The man shifted his gaze up to Alexa, and his frenzied tapping of the keys ceased. A grin spread across his face as he reached for his headphones and slipped them around his neck. He leaned back in his seat and folded his arms across his chest, angling his head.
“Alexa.” Xander came up behind her and placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Alexa Ryan,” the man’s voice was a cool whisper, his graphite gray eyes devoid of emotion. He wasn’t just an ex. Jake could see it in his eyes, in the curve of his wry smile—he was a killer.
Jake tried to curb the sudden anger that bubbled beneath his skin. He glanced over at Randall and the bald man, who had come around to the other side of the couch. Was this some sort of showdown?
“We don’t have time for this, Alexa,” Xander said in a low voice. He lifted his hand from her shoulder, took a step back from her, and peeked at Jake.
Jake tensed. The muscles in Xander’s face and throat were tight. He was holding himself back from the blistering hatred that simmered in his eyes. So, it looked like Jason had pissed off more than Alexa.
Xander gave a quick nod to Jake. Beckoning him for help, maybe?
In a few strides, Jake swapped places with Xander and stood firm at Alexa’s side, his eyes now focused on Jason as he placed a hand on the small of Alexa’s back.
Jason cocked his head, his gaze briefly flickering to Jake’s arm. “It’s been years, Alexa.” Another smile slithered to Jason’s mouth. The bastard wet his lips as he assessed Alexa with gleaming eyes. As Jason leaned over the laptop on his desk, Jake caught a glimpse of the black hawk tattoo that spread from Jason’s ear down the side of his neck. The man was dark. Dangerous.
Was this the kind of man Alexa liked?
Was that the man Jake himself had become?
“Ahem. Beta team is now in position.” Randall’s voice broke through the tension that had veiled the room like a dark storm cloud.
Alexa took a step back, her eyes closing for a flash, and then she turned away from Jason and moved toward the bald man by Randall. “Good to see you, Seth. Sorry you had to be the one to bring this lying arsehole here.”
“Now, baby girl, wasn’t it you who did all the lying?” Jason came around from behind the desk, brushing past Jake, which had Jake’s hands locking into fists at his sides. He’d love for this guy to give him a reason to throttle him.
Alexa looked down at the carpet, crossing her arms over her leather jacket. She was trying to maintain her composure, to resist the pull of anger that was clearly tugging at her heart as Jason poked her.
Xander quickly stepped in front of Jason. “Get back to work,” he ordered.
Jason rubbed a hand down his jaw. The outer edge of his hand was covered in black ink. “Just catching up with my girl, here. Haven’t seen her since she had me arrested.”
Xander pressed a hand to Jason’s chest and glared at him. “I think it’s best if you don’t open your bloody mouth until I say you do.”
Alexa kept her back to the scene, picking at a loose thread on the top of the couch at her side.
Jake remained stiff, torn between whether or not he should punch Jason in the face for simply being a prick.
Once Jason retreated to his desk, Xander moved over toward Alexa. “Get some tea in the kitchen and take a breather,” he said softly.
Jason scoffed and looked up at Jake. “If you’re screwing that fine arse, then you should probably watch your back. She might be a good lay, but she’s a bitch,” he rasped, his accent thick and heavy.
Jake’s heart may have hardened over the years, but he had a feeling that assholes like this had something to do with it. And damned if he didn’t want to kill this man, but before Jake could even form a fist, Xander was there—grabbing Jason by the shirt. The smug bastard remained sitting, looking up at Xander.
“Shut up before I put a bullet in your head my-Goddamn-self,” Xander growled, his jaw locked tight.
Xander released Jason’s shirt as Jake fought against his own anger. The man deserved a lesson. But Jake knew it would be better to trade in his anger to focus on Alexa, instead.
Jason cracked his neck as he tilted his head from side to side and then positioned the headphones back over his ears.
“Come on,” Alexa murmured, motioning for Jake to follow her to the kitchenette.
Jake kept his eyes on Jason as they walked past the desk.
“Sorry about that,” she whispered once he stood in front of her. She offered Jake a mug of coffee, probably remembering his distaste for tea.
“Thanks.” He heaved out another deep breath and brought the hot liquid to his lips.
She folded her arms and leaned her back against the counter of the breakfast bar. Her lips tightened as her eyes darted over his shoulder, and he assumed she was probably peering at Jason again.
“You don’t need to apologize, by the way,” Jake said in a subdued voice, careful not to attract attention.
“We need to focus on stopping Anarchy and putting an end to Bekas. Dealing with my feelings for that arsehole—well, it’s not the time or the place.” Her words were weighted down by emotions.
Jake took another sip of his black coffee as he thought about what to say. “We’ll take Bekas down, but after that—”
“Alexa, we need your help,” Xander called out, interrupting Jake.
Jake had wanted to say no, to give her one more minute to work through her feelings, but he refrained.
She broke eye contact with Jake, and her gaze flickered to her cup as she swallowed. She set the mug on the counter and pressed her hands to her thighs for a moment as if she were mentally preparing herself to re-enter the fray. “Yeah?”
“Eh, Jason hacked into the hotel’s system earlier and created a keycard that can access every room in the hotel. He’s overriding the surveillance cameras at all the surrounding points to the building, and then I’ll need you to hack into the video feeds for Reza’s floor and put them on a loop. I don’t want any evidence that we were in his room. Not that he has a reason to check the hotel surveillance, but we need to cover our bases.”
“That’s no problem,” she said.
“We need about ten minutes of time looped. Enough to go and install the devices.”
“What’d you bring from Q?” Alexa looked over at Seth—he didn’t look to Jake like some badass spy. Then again, that was probably the point.
Jake’s hand touched his face as he remembered he’d forgotten part of his cover—his glasses—back in the hotel room.
Seth went over to a bag on the table by the couch and dug into it. “This,” he said, holding up a red ball-point pen, “can monitor conversations up to twenty meters, and we can hear everything after a ten-second transmission delay.” He handed it to Randall, who was now at his side.
“And this beauty,” Seth held up a small silver object that looked like a quarter, “is the camera we’ll place near the safe, so we can sneak a peek at the combination. Fortunately, we don’t need a palm scan for this one.”
Jake remained in the kitchen, keeping himself far enough from Jason so that he wouldn’t lose his cool.
“Should be easy enough,” Xander said. “I’ll be going into Reza’s room. Randall is monitoring Alpha team. And Seth has Beta team.”
“And what is Beta team doing, exactly?” Jake asked.
“Scoping out the casino,” Xander replied. “Getting a feel for it, so they can better keep an eye on Reza tonight.”
Jake crossed his arms, surprise moving through him. “A casino?”
Alexa nodded. “We’ve been studying Reza’s behaviors for a while. If a city has a casino, he goes practically every night.”
“I wouldn’t have suspected,” Jake said.
“He’s a card counter. Has a real addiction to it.” Xander approached Jake. “Listen, while everyone is doing their thing, I thought maybe you could take a look at some images from the case files. Maybe they would help trigger something for you.”
Alexa
came up behind Xander. “Do we have anything new?” she asked while removing her jacket.
Xander glanced at Alexa and responded with a brief nod. “We have traffic camera footage of the Montana shooter in London a few kilometers away from the site of the explosion last week, and he was with someone. We haven’t gotten a match on the other guy yet, but we’re talking to Interpol and working with other agencies to get a name.”
“You have the man’s picture?” Jake cleared his throat, wondering if he could help.
“Yeah. I have two laptops set up in the bedroom. I thought you guys might want some space to work.” Xander glanced at Jason before pointing to one of the doors off of the living room. “Without distractions, yeah?”
“That works. Thanks.” Alexa pressed a hand to Xander’s shoulder. “I’ll get working on the video cameras.”
Jake watched Alexa leave, but when he started to move, Xander’s hand fell on his arm. “Listen, mate, when this is all over—”
Was he about to go big brother on him?
Xander leaned in, his voice at his ear. “Don’t let her get away.” He cleared his throat. “I want her to be happy.” Then he moved back to where the team was set up. It took Jake a minute to process Xander’s words.
It hadn’t been what he was expecting, but it made him like Xander a hell of a lot more now.
Chapter Twenty
One side of the split screen showed actual footage, which Alexa was deleting in real time. On the other side was the looped feed she had created to hide Xander’s entry and exit from Reza’s room.
Alexa and Jake had only been in the hotel suite’s bedroom for fifteen minutes, but that was all the time she had needed to get things going. A simple hack into surveillance was easy for her. But working in the same room with Jake after the crazy tension that had smoked them out of the living room after she’d confronted Jason—well, that wasn’t so easy.
She peered over at Jake, whose brows furrowed as he scrolled through the images in the @Anarchy file. He was sitting by the window with the laptop resting on his jeaned thighs.
She inhaled a small breath as her attention swept over his shoulder and to the window. Her hotel was across the street, and her mind wandered to her time with Jake earlier. To the slow, sensual licks of his tongue. To the way their bodies had locked together during sex as if they were tethered together—bound forever. And would that be so bad?
No, eternal bliss sounded pretty bloody good right now.
She glanced above the gleaming building across the way, admiring the soft pink and blue streaks layering the sky like cotton candy. It made her hungry for a time when life was much more straightforward. When she was in primary school, and her greatest problem was when she and her sister liked the same boy.
“We got word from Alpha team. Looks like Reza is heading back to the hotel.” Randall’s voice quickly diverted her attention back to the mission.
“Shit. Did you hear that?” Alexa pressed a hand to her ear, not wanting to miss Xander’s response.
“I’ll be done in less than a minute. There’s plenty of time—no worries, love,” Xander said, his smooth voice filling her ear.
She breathed a sigh of relief. “He’s about done,” she told Randall.
Of course, the hard part would be tonight, when Jason uploaded the malware into Reza’s computer. She still couldn’t fathom why they were trusting him with something so critical, but she also didn’t know if she had the finesse for the job. And it was too important to depend on a prayer. She’d uploaded malware dozens of times, but @Anarchy was a group like none other they’d faced, and they would have to make sure Reza wouldn’t detect any changes in his computer, which wasn’t easy for even the most brilliant of minds.
“How are you holding up?” Alexa spoke to Jake for the first time since they’d come into the room together.
But before Jake could answer, she blurted, “Shit!” Alexa pulled the screen closer to get a better look and then zoomed in on the tall, built man who was striding down the hall.
“Xander, you’ve got a problem,” she rasped. “Boris Gregov just stepped out of the bloody lift on Reza’s floor.”
“Are you kidding?” Xander answered. “Fuck.”
How had Gregov gotten right under their noses without anyone noticing?
“Do I have time to go out the door?” Xander asked, and Alexa’s heart hammered in her chest, pulsing in her ears.
“I don’t know if he has his own room, but I doubt he has a key to Reza’s, yeah? Maybe Reza is on his way to meet him, and he’s going to wait outside the room.”
“Which means I can’t leave. Jesus Christ,” Xander mumbled. “Where is he now?”
“He’s two doors away.”
Jake was on his feet and moving to look at the computer.
“Tell me, is Reza walking down my side of the street? If I go out to the terrace . . .”
“Where’s Reza?” Alexa raised her voice so Randall could hear her in the other room. “We have a situation.”
Randall came into the room. “Where’s the target?” Randall was talking to his team through his own earpiece. “He’s already in the lobby.”
“Okay. He won’t see you from the street, but he’ll be at his room in a few minutes. You can’t get down from the terrace, though,” Alexa quickly said.
“Jesus. There’s a knock at the door,” Xander muttered in a low voice.
Her mind raced as she pulled up the hotel information. “Give me a second.” She began tapping at the keys, her fingers working furiously. “Thank God,” she cried. “Xander, the room has a connecting door to the neighboring room. Your key is set up to access every room in the building, and the couple staying in that room aren’t scheduled to check in for two more hours.”
There was no word from Xander—he couldn’t talk with Gregov outside the room. Alexa prayed that the deadbolt on the other side of the door remained unfastened.
Jake’s hand wrapped around the back of his neck as he stared at the footage on the screen, with Randall at his side.
“It worked. Thanks, mate,” Xander said a minute later, and Alexa’s head hung with a sudden, relieved exhaustion.
“He’s okay. What’s Reza’s position?” she asked Randall.
“Location?” Randall sputtered to Alpha team.
“Never mind. I have him on camera—he’s heading down the hall.” Alexa studied the screen, her heart burning in her chest. “They’re going into the room, Xander. Give it a few minutes before you leave, and then hurry the hell back here.”
“Will do,” he answered.
“Well, that was intense.” Jake angled his head to look at Randall.
“Hey, now we know where Gregov is. You think Bekas is heading here, too? Is everything going down in Barcelona?” She squinted as her mind scrambled for answers. She highly doubted that Kemal Bekas’s master scheme would unfold in Barcelona. But she’d been wrong before.
“I don’t know. I’ll go give MI6 a call and let them know we have eyes on Gregov.” Randall left the room, and Alexa stood up and flung her arms around Jake’s waist without thinking, relief pouring through her.
Jake responded by locking his arms around her back, tugging her closer to him. He rested his chin on top of her head, holding her, and she was grateful for the few moments alone. She breathed in his cologne, relishing the warmth of his touch. The world slipped away at that moment, and she was safe.
Terrorists didn’t exist.
Her father hadn’t died of lung cancer ten years ago.
And she’d never met Jason.
“You okay?” Jake asked shortly after, and she pulled herself free of his embrace, embarrassed at how tightly she’d been holding onto his back.
“Shit. Are you okay?”
He didn’t flinch or show any signs of pain. Maybe he was getting better. Still, she shouldn’t have been so careless.
“I’m good.” He whisked a few hairs out of her face and tucked the long, dark strands behind her ear.
She inhaled at his touch and shut her eyes.
When she no longer felt his presence nearby, she peeled open her eyes to find him. His back was to her, and he was looking out the window. One hand pressed against the glass as a soft glow from the bright sun shone through the window, wrapping around him like the glow of a crystal. “Did you, uh, see anything helpful?” she asked after a long silence, and then reached for his laptop.
The images he’d been viewing hit her like a train. They were pictures of Jake. One of his body sprawled out amid debris after the explosion at the mill. Another of his injuries, when the lashes on his back had been fresh.
“How can you look at these?” She set the laptop on the bed by hers and crossed the room to meet him by the window.
“It’s fine,” he said, but the slight tremble in his voice betrayed his words. “I’m alive, although my team’s not. That’s what I’m struggling to deal with.”
She understood, perhaps more than he knew, but before she could say anything Xander’s voice sounded in her ear.
“I’ve activated the listening device. Is it working?” She could tell from the slight breathiness in his voice that he was on the move—probably heading back.
“Let me ask Randall.” She touched Jake on the back for a brief moment before grabbing her computer and going out into the main room.
“Are we getting anything on audio?” she asked Randall. He was hunched behind Seth, who sported large, black headphones.
Seth shook his head as Alexa set her laptop down next to his. “It’s fuzzy. They must be blocking us.”
“But how would they know?” It was Jake. His body was rigid in the doorway as his eyes fell upon Jason.
“They probably always use an audio jammer for protection. It’ll impede all eavesdropping devices as well as Wi-Fi connections. These guys aren’t amateurs,” Alexa glibly responded. This was another reason that she wasn’t overly optimistic about Jason’s malware.
“Will the camera still work?” Jake asked.
“I doubt they’ll have the jammer on all day—just while they’re talking,” Randall answered. “But we’ll have a back-up plan in case we can’t get the combination for the safe.”
Surviving the Fall (Hidden Truths Book 4) Page 17