and make him an unsuspecting victim?

  Trust no one.

  That lesson had been pounded into him from the very begin
ning, even before he started on the path that led him to where he was today. It was a lesson he had thought he learned—until the one day he'd forgotten it.

  Trust no one.

  No, he wasn't likely to forget the lesson, not now. Not after what had happened with Kathleen. But damn his own curiosity for wanting to follow-through, for wanting to find out what was really going on.

  There was nothing saying he couldn't do both.

  Derrick left the office thirty minutes later and headed home, his mind already energized by the thrill of the unknown that awaited him.

  Chapter Two

  The interior of the bar was dim, the air warm with the mix of bodies in spite of the cool night outside. Lidiya paused just inside the door, her eyes adjusting to the lighting, her gaze sweeping the surprising crowd gathered at the bar and sitting at the scattered tables.

  How long had it been since she'd last been here? Three years, at least. Maybe a little longer. The bar—and the clientele—had obviously changed. Once again, she questioned the wisdom of coming here, to this out-of-the-way bar so far removed from where she lived. Questioned her sanity for even concocting this idiotic scheme. She knew nothing about clandestine games. What made her think she could successfully play this one?

  What made her think Chaos would play along?

  She pushed the doubt and hesitation and anxiety away as she moved toward the horseshoe-shaped bar to her right. Whether Chaos answered her cryptic summons remained to be seen. He—or she—may not have even gotten the message. Lidiya hadn't received a response, not that she actually expected one.

  Help urgently needed. The Worthington, 8:00p on Friday. Wearing black and gray.

  The three lines still made her cringe. Could she have been any more cryptic if she had tried? Maybe, maybe not. But she hadn't been trying to be mysterious, just vague. And yes, she had been slightly panicked when she sent the message. She still was, though not as frantically as she had been when she had first received that anonymous message.

  Your time is coming to an end.

  She ignored the shiver dancing along her spine and took a seat at the far corner of the bar. The lone seat gave her a view of the door as well as most of the open room around her; the only section not clearly visible was the area behind her and to the right, where a group of people was shooting pool. She quickly glanced at them and immediately dismissed them. She was thirty minutes early and they had obviously been here for a while. There was no chance Chaos was one of them.

  The single bartender made his way over to her, offered her a brief smile then asked what she wanted. Lidiya hesitated, unprepared for the question even though she shouldn't be. She glanced at the other people sitting around the bar, at the bottles and mugs sitting in front of them.

  "A beer, please."

  The bartender frowned and leaned forward, the quick motion startling her. She jumped back in surprise then bit the inside of her cheek to keep the small gasp from escaping.

  "Sorry, didn't catch that. Can you speak up?"

  Heat filled her face when she realized the words had left her in a whisper. What did it say about her life that she had forgotten how to talk in a crowd? She cleared her throat and repeated the words, her voice a little stronger this time. A little louder.

  The bartender motioned at the taps lining the bar behind him. "What kind?"

  Lidiya studied the different labels with a frown, realizing she didn't recognize any of them. She offered the bartender a small smile. "I'm not sure. Something lighter, please." Her gaze drifted to the lit menu board. "And a small pizza. Pepperoni. Please."

  Amusement danced in the man's eyes. "One light beer and a pizza coming up."

  Lidiya nodded her thanks but the man was already moving away. She didn't understand the reason for his amusement, wondered if maybe it was her quiet voice or the way she had added please to each request. How long had she isolated herself from the real outside world? Too long. Long enough that she no longer knew how to act. Long enough that she'd somehow tempered and muted her former personality because of a fear of being noticed. Of saying or doing something that would make her stand out.

  Was that the reason for the man's amusement? The quiet, reserved way she had spoken to him? Maybe. Or maybe it was because she simply didn't fit in with the rest of the crowd. Because she had somehow made herself stand out without intending to.

  It wasn't just the fact that she was dressed differently—her black jeans and loose gray sweater weren't dressy by any means but they certainly didn't blend in with the more casual outfits of everyone else here. She was also the only person here—male or female—who was obviously by themselves. Everyone else around her seemed to be with someone else, from the pool players behind her to the few couples leaning close together at the tables to the small crowd of men gathered at the far corner who had obviously just come from a baseball game or practice.

  Being alone didn't bother her—she'd been alone for over two years, anonymous and nonexistent. But sticking out? That made her uncomfortable. It wasn't wise to be so noticeable, especially not now.

  The only advantage was that Chaos would be an outsider, too, and just as noticeable when he—or she—showed up.

  If he showed up at all. Lidiya had to prepare herself for the possibility that he wouldn't, for a myriad of reasons.

  Maybe he didn't get her message.

  Maybe he couldn't decode it.

  Maybe he just didn't care.

  She didn't know him but intuition told her that the first reason would be the most likely one. Chaos was just as good at decoding as she was...mostly. And what she knew of him made her think he'd come if he could. If he didn't show, it would be because he either hadn't received the message yet, or he was unable to.

  How long should she give the unknown Chaos to show up after the appointed time? Fifteen minutes? A half-hour? Surely no more than that. And when—if—he showed up, what then? What would she do? Ask for help, yes.

  But help doing what exactly? Lidiya hadn't thought that far ahead, not in specific details. She had refused to let herself think that far ahead, had only the vaguest hope that she'd ask for help and then the unknown Chaos would take charge from there.

  The idiocy of the haphazard and unformed plan suddenly irritated her and she muttered under her breath. The bartender paused, her beer in one hand, and gave her an odd look. Lidiya quickly replaced the irritated frown with a small smile and reached for her beer.

  "Thank you."

  "Pizza will be out in ten minutes."

  She started to say thank you again but the bartender was already moving away—but not before sending her an odd look over his shoulder. Had she been talking to herself? She didn't think the man's expression would be from something as simple as being overheard muttering to herself. Or maybe it was. That, on top of the fact that she was obviously an outsider, would be enough to draw attention to her—which was the last thing she wanted to do. She couldn't afford it, not now.

  Your time is coming to an end.

  Another shiver that had nothing to do with the temperature pebbled her skin. She glanced at her watch then quickly pulled the sleeves of her sweater down, her decision quickly made. She would wait for the pizza to arrive then allow herself to enjoy it. If Chaos wasn't here by the time she was finished, she would leave. Go home and check her messages. Do some work. After that...

  After that, she didn't know what she would do. That annoyed her almost as much as the realization that she had so carelessly failed to formulate a plan for what she would do after asking Chaos for help. That wasn't like her—none of this was. She was normally very organized and methodical, making lists and prioritizing each minute of her day so no task was overlooked. She had to be, it was a matter of survival for her. The fact that she was veering so far away from what had become normal for her during these last two years told her exactly how rattled she was—

  Something she hadn't wanted to admit to herself. Something she still didn't want to admit.

 
But she had to. If she didn't, she might make a mistake and she couldn't afford that, not now.

  She took a small sip of the cold beer just as the bartender approached with her pizza. He placed it in front of her with a small stack of napkins and a brief warning that the pan was hot, glanced at her nearly full mug, then sauntered away.

  Lidiya grabbed two napkins, placed one in her lap and the other next to the pan of pizza, then reached for a slice. It wasn't just the pan that was hot, it was the pizza, too. She pulled her hand back, wincing as she quickly waved her hand in front of her to cool her fingers.

  "You okay?"

  The masculine voice washed over her and she jumped in surprise before turning on the stool and staring at the man a few inches behind her. The surprise wasn't just from how close he was or the fact that he seemed to appear from nowhere—his large hands were loosely wrapped around a pool stick so she knew he'd been in the crowd behind her the entire time. It was from the way she reacted to him on a level she didn't quite understand.

  There was nothing about him that stood out. Tall, but not excessively. Broad shoulders and finely-muscled arms, but not so broad or so muscled that the sleeves of his t-shirt were in danger of busting at the seams. A lean face, the sharp edges of his jaw softened by dark scruff that was several hours past a five o'clock shadow. Black hair, even darker in the dim light, the length just a little longer on the top. And his eyes—his eyes were mesmerizing, such a deep vivid blue framed by thick dark lashes.

  At first glance—and maybe even second and third—there was nothing about him that would make him stand out in a crowd...unless he wanted to stand out. Lidiya was certain that he was the type of man who could blend in wherever he went, whether it was dressed down in faded denim and a t-shirt and boots like everyone else here or in an expensive suit and tie in a boardroom somewhere. Except for those eyes. There was something especially mesmerizing and intense about his eyes.

  And right now, those startling blue eyes were focused on her.