Absolute Trust

by Piper J. Drake

  “The trouble is that I don’t know what other career I’d want to do. I’m not sure what would make sense.” She didn’t have another career in mind beyond accounting. She had only a dream.

  * * *

  The afternoon with Sophie was nice, and she’d asked him to help her with physical therapy. It mostly involved helping her to a space open enough for her to do a bunch of core strengthening exercises without putting any weight on her ankle. She did a few Pilates exercises and several sets of “superman / banana” followed by what she referred to as “bow to boat.” The boat portion of that exercise required her to roll onto her belly and reach back to grasp her ankle, though, and he hadn’t liked her putting odd strain on her ankle in the medical boot. But she managed to elevate her heart rate and work up a fine sheen of sweat.

  Since she was focused on working out, he busied himself with his own set of exercises. Otherwise, he would’ve tried to have his way with her right there on the living room carpet.

  She might have had similar ideas, though, because she’d been sneaking sideways glances at him as he executed push-ups and burpees. She even helped him count out his burpees, laughing as he tried to keep up with her as she called out the numbers for standing, crouching, shooting his feet out to a push-up position, back to crouching, then jumping upward to land in the standing position again. He was glad he was in good shape because he’d enjoyed the enthusiasm she had for making him work to keep up with her, and it would’ve sucked if he couldn’t keep up. He’d come away from the workout trembling, though, so he decided to take a shower.

  When he came out of the shower, he was presented with a very nice view of Sophie’s rear.

  He came to a halt. “Whatcha doing?”

  She rose up on her hands and knees on the bed and curved her back toward the ceiling. “Yoga.”

  “On the bed?” He moved forward quietly, hoping not to startle her but wanting to be closer.

  She breathed in slowly and exhaled, arching her back and looking up toward the far corner of the room. “There’s actually a few articles online describing how a couple of these simple stretches help you sleep better. I can’t do the more challenging routines right now, but doing these simple stretches really feels good.”

  He tipped his head to examine her rear. “It really looks good, too.”

  She froze then straightened so she was kneeling on the bed, her upper body turned so she could glare at him. “Naughty.”

  “Oh, I’ll give you naughty.” He tossed the towel aside and lunged at her.

  She giggled and let him topple her over on the bed, but squirmed as he tried to gently pin her. She’d taken several self-defense seminars at Revolution MMA, so she had some fundamentals for grappling. They tussled for a few minutes until he got inside her guard and took the opening for a kiss instead of pinning her.

  Her legs locked around his waist and her hands ran over his biceps and deltoids to his shoulders.

  He continued tasting her, feeding from her mouth, and enjoying the feel of her body under him. She nipped the corner of his mouth and he growled at her playfully. She pulled his head down for another long, lingering kiss.

  Then his disposable phone beeped a notification.

  Damn it.

  He came up for air. Her legs tightened around his waist.

  “Tempting, snuggle monster, very tempting.” He tapped her hip twice. He had never imagined he’d be tapping out just when things were getting hot. “The phone is probably important.”

  She sighed and let him loose. She gave him a momentary pout then wrinkled her nose and smiled. She was so cute sometimes, his heart stopped.

  This better be important.

  He grabbed the phone and took a look at the text, or texts, in this case. “It’s from our new friend, Raul Sa. Looks like his teammate, Arin, made it to Europe just fine.”

  He didn’t expand on the fact that Sa’s teammate had a replica of Sophie’s passport with her photo transferred onto it. Sophie wouldn’t have wanted someone to cross the legal line because of her.

  But he would, and he worked with people who had.

  “Arin will be headed back soon.” Under her own identity.

  Sophie rolled onto her side and propped herself on her elbow. “So, I didn’t like the decoy plan when you told me about it during the drive down here. But I’m glad she made it there okay. Was there any trouble?”

  He shrugged. “Possibly. Nothing she couldn’t handle if Sa didn’t mention it in the text. Rojas will get a full debrief, and I can follow up with him if we need it.”

  Sophie sighed. “I didn’t like the idea of someone going out there to draw the threat away. What if she’d been hurt?”

  Forte reached out to caress her cheek. She had a much better heart than he did. “This kind of work is what she does for a living, and from what I can tell with limited information, she does it well. She chose this line of work, all the associated risks included.”

  Sophie leaned into his caress. “I can respect that. I just wish it didn’t have to be risks taken on my behalf specifically. It sounds much more heroic when it’s for our country or for a good cause.”

  He adjusted his hand to lift her chin so her gaze met his. “You are a part of this world and what any soldier is out there to protect. And you are worth any risk to me.”

  She bit her lip. “I’m afraid, Brandon. It’s been too easy, too beautiful pretending this is a vacation or a getaway with you. I shouldn’t want this while someone else is out there risking her life being me.”

  “She isn’t you.” He kissed her to prove it, pulling her close. Then he drew back just enough to see her face. “It’s okay to be afraid. We’re not completely safe. What we’re doing is buying time. And it’s okay to make the most of that time because there’s no guarantee we’ll have more later.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  As early as she liked to get up in the morning, Brandon still beat her to it with his habit of waking before dawn. She’d sort of come to consciousness when he’d left the warmth of the bed they’d been sharing, giving him a sleepy giggle when he’d run his knuckles over her rib cage. He might’ve teased her into turning to him for a long kiss, too. Or that might’ve been a dream. It was very nice, regardless.

  He’d been right last night. She’d decided to savor the time and enjoy, fully aware it might end as easily as any other dream when it came time to wake up.

  Or not wake up, ever again.

  Shaking off sleep, she sat up and swung her feet over the edge of the bed.

  “I’ll live.” Saying it out loud was more of a decision than a hope. Even if all this ended badly, she’d take the time he’d bought for her and make it wonderful. No regrets.

  Washing her face chased away the last fog of sleep and gloom. She decided to pull on one of the tactically altered tunic T-shirts for the day. Elisa had a knack for simple, quick sewing alterations, and the effect was fun. The formerly loose T-shirt now clung to her form, accentuating her slender curves.

  The act of putting on clothes that made her look the way she liked did wonders for her confidence. She walked down the hallway, looking for other signs of life in the cabin.

  Haydn was a shadow at the end of the hallway.

  “Hey, Haydn, where is Brandon?”

  The big dog gave her a doggie grin, his tongue lolling out as he panted at her.

  “It is a mystery.” She stopped in front of him, placing her hands on her hips. It wasn’t as if Haydn was going to talk to her, but he also wasn’t going to particularly do anything in response to her chatter, either. She’d learned from Brandon a while ago that his working dogs responded best to clear, concise commands. But she liked to talk to the dogs, and he’d never said it was bad. “I was about to do some morning yoga out in the living room. Are you joining me?”

  She walked past Haydn to the living room and he followed her. Her cat was curled up on the back of the couch but roused and let out a meow as Sophie entered.

  Her new ca
t really needed a name. Maybe Sophie would come up with one as she went through her yoga routine. Part of the reason she enjoyed it was the way thoughts that’d eluded her while she was thinking too hard came to her in the middle of a workout once she’d relaxed.

  A cat’s name seemed like a reasonable thought to search for, as opposed to the bigger answer of what the hell to do with the rest of her life.

  She decided to start in the middle of the open space in the living room. This would be the first time she was trying a session while putting weight on her injured ankle.

  Her cat decided to come down to the floor to walk in a circle around Sophie with a quiet meow. Sophie stood tall with her feet together, making sure to keep her shoulders relaxed and her weight evenly distributed over her feet. She’d be careful to pay attention to her right ankle and stop the minute any pain started there. She kept her arms loose at her sides. Her cat sat directly in front of her and watched as she took a deep breath, raising her hands overhead, palms facing each other with her arms straight. She reached up toward the ceiling until she felt the stretch all the way to her fingertips. After a good long moment she lowered her arms to her sides.

  Just that started her blood flowing and she focused on steady, even breathing as she repeated the move.

  Her cat moved to her side and meowed again. Haydn stood on the other side, watching her with his head tipped to one side in a quizzical pose.

  She placed her hands flat on the floor and stepped back first with her good foot, then her booted. Once she was sure of her balance, she pressed her palms into the floor. Her body leaned into an inverted V, her hips lifted toward the ceiling, and she was careful to press her shoulders away from her ears.

  After studying her, her new cat executed a stretch of her own, mimicking the downward dog pose. Sophie giggled lightly under her breath. Best not to tell the feline the name of the actual yoga pose. Then, on her other side, Haydn whined and stood for a moment, then bent into a similar stretch.

  Now all three of them were in downward dog.

  “Seriously?” Brandon’s voice made Sophie jump.

  She stood too quickly, and the blood rushed out of her head. “Whoa.”

  Brandon was suddenly there in front of her, hands gently gripping her upper arms and steadying her. “Too fast. Aren’t you supposed to stand up out of those positions slowly?”

  “Everything about yoga is in its own time.” But her mind wasn’t on what he’d asked her or even what she’d answered. Instead, she was picturing mathematical representations. “I figured out a name for her.”

  “Yeah?” Brandon nudged her toward the couches.

  Too excited to resist, she grinned at him as he sat her down and had her lift her right leg to rest on the length of the couch. “Yes! Tesseract! I’ll call her Tessa for short.”

  The cat in question hopped onto the couch and walked up onto her chest, butting Sophie’s chin with her head in an imperious demand for petting.

  “I’m almost afraid to ask.” Brandon sat on the couch next to her. “You like math and all, but how did you come up with that one?”

  “Well, I was starting my yoga routine, taking it nice and easy.” Sophie wanted to express her thought process before she forgot how she’d come to her epiphany.

  “So I was a single point of origin. Then Tessa followed my lead. She became a second point with a line of action between us. Two-dimensional. Then Haydn joined us and made us three-dimensional. Then you came along and added a fourth dimension to us.”

  Brandon stared at her a long time. “But when Haydn joined you, you became a triangle, not a cube.”

  “Okay, so the mathematical logic gets fuzzy there, but my abstract thought process saw the point turn into a line between two points, then the line become two parallel lines connected to become a square, and the square become two squares connected at the corners to become a cube, and then you surprised me and the cube became two cubes connected at the corners to become a hypercube.” She drew in a deep breath. “It totally made sense at the time.”

  Brandon chuckled. “Okay, your brain did geometry. For fun. Because a dog and a cat joined you. I’ll admit I’ve never seen that before, by the way.”

  She leaned into him, exceedingly happy with herself. “No?”

  “It’s good to see Haydn put weight on the prosthetic and use it to his advantage. A stretch like the one he was doing with you wouldn’t have been as doable without his prosthetic on.”

  “Mmm.” She looked over at Haydn, who was now lying on his belly in the middle of the carpet. “Maybe you should incorporate yoga into his physical therapy.”

  Brandon stiffened against her. “I don’t think so.”

  She sat up and turned to face him. “Why not?”

  “You’re talking about a dog doing yoga.” Brandon shook his head.

  “There are articles out there on the benefit of yoga and massages for dogs.” She was sure she’d seen some online in the past few months.

  Brandon raised both eyebrows, probably because she’d made the statement so vehemently.

  She narrowed her eyes at him as he remained silent, though. “I’ll cite my sources as soon as I can get online again.”

  And just like that, she remembered she couldn’t go online because someone was out there trying to find her so he could kill her.

  * * *

  Forte watched the joy bleed out of Sophie’s expression. Her smile faded, and her gaze dropped away from his. There were other minute changes. Her eyes dilated slightly as her thoughts turned inward and the sweet, natural blush on her cheeks when she was tweaked into being angry with him faded. Her shoulders drooped and she absently rubbed her upper arms from the chill of thoughts rather than the temperature of the room.

  “Hey—”

  His current disposable phone rang. Cursing, he held the phone to his ear and used his free arm to gather Sophie in against his side. She came to him unresisting and curled up against his body.

  “Forte,” he growled into the phone, but, hell, anyone calling this phone could take it.

  “Ky here.” Ky’s voice held a note of wary reserve.

  “Yeah.” Forte wasn’t in the mood to go for camaraderie at the moment.

  “I’ve got an update on our friend’s former employer.” Ky matched his tone. Apparently, he’d had a bad day. “We’ve had attorneys buzzing around since we began a direct investigation. They’re trying everything and anything to make things difficult, and it’s a huge pain in the ass.”

  Sophie’s safety was worth it.

  “That’s a lot of energy and money to throw around if they have nothing to hide.” Forte was actually cheering up thinking about it. It was probably a sign of how bad a person he actually was because he was glad Ky was buried under attorney bullshit. It meant Sophie’s employers were guilty of something.

  “There are quite a few clients who like to provide their records and expenses in amazingly awful condition. It’s a mess to dig through. And what do you know, but the worst files have neat little notes in the margins indicating where the numbers need to be reconciled. They’re accompanied by a certain friend’s initials.” Ky sighed. “She was too detail-oriented. It had to have taken her multiple nights of long hours to plow through all this. There are other files she must not have seen, though, or she would’ve seen the trend across the different shell companies and client names. We’re seeing a bigger picture than she had access to, now that we’re investigating.”

  But Sophie wasn’t daunted by long hours or hard work. She dove into it, and once she got hooked on a particular task, she wouldn’t stop until it was complete to her satisfaction.

  “Our friend has a passion for math.” Forte gave Sophie a gentle squeeze, then rubbed his hand up and down her upper arm. She responded by leaning her head into the hollow of his shoulder. “She comes up with weird applications for it.”

  “Accounting is definitely math, and you definitely have to be a particular kind of personality to want to do it d
ay in and day out.” Ky’s voice took on a wry tone. “It’s killing me just going through all these files. Just about half the files of interest are ones where she found issues and made notes to talk to the client to reconcile. It adds up. If she’d come up out of the nitty-gritty details and added it across the multiple files, or had access to the other documentation, it accumulates into significant amounts of money.”

  Ah. “Let me guess. All the issues look like typos or errors in notation.”

  Ky grunted. “There’s a lot of missing zeroes in some places and added zeroes in others. A couple of places where digits are switched.”

  Sophie’s employer, or possibly the accounting firm as an entity, was hiding the ebb and flow of a lot of money. Sophie might not have encountered the real evidence of it, but she’d gotten too close with her detail-oriented knack for wanting to make sure everything reconciled to the last cent.

  “Does her employer have a hobby of putting together car bombs in his garage?” Forte was half joking. It couldn’t be that easy.

  “No evidence pointing to such a hobby.” Of course, Ky would’ve gone to the man’s home to check. “I was honestly thinking it’d be overzealous trying to have her eliminated. It would’ve been fine to just fire her.”

  “But there was a bomb in her car before she was fired.” There were pieces scattered all over the place. Forte wanted to be able to put them together to make a whole picture, but he wasn’t seeing it yet.

  He already had an idea of where to look, though.

  “And it was her employer who told her to take the rest of the day.” Now the anger was starting to come through in Ky’s words. “He’s involved. This man is neck-deep in it, and he’s too panicked to lie well. I’ll get to the meat of this.”

  “Any of those shell companies or clients connected to Labs-Anders Corporation?” Forte hadn’t shared earlier because Ky needed more to go on than a hunch.

  “Not on first look.” Ky was silent for a moment. “But I’ll take a harder look.”

  Good enough. Forte was betting Labs-Anders Corporation did more than recruit in the Philadelphia area. And it was no coincidence that Cruz had encountered them actively recruiting not too long ago. It made sense for them to have other business interests in the city.