Break So Soft: Break So Soft Duet

by Black, Stasia

  “Maybe I was hoping to catch you here because I know how much your head is on this project too.” She smiles seductively but I see the apprehension in the lines around her eyes even as she kisses me and wraps her legs around me.

  And I tell her the truth. No more bullshit. “I need you so much, you know that, don’t you Callie? You’re a part of my life now. I can’t imagine it without you in it. I hope you feel the same.”

  “I do,” she whispers and breaks the kiss to bury her face in my neck. She’s usually liquid in my arms but right now her entire body is strung tight with tension.

  Because she hates betraying me? Or because she’s worried I’ll catch her at it? I hold her even tighter.

  I’d forgive her either way. I’d forgive her anything.

  She stays like that a long time, face buried, and I hate it. Hate that she doesn’t trust me. Hate that I don’t know if she loves me back or if she ever could.

  “Callie.” I pull her back from me and shake her lightly. “Callie. Stop. Whatever’s running around in your head, just stop. Be with me in this moment.”

  Because if this is all we have, then I want her here with me.

  Her and me.

  The love of my life.

  Because even if I’m not hers, she’ll always be mine.

  And finally, finally, she relaxes into me.

  “Do you trust me?” I ask, trying to look her in the eye but hers are on the floor.

  Such a simple question but so devastating. It’s an echo of the question I asked that night when I held her very breath. I’ve hoped that her giving herself over completely to me that night meant that she was mine, forever and truly mine. But if she can’t give me the truth now, the complete truth, maybe it means she never will.

  Please Callie. Jesus, please. Believe in me. Believe in us.

  And then she squeezes her eyes shut and murmurs, so quietly I barely hear it, “I won’t let him make me a monster, too.”

  Then she stands up straight and meets my gaze firmly for the first time all night.

  “I trust you so much, Jackson, that I’m going to trust you with my son. And he’s my everything.”

  She swallows like she’s fighting through a closed up throat to get out the words. “I’m trusting you with everything.”

  And then she tells me. She tells me about Gentry blackmailing her in order to force her to hand over the prototype we’ve been working on. She tells me Gentry has a video of her and that it would destroy her in court if it came to light.

  She stops there, glossing over exactly what’s on this damaging video. “But I hated it. Hated it the whole time. Jackson, please, you have to believe I never wanted to betray you. I—.”

  Her eyes drop again and I grab her hands and kiss her knuckles, bowled over at the fact she’s finally trusted me even when the stakes were so high.

  She breathes out a huge breath of relief, tears cresting in her eyes like she was afraid I’d reject her if she told me. She’s so fucking brave. I pull her into my chest.

  “I hate all of this,” she says, swiping angrily at the tears falling down her cheeks before pressing her head back into my chest. “You must hate me.”

  “Of course not.” Is she nuts? I stroke her hair. “Remember, I know better than anyone what Gentry is like. How he backs you into a corner. And this was about your son.” Jesus if I think too long about Gentry blackmailing her with custody of her son I’ll lose my shit so I focus on Callie. Just her.

  “Still,” she looks up at me, incredulous. “How are you just automatically being so cool about this?”

  Oh, right. She thinks this is some huge revelation. I wipe a hand down my face and she pulls back from me.

  “What?” I see the alarm that sweeps through her.

  I offer a bleak smile. “I told you. I know how Gentry works. From the first meeting, I guessed Gentry wanted my prototype. Corporate espionage is almost a given with him.”

  “Guess you never expected the spy would be me, huh?” She gives a bitter laugh, swiping at another tear.

  Then she must see it on my face.

  “Oh my God.” She yanks back from me. “You did. You knew all along it would be me. Is that why you hired me? So you could control who he used to spy?” She runs her hands through her hair.

  “Christ, no!” My face twists in disgust. “Why do you always assume the worst? Even after all we’ve been through?”

  Her eyebrows furrow and I feel bad for my strong words. Hypocritical too, because haven’t I been tortured by similar thoughts? Jesus, why couldn’t we just trust in each other? Well, she did. She came clean. She trusted me with her son.

  I close the space between us and take her hands again. “I hired you because of your skill and because I wanted you away from that monster.” Her body sags and I catch her in my arms again. This time I guide her over to one of the plush leather chairs by my desk and pull her into my lap, cradling her so that our faces are only inches apart.

  “But after you resigned,” I shake my head, the familiar pain lancing through my chest, “you were so different. I knew he’d done something.” My eyes search hers. Will she trust me with this? With all of it? Whatever’s on that tape? I know Gentry often creates the scenarios he uses for blackmail.

  “I know he destroys people and then manipulates them to do what he wants them to. It’s his M.O.” I run a thumb tenderly over her cheek. “And there are cameras in the machine shop. My security tech saw you.”

  Her eyes shoot to me, face full of shame but I hurry to silence whatever she’s thinking with a kiss. “I know you.” I hold her face in my hands and force her to look at me instead of dropping her head. There’s no shame here. Not any more. “I know you wouldn’t willingly steal from me if you had any other choice. He was obviously forcing you somehow.”

  Her eyes search mine, the pain in them so deep. Pain she’s finally not masking from me. “I don’t deserve you.”

  “Hush,” I say, brushing her hair back from her forehead.

  She smiles, her eyes falling shut. “I do that for Charlie. Brush his hair out of his eyes like that.”

  “It’s what you do when you love someone. You take care of them.”

  Her eyes spring back open.

  Shit. I haven’t said it since that first night I confessed after her parent’s house and I didn’t mean to on a night like this. Especially when I have to ask what I do next.

  “Tell me what’s on the video he’s using to blackmail you.”

  Her body stiffens and I hold her closer before she bolts.

  “You can tell me,” I coax, running a hand over her hair and undoing the pins, then combing my fingers through the length of it, scalp to tips. Jesus, every part of her is so soft. “You trusted me with your son. Trust me with this.”

  Her face crumbles and she looks away.

  “Callie look at me and tell me,” I demand.

  She glares at me for a long moment but really, it’s only tit for tat because she did the same to me the night she ferreted out my secrets. It’s the give and take at the heart of the relationship we’re building.

  And eventually, she must decide the same. Because, even though her lip is trembling and her whole body starts to shake.

  She tells me exactly what that monster did to her in that conference room the day she went to render her resignation. What those— Those— How they— Over and over, how they—

  I almost get up to throw up at several points. It’s only her warm and solid in my arms that grounds me.

  I’ve never had to fight so hard to contain my beast. I imagined the worst—I thought I’d imagined the worst. But my imagination was nothing to that evil, evil fuck. I’ll do more than bury him. Because even killing him wouldn’t be enough at this point.

  “So he recorded it and is blackmailing you with footage of your own violation?” I sum up, my voice a deadly quiet in the otherwise silent office.

  “Yes.” It’s just a whisper, like that’s all she can manage after such
an emotionally exhausting retelling.

  I hold her closer, look her dead in the eye, and make a vow I’ll keep no matter the cost.

  “We’re going to bury that motherfucker.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  CALLIE

  Right as I finish zip-tying Gentry’s wrists, he starts coming to. I give the hard plastic tie an extra hard yank and he yelps. I smile with probably too much pleasure, but a girl’s gotta get her thrills where she can.

  “Look who’s decided to wakey wakey,” I sing-song to Jackson. I stand and give Gentry a nice kidney kick before stepping away. His ankles are similarly constrained, giving him a lovely hog-tied appearance. It’s a good look on the bastard.

  “You two are going to pay for this,” Gentry yells, red-faced and spittle flying. “I have so much on the both of you! You’ll lose everything you ever loved, I’ll make fucking sure—”

  The ball gag I shove in his mouth cuts off his rant into pure gibberish. He was so busy cussing us out he didn’t even realize I was behind him readying it. I got it in with barely any effort. He jerks back and forth trying to get the rubber ball out but I calmly secure it behind his head.

  “Ah,” I smile serenely at Jackson, “that’s better, isn’t it sweetie? Silence really is golden.”

  Gentry thrashes on the ground, screaming in rage against the gag, but bound and restrained like he is, he just looks like a pathetic animal.

  I know you really aren’t supposed to kick things when they’re down, but I’ll make an exception in his case. I mean, I’m wearing the steel-toed boots and all… it’s just a shame to waste them when there’s rapist scum around.

  I deliver another swift kick, this time to his balls. He emits a high-pitched screech, similar to the noise I imagine ten dying cats might make. I’m usually one who’s all for a quiet work environment, but hearing the song of his suffering might just make up for it.

  I head over to where Jackson sits at Gentry’s console. “How’s it going?”

  He smiles up at me. “Just cracked his password.”

  I glance down at Gentry and see his eyes go wide.

  “You thought you were so clever,” I say in my most condescending voice, like a teacher might to an especially-dense kindergartener in the nineteen-fifties, you know, back when they didn’t have to be nice to them. “You might have disabled any keystroke readers on your computer and have a super long nonsense password—how many digits is it, honey buns?”

  “Twenty-four,” Jackson helpfully informs me. Gentry’s eyes ping-pong back and forth between Jackson and me.

  “But guess what?” I bang on the glass wall behind Gentry’s desk. “You remember what your company is spending all it’s time attempting to develop?”

  I give him a second but his blank stare tells me everything I need to know about the dude’s nonexistent powers of deduction.

  “Drones.” I roll my eyes at him and then smile at the window. “Say hello to Falcon Seven.” Jackson pauses his typing on the keyboard, turns on the flashlight function on his phone, and holds it flush to the window behind Gentry’s desk. The dim illumination is enough to see a CubeThink drone hovering just on the other side of the glass. “This is one of our prototypes.” The our slips so easily off my tongue. “You know the one you’d have given your left nut to get your hands on? Well guess what? Falcon here can easily fly as high as the fifteenth story and look in the window over your shoulder to see what you typed in for your password.”

  Gentry’s eyes, which were wide with confusion a moment ago, flinch again in fear. We’ve got this fucker running scared. Or well, tied up on the floor scared.

  “And that’s just the beginning. Want to grab him for the rest of the biometric measures, love muppet?” I ask Jackson.

  He bows his head to me. “Your wish is my command.”

  Gentry starts to squirm as soon as Jackson comes his way. Jackson’s easily got a hundred pounds on him, however, so there’s little point. Jackson easily drags him over.

  First is the iris scan. Gentry tries to yank his face out of Jackson’s iron grip with little success and when that fails, to look everywhere but at the eye-scanner once Jackson pries his eyes open.

  Ironically, however, Gentry got the top of the line equipment so it’s able to grab an image of his iris with just the briefest flash of his eye. Getting Gentry’s palm on the palm plate isn’t a big deal either. Jackson gets him on his feet, back to the computer and forces his hand on the scanner.

  I think Jackson wishes Gentry struggled more so he’d have an excuse to break his wrist. Alas, it’s accomplished with little to no injury. Afterward, Jackson checks Gentry’s wrist bindings, see’s they’re secure and then adds several more zip ties, probably just because it will make Gentry that much more uncomfortable.

  Then Jackson drops him back to the floor. Bound like he is, Gentry can’t catch his fall and I imagine we both enjoy his grunt of pain with probably a little too much relish.

  Gentry’s eyes narrow at us and he garbles more gibberish at us through the gag.

  “Do you think he’s telling us we won’t get through his last little paltry security measure?” I ask Jackson.

  “I don’t know, dumpling,” Jackson says with a wry smile.

  Ha, I’ve been waiting for him to call me out on my sudden use of pet names. I grin even wider.

  Jackson produces the small digital device with attached speaker from his coat pocket. “What was his vocal password?”

  “I do believe it was…” I hesitate just for show, then give my pageant smile at the prone Gentry. “Pandora six gorilla ten. Bet you’re regretting not sending me out of the room while you whispered that one, huh?”

  Especially when Jackson types in the words and the speaker pronounces them in Gentry’s slightly nasal, overly articulated voice.

  The screen clears, all security measures passed.

  How, one might ask, does Jackson have all this handy dandy equipment and Gentry’s vocal pattern recorded and at the ready?

  Well, it turns out Jackson’s been planning Gentry’s takedown long before I ever got involved. He already had hours upon hours of Gentry’s recorded voice (from microphones at outdoor cafes, taxis, and everywhere and anywhere public that Jackson’s team could get a mic on Gentry) and the software to scramble the syllables and make a simulation of Gentry’s voice say whatever words Jackson wanted. He just needed the specific passcode, which Gentry changes on a regular but erratic basis every few days. And of course, he needed Gentry all alone, up here in his office.

  Basically, we needed Gentry in his arrogance to set his own trap. We needed him to feel absolutely secure—setting the terms of the meet, on his home turf, while at the same time making himself absolutely vulnerable.

  Jackson’s fingers start flying and my teeth sink into my bottom lip. It all comes down to this. For all my Bond-villain-esque speeches, I’ve just been bluffing my way the fuck through this. If what we’re looking for isn’t on this computer’s hard drive—say if Gentry keeps all the dirt he blackmails everybody with on a hard-drive in a lockbox at home or a safety deposit box in a bank—then we’re fucked.

  But we’re counting on his ego. Counting on the idea that a man like Gentry would believe the safest place in the world is up here in his ivory tower with his name stamped on the side of the building. In this place where he thinks laws don’t apply to him and he can get away with—

  “Shit.” Jackson’s voice is a whisper and I jerk my attention back to the screen.

  “Shit good or shit bad? What? Don’t leave me hanging here!”

  “Good,” Jackson starts laughing. “Good for us at least. Very, very bad for the bastard over there on the floor.”

  “What?” I ask again, my eyes searching the document on the screen. “What am I looking at?”

  “Bank statements. For Colin Wharton.”

  I look between Jackson’s mirthful face and the screen. “I don’t get it. Who’s Colin Wharton?”

  “Oh, he�
��s just the government’s point man who negotiated the US defense contract with Gentry Tech. Check out the rest of the documents in this folder,” Jackson brings up several other files—pictures of a slightly overweight man in a dark, smoky room with his hand over his face, sitting at what looks like a poker table. More pictures of the same man walking down the lit-up Vegas strip at night.

  Then there are bank statements showing large losses throughout the past three years. Then statements from the last few months—and guess what? Suddenly Mr. Wharton goes from being over a hundred thousand dollars in debt to almost one-fifty in the black.

  Holy shit. If this means what I think it means, then Gentry dropped a cool quarter million on this guy to make the DoD contract happen. Now we just need the thread connecting Gentry to Wharton’s money trail. Jackson opens all the other documents in the file, but there’s nada linking Gentry directly.

  Jackson opens another folder and double clicks a file. It doesn’t open. Instead an encryption screen pops up. Jackson rubs his hands together and glances my way. “Child’s play.”

  “You always thought you were such hot shit,” Jackson looks past me to Gentry on the ground behind me, “but it was my homework you always cheated off of. You would never have passed Matrix Theory if it wasn’t for me.”

  Jackson’s eyes turn back to the screen. “Oh, you used a thousand-twenty-four bit encryption key. Isn’t that cute?” Again, Jackson’s fingers fly.

  I sit back and watch him, alternately keeping an eye on Gentry. I might be enjoying rubbing his face in how we bested him, but I don’t plan on making the mistake of underestimating him or letting him catch us off guard.

  Occasionally I check the restraints, keeping my other hand on my Taser while Jackson works. But there’s no way Gentry will be able to get free from that many zip ties. He’s as immobile as a stuck pig.