Code of Conduct (Cipher Security Book 1)

by Smartypants Romance

  “Did you know Karpov had photos?” I asked, mostly to keep him distracted so that Gabriel could get closer.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He ground the words out between his teeth, and it may have been my imagination, but I thought his finger tightened on the trigger reflexively.

  “No? You don’t strike me as the kind of guy who would let some dickhead stiff you for a job you were hired to do.”

  “He paid me to do the job. And then you stole the money from me.” Dane was starting to breathe hard, maybe panicked, maybe nervous.

  My eyes widened. “Oh! I get it now. Karpov paid you to kill a guy, and then he photographed it to keep you on a leash. The million dollars was the hit money. ”

  Dane’s skin had gone pale and sweaty, and I seriously wondered if the guy was going to have an aneurysm.

  “You’ve seen them.” Dane was alarmingly unfocused, and Gabriel needed to get his butt up to the lighthouse a little faster.

  “I’ve seen what?” If twisty conversation kept me alive for thirty more seconds, I would be a master of it.

  “Karpov’s pictures, damn you!”

  “They’re not Karpov’s anymore.” Maybe he wouldn’t be so quick to shoot me if there was a chance I had hidden the proof somewhere.

  “Give them to me!” He lunged at me, which I wasn’t expecting, and tried to grab me by the wetsuit. He couldn’t get a grip on the tight neoprene though, and I ducked out of his reach.

  Then I accidentally kicked him in the nuts. Whoops.

  Gabriel hurled the empty thumb drive case up onto the porch and was sprinting the last twenty feet. “Here are the photos!” he yelled as my brain saw everything play out in one split-second slow-motion moment. Dane turned to fire at me, but Gabriel suddenly became the bigger target. The moment the gun had moved past me on its trajectory toward Gabriel, I lunged forward. Dane reflexively fired, but forward momentum carried my shoulder into his solar plexus, and I plowed into him so hard we both went down in a tangle of limbs.

  Gabriel tore Dane away from me with some weird superhero strength and flung him into the lighthouse wall. The thunk of skull hitting wood vibrated through the deck, and a moment later, Gabriel had Dane’s gun. I was down, stunned from the impact and mentally checking my whole body for gunshots. Gabriel’s eyes were doing the same, and I wanted to yell at him to keep them on Dane so the slippery little bastard didn’t run away. But I didn’t have enough breath to make a sound, and all I could do was stare up at him.

  Footsteps pounded on the deck. Someone else had arrived, but Gabriel blocked my view when he dropped down next to me. He used both hands to check me for holes, and I finally managed to gasp breath back into my lungs.

  “I’m not shot.”

  “That was point blank.” Gabriel’s voice came out in a choked whisper, and I registered that the look in his eyes wasn’t anger, it was fear. Cold, naked fear. I shivered, and he picked me up as if I were made of porcelain and cuddled me to his chest protectively.

  My gaze landed on Van standing over an unconscious or maybe dead Dane with a gun pointed at his head.

  “Van’s here,” I wheezed, stating the obvious. I shouldn’t have, because Gabriel’s expression darkened.

  “Where the hell was he when Quimby got here?” He turned to glare at Van. “How could the bastard leave Chicago without you right on his tail?” Gabriel’s voice was pitched to carry, and I pulled away to sit up.

  “Don’t—” I reached a hand out, but Gabriel was already on his feet.

  “You had one bloody job! One job. Keep this knob away from her!”

  Presumably Dane Quimby was the knob, and I was her, and with that word, I’d just been demoted from full partner to something considerably less qualified.

  “Hey—” I began, but Gabriel interrupted me with his continued tirade.

  “He’s a bloody moron being tailed by the best in the business, and yet here he is with a gun.” He took a menacing step toward Quimby, and I thought he was going to kick him, but instead, he spun to face me. “And you—” He seemed to struggle to find the words to fit the rage. “You threw yourself at a man with a gun. Of all the reckless … careless … stupid things to do!”

  That was enough. I got to my feet and looked at Van, who was thin-lipped with his own anger. “He dead?” I indicated Quimby slumped on the ground.

  Van shook his head grimly. “Knocked out.”

  Good thing, because the mood I was in, I might have bashed him over the head with something hard and spiked and maybe dipped in poison.

  I turned to Gabriel. “I’m cold and I’m going to change.” I didn’t wait for a response, and he didn’t give me one.

  I squared my shoulders and walked away before the first tear fell.

  46

  Gabriel

  “Everything you want is on the other side of fear.” – Miri Eze

  Some part of my brain registered that Shane was angry, but it seemed a pale thing in comparison to the fear that still gripped me tightly in its fists. I was so relieved to see her get up and walk away – whole and undamaged, and away from the bastard who had shot at her – that I felt my knees go weak.

  I had to stay upright and capable and strong. I needed to finish this and see Shane home safely, with no further threat to her from the man who had attempted to kill her. I should have felt the cold through my wetsuit, but nothing surpassed the chill of fear that remained in my blood at the sight of the gun aimed at the woman I loved.

  Jesus. I loved her.

  It was hard to breathe, and I must have looked as shaken as I felt, because Van’s angry expression shifted into something less hostile.

  “You alright, man?”

  “I’ll be better when this maggot is behind bars.” I barely restrained myself from kicking the unconscious man at my feet, and I gripped the strap of the wet bag that was still slung across my chest as a gesture of control.

  “Then we better do it right. Fiona called Quinn so he could get the feds out here. No point in risking another good-ol’-boy catch and release with this one. She’s behind the lighthouse as back-up in case this one got past me again, but your girl did a good job taking him down.”

  “She almost got shot.”

  “Yeah, she did. And that’s on me. The little prick ducked me on the L, and when I couldn’t find him, we decided to put me on the two of you, just in case. Turns out you both did just fine on your own, but for what it’s worth, I’ll take the hit if you want to throw a punch.”

  I did, more than I cared to admit, but decided the cost to my hand would be greater than the satisfaction was worth.

  “Boys are so strange,” Fiona said as she came around the corner, holstering her gun behind her.

  I nodded to her. “Thank you for your back-up.”

  She indicated Quimby’s inert body. “Anyone check for a pulse?”

  “He’s breathing,” Van said. “Although he hit the wall so hard I thought you might have broken his neck,” he finished to me.

  “A not-insubstantial part of me wishes I had,” I groused. “I’m wet and cold, and I need to find Shane.”

  Fiona cocked an eyebrow at me. “She wanted to get home to her dog, so I gave her my keys, which means I’ll need to ride with one of you. She said she’d come in to give her report in the morning.”

  I felt hollow at Fiona’s words, and I wasn’t sure if it was because of the words themselves or the expression of sympathy that accompanied them. I looked at Van to distract myself from the feeling of something lost.

  “Do you need Fiona to ride in the car with you?” I asked him.

  “Nah, I’ll truss him up with zip ties and throw him in the back seat.”

  “Then I’ll go with you,” Fiona said to me.

  I nodded my thanks. The hollowness was expanding rapidly, and it threatened to pull me under. “I’ll just retrieve your husband’s surfboard from the beach and change my clothes. Then I’ll be back to help carry the trash out.”

>   Van smirked. “Maybe we’ll accidentally drop him a couple times on the way.”

  47

  Shane

  “A lot of people make small mistakes. Why not go big and completely fuck it up?” – Dan O’Malley

  I managed to get a couple hours of sleep in my own bed before my alarm woke me. I’d been too tired to change the sheets when I got home, so Gabriel’s warm, spicy scent filled my nostrils every time I turned toward the pillow he’d slept on, and alternating waves of sadness and desire washed over me when I realized why my bed smelled so good.

  The need to escape my bed made me drag my sorry carcass out of the sheets and into the shower, but that wasn’t any better. Another wave of longing and lust hit me as I washed my hair, bracing myself against the walls by my elbows and wishing it were Gabriel’s hands that held me up.

  I didn’t let myself go down that path, because frankly, I didn’t have the energy to be objective. My heart hurt and my head ached, and the only cures that made sense were my dog and coffee, in that order. I finished the shower and went looking for Oscar, but only found a note by the coffee maker telling me that Jorge had taken my hound for a long run. I looked at the time and realized it was still early enough that if I was quick, I could give my report to the bosses at Cipher before the other agents on the team made it in.

  To the casual observer, I was just some chick in jeans, boots, and a sport bike jacket, but I knew I’d armored up in “don’t mess with me” clothes. No make-up, no coffee, wet hair tied back in a bun, and an all-black outfit. No one met my eyes on the L, and even the woman behind the desk at Cipher barely questioned the ID badge in my hand.

  I went straight to Quinn Sullivan’s office. The door was open, and I put my badge on his desk when he waved me in.

  “The FBI is handling the capital case against Quimby,” he said with barely a glance at my ID.

  “Why? Murder is the state’s jurisdiction.”

  “The victim was a federal judge,” he said grimly.

  Actually, everything about the owner of Cipher Security was grim and foreboding, so it was probably just normal speech for him.

  I pulled the thumb drives out of my pocket and put them on the desk next to my badge. “These were in Karpov’s safe with the photos.”

  “What’s on them?” he asked as he grabbed one and inserted it into his laptop.

  “I don’t know.”

  He looked up at me, clearly surprised. I maintained a carefully neutral expression as I met his gaze, and the silence between us became a thing you could see hanging in the air.

  Finally, he nodded – just once – as though I’d just confirmed something for him. He then reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a sealed envelope, which he placed next to my badge.

  “You did good work, and there’s an offer in there. It’s a standing one.”

  I made no move to take it. “Thank you. Will you please thank the team for me? They were all true professionals, and I am honored to have worked with them.”

  The thumb drive menu popped up on Quinn’s laptop, but he held my gaze for a long moment before he finally stood and held out his hand to shake mine.

  “Stop by Alex’s office on your way out, if you would?” I nodded wordlessly, and he sat and turned toward the computer as I left his office.

  I fully intended to press the lobby button on the elevator, but my finger accidentally pressed the button for the fourth floor. I didn’t work for Quinn Sullivan anymore, and I certainly didn’t want to see anyone else I’d worked with at Cipher, but somehow my feet took me to Alex’s office, and my hand knocked on the door.

  “Come,” a voice directed.

  I opened the door to discover Alex at his desk working on three computers simultaneously while his wife, Sandra, sat on the edge of it flipping through a file. She looked up, and her megawatt smile fairly blinded me.

  “Shane!” She hopped off the desk and threw her arms around me for the kind of hug that doesn’t allow quick pats on the back. I surrendered to the inevitability of it and hugged her back. “You don’t knit, do you?” she asked after she finally let me go.

  I must have looked as baffled by her question as I felt, because she laughed. “It’s either join my knitting group, or we’re going to have to make a standing date for panty dance parties, because I have people you need to meet.”

  I stared at her and managed to get an incoherent sound out before I finally tore my gaze away to find Alex’s eyes laughing at me. Not his mouth or any other part of his face, mind you, just his eyes.

  “Quinn said you wanted to talk to me?” I asked him, mostly so I could think of something more than “um” to say to Sandra’s outrageous invitation.

  “I do?”

  Sandra’s gaze sharpened on me, and she leapt in before I could respond. “I do.” She shot Alex an incomprehensible look, to which he just shrugged. She took me by the arm and walked me out of his office.

  Sandra hooked her arm through mine, and I was vaguely uncomfortable to be so close to this woman, but she was a force of nature against whom I felt powerless.

  “What happened?” she asked, when she finally directed me into an open conference room. “Wait,” she said. She poured a mug of coffee from the pot that sat half-full on the sideboard, considered me for a second as she reached for the sugar, then shook her head and handed the black coffee to me. “You need this first.”

  “How did you know?” I took a sip of the slightly stale, still hot coffee, and almost sighed.

  “That something happened, or that you needed coffee? Actually, the answer is the same. You look tired, fierce, and sad, in that order. Plus, Alex told me about what you and Gabriel and the team were up to last night, and I heard that you guys got your man. But you’re not celebrating the victory, so something went wrong. Also, Alex didn’t ask to see you, but Quinn knew I was here, which must be why he sent you up. So, spill. What happened?”

  Sandra hadn’t taken a visible breath through all of that, and it took me a moment to realize it was my turn to speak.

  The problem was that I didn’t know what to say.

  She poured herself a cup of coffee and refilled mine, silent and watchful the whole time. Then she leaned against the conference table, and her silence shifted from something that allowed speech to something that invited and welcomed it. I had no idea what she’d done, but the dam on my words finally broke.

  “Apparently I’m reckless, careless, and stupid. I’m not an equal partner, and I’m not capable enough to do the job.” It was hard to force the words out past my constricted throat, but I managed somehow.

  “Did someone say that out loud, or did you hear it in your head?” Sandra’s tone was utterly devoid of judgment – a fact I found comforting.

  “It was out loud, in front of other people.” My own voice sounded flat in my ears.

  “What happened the moment before the words were said?” Sandra didn’t take her eyes off me, even though it was just a casual glance across a steamy coffee.

  “I tackled Quimby as he shot at me.”

  One eyebrow arched up. “So, you’re not incapable.”

  The anger that had warred with the emptiness in the pit of my stomach the whole drive home came back in a rush. “Clearly not.”

  “Was anyone hurt?” she asked with the same casualness that was in her gaze.

  “Just the perp. Gabriel threw him into a wall and knocked him unconscious.”

  “As he was presumably calling you reckless and careless?”

  “And stupid,” I said, swallowing the rage that came up with the word.

  “Are you stupid?” she asked, her eyebrow still raised.

  “No.”

  “So,” she said, “not stupid, and not incapable.”

  “No.” I tried not to sound like a petulant child, but Sandra didn’t seem to care if I did.

  “In my experience, Shane, people tend to hurl words like this when they’re either angry or afraid.”

  “Not always,�
�� I countered, and that eyebrow went right back up.

  “Really? Someone rational said you were stupid?”

  I mentally cringed away from the memory of that voice, and I must have flinched because Sandra put a hand on my arm. She searched my face with worried eyes, and I finally nodded.

  “My mom.”

  “Oh, Shane,” she exhaled, right before she pulled me into her arms for another hug. This one should have been much more awkward than it actually felt, but it wasn’t, and I let myself relax a tiny bit.

  She finally pulled back so she could look me in the eyes, but she continued to hold one of my hands. “We’re taught that parents are the ones we’re supposed to trust to protect us, and if they do their jobs right, we get to learn self-reliance in a safe and secure environment. But when they screw up – and boy, do they screw up – parental betrayal is possibly the worst thing a person can ever go through. When the person you trust most in the world tells you you’re shit, you either believe them, or you break.”

  I couldn’t find my words and could barely find my breath. It was stuttery and thin, and I felt like the glass coating I’d used to protect myself was splintering.

  “You didn’t break,” Sandra said softly.

  I shook my head.

  “She lied to you, Shane. Your mother lied.”

  The sobs bunched up in my throat and got trapped there along with my voice, so I just nodded and looked down at my hands still clutching the coffee mug. They were good hands – strong, with long fingers and short nails. Capable hands that could find things other people overlooked. They were weapons and tools, and I pictured them running through my dog’s fur, scratching his ears, making him go glassy-eyed with bliss.

  And then I remembered them clutching Gabriel’s shirt, running under it along the smooth skin of his back. I pictured my fingers caressing his jaw, smoothing the collar of his jacket, entwined with his, and I closed my eyes.