by CD Reiss
Prince Charming
CD Reiss
Flip City Media Inc.
Prince Charming - CD Reiss
© 2017-2018 Flip City Media Inc. All rights reserved
* * *
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
All characters are fictional. Any similarities to persons living or dead are the result of coincidence or wish fulfillment.
Contents
Also by CD Reiss
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Epilogue
Also by CD Reiss
Acknowledgments
Also by CD Reiss
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SPIN | RUIN | RULE
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Marriage Games | Separation Games
Contemporary Romances
Shuttergirl | Hardball | Bombshell | Bodyguard
1
CASSIE
I trust men I’m attracted to about as far as I can throw them, which is surprisingly far if I have good leverage and mobility in my lower body, but not far enough to give them the time of day or half a chicken sandwich.
You don’t have to like it, but I’m not going to argue with at least four generations of family history. Once I feel that little buzz in the sexual part of my brain, it’s a four-alarm fire in there. Klaxons. Red flags. Lines in the sand. The guy can be a crown prince anointed by the good Lord himself and there’s nothing he can do to get more than a few months out of me. It’s not his fault. It’s mine, and I’m all right with that. It’s gotten me pretty far.
Then this morning happened.
We intercepted Keaton Bridge at a factory he’s opening in the next town over and took him in for questioning. When he looked me in the eye, I went to DEFCON One. Code Red. My body began staging a bloodless coup while my mind lost its flank support.
He has the body and the eyes of a predator, silken movements and a churning, twisting mind that calculates ten steps ahead. I can feel it working, and it turns me on.
I don’t know him. Nobody does. Trust isn’t on the table, but I’m drawn in his direction as if the earth suddenly tilted and all the water of my attention is flowing downhill, toward him.
He’s seen things, but no one’s ever proven he’s done anything.
He knows things, but we don’t know exactly what.
He’s immune to bluffing apparently. We’ve had him in interrogation for two hours and he hasn’t even asked for a lawyer.
Most black hat hackers have confidence deficits they cover in layers of bling and swagger. They compensate for social awkwardness with tough-sounding names and facility with numbers. Some have a talent for the long con until they have to look someone in the eye. Some are straight up sociopaths.
When we picked up Keaton Bridge—a.k.a. Alpha Wolf, though no one’s proven it—I’d profiled him as the latter. He and his partner, Taylor Harden, are opening the first quantum-chip manufacturer in the world. The risk is enormous. Either his guts are made of stainless steel or he doesn’t have a sliver of human emotion.
Then I met him. My name had barely passed my lips before I knew he wasn’t a sociopath. He had emotions, tons of them, and they were complex, real, and intense.
I watch Ken interview him through the mirror. Both men are in profile.
Bridge waits two full seconds before answering any question. His hands rest flat on the table in front of him, and he’s perfectly still. It’s as if he knows any movement can be a tell, so he makes none at all.
Those emotions I sensed? He has control over them. His self-awareness is frightening and exhilarating. His voice has a British lilt that’s masculine, confident, educated without being snotty.
The dimples in his cheeks are a trick. The smile lines are a hoax. His voice, his looks, the leathery scent that filled the car on the way in; all of it is a long con game.
“I haven’t a clue,” he says over the speakers in the dark observation room.
“But you are Alpha Wolf?” Ken replies, referring to one of the three most powerful figures on the dark web.
One-Mississippi.
Google can’t find the dark web. The only browser that will take you there hides your activity in so many layers of encryption, you can peel them like an onion and never find the center.
Criminals trade credit card data, guns, drugs, people.
The FBI has a presence there. We use it to speak to informants and assets. Journalists use it to contact anonymous whistleblowers.
Two-Mississippi.
“It’s quite funny, that.”
“That what?” Ken asks.
One-Mississippi.
There’s no official or provable connection between Keaton Bridge and Alpha Wolf. But that’s the thing about covered tracks. Cleanliness has its own stink.
Two-Mississippi.
“That stupid fucking assumption.”
Between Ken and Keaton Bridge, one of them is a federal agent. One of them has the power in the relationship. And one of them is making stupid fucking assumptions.
“Are you the same Alpha Wolf who maintains a relationship with Keyser Kaos?”
One-Mississippi. Two-Mississippi.
“You’re a very insistent chap.”
Ke
n opens a folder. It looks like a complete dossier, but in fact, it contains cherry-picked items from a two-terabyte hard drive on Alpha Wolf and Kaos. “Is this you?”
One-Mississippi.
Bridge glances over the paper Ken hands him. It’s not a photo of a person. It’s a screenshot of a post on a dark web onion thread.
Two-Mississippi.
The screenshot Bridge looks over is a normal Keyser Kaos /Alpha Wolf chat about how much they’d charge to dox a female gamer. This is the least of their infractions, and he knows it.
It’s proof of nothing, and he knows it.
Bridge puts the page down, then leans back. He and Ken share a moment in profile.
Three-Mississippi.
I’m in the observation room because I asked Ken for a change in strategy. I wasn’t convinced I wouldn’t be railroaded by my body’s reaction to Bridge or that my mind’s alarm bells wouldn’t distract me. Now I’m not sure I did the right thing.
Four-Mississippi.
Though Keaton was intimidating at first sight, with his perfect suit, open collar, broad shoulders, and chiseled jaw, he wasn’t cold. He saw me before he saw my badge, as if he’d whipped away my cloak of invisibility.
I hadn’t felt naked. I’d felt noticed.
Then Keaton had glanced to my right, where Taylor Harden stood. Without saying a word, he apologized to his partner.
Fascinating. He was fascinating.
Five-Mississippi.
Through the mirror, Bridge turns and looks straight at me. His eyes are the color of the seven o’clock sky and they can’t see me, but they do. He sees everything. He sees how I tap my fingers to count the seconds. He sees the lint on my jacket.
I can’t move. I am sealed in my rigid skin. Joints locked. Muscles frozen. He sees the spit dry on my tongue, the callouses on my hands, the tightening of my jaw. He sees the nights I was up with firearm fist, and the mornings Mom counted my night’s haul.
He hears the cacophony in my head.
Six-Mississippi.
He sees so deep into my loneliness that a huh escapes my throat, then he speaks.
“Won’t you join us, Agent Grinstead?”
2
KEATON
Agent Rotter won’t let it go. He thinks I spent sixteen years covering my tracks to be intimidated in a little room by a little fucking prat.
“You’re a very insistent chap.”
Rotter opens a folder and flips through the pages. It’s all for show. I don’t look at what he’s flipping through because he has fuck-all on me.
He spins the folder to face me and taps the page he’s found. “Is this you?”
I will not be rushed.
I will not be coerced.
I will not be strong-armed into risking QI4.
I don’t care about the company itself. Don’t give a flying fuck about quantum mechanics or changing the world blah blah blah. I don’t even give a shit about money anymore. They can have it, the whole rotten lot of them.
I push away the folder. This entire drama’s put me off my lunch. Agent Rotter’s bloody smirk is going to get him a mouthful of fist one of these days.
But not today.
I promised Taylor I’d be there today, and I will be.
Taylor could have turned over on me a hundred times. But he didn’t. And when I told him I was looking to go straight, he partnered with me, knowing I was a risk. He could have gotten plenty of investors.
I’m not going to be late thanks to the rotter here. But for the bird?
Where is Agent Bird?
Someone’s on the other side of the mirror on my left, and if I’m any judge, the woman who helped drive me here from Barrington is watching five feet away, on the other side. She’s distractingly beautiful and gloriously proud. As soon as I saw her, I had a vision of her atop a mountain, ruling the world, and a second vision quickly followed. Her under me, begging, with my name on her lips, over and over, pride shattered.
I feel her watching from the other side of the mirror. It’s not an unpleasant feeling. It is, however, inadequate. I want to see her again. I want to see if I saw something that wasn’t there. I want to regain control of the situation.
Turning to the mirror, I make my request. “Won’t you join us, Agent Grinstead?”
Agent Rotter clears his throat. On the other side of the mirror, we hear a door open, then close.
Taylor’s going to get on my arse for bringing the FBI calling. I’m going to have to convince him they were jagging off into their little files, trying to get me to turn on Keyser Kaos. They brought me all the way to Doverton to see if I have a death wish.
When the door opens and she comes into the interrogation room, I smell her perfume. It’s lavender, calming, and I know the scent isn’t to calm her but to lull me.
I’m not lulled. I’m physically aroused in a way I have no control over.
“Mr. Bridge.” She stands astride the FBI action doll of a man.
No, I was right. She’s proud, but not arrogant. Her accent’s American. They could have flown her in from anywhere.
Thirty-ish. Five-eight.
Freckles on her nose the makeup doesn’t cover.
Grew up outdoors.
A few grey hairs at the root.
Fingernails trimmed, clean, unpolished.
A bare left ring finger.
Does she have a lover?
That releases a flood of mental imagery I have no time for.
“Why hide behind a mirror, Agent Grinstead?”
She looks me in the eye without shame or fear. It’s a frontal attack I’m not ready for. Her hair is the black of silk sheets, and her eyes are the grey of London’s early morning fog.
“We were giving you a little space.”
She’s blindsiding you.
It’s true, but I’m not turning away. She can come at me all she wants.
I can tell there’s no love lost between her and Agent Rotter. As soon as she’s in the room, I know she cares a bloody ton more about this case than the Boy Scout.
Which is good. I can use that.
“That answer’s beneath you.”
“If you have someplace else to be,” she says, tilting her chin toward the dossier, “you know the quickest way out of here.”
I lean forward. My answer should shake her a little, but not too much. I think about her response two seconds and formulate my own. “We’re in the middle of a promotional event. The mayor’s there. The press. The Lord himself is looking down on the Barrington factory, and you expect me to believe you want to give me space.”
“If you want less space, that can be arranged.” Her voice is so crisp, it’s seductive.
Walking confidently in six-inch heels, she steps from her position and gets behind me. Her calves are shaped for my hands. If I want to see her, I’ll have to twist all the way around. If I face forward, she has the benefit of speaking without me watching her reactions. This puts me at a disadvantage, technically. But without seeing her, I don’t have to be captivated like a schoolboy, getting me back a fraction of the leverage I’ve lost.
“Is this where you move from implications to accusations?” I say. “Maybe pull something else out of this little folder here? Reveal your narrative of crimes? Make a sincere but manageable threat, close the walls in on me, then show me a singular way out? Yes? A little Reid technique?”
Ken looks over my shoulder to her.
“A plea bargain. Maybe you want me to flip on someone?” I push the folder back toward Ken. “Keyser Kaos maybe? I read an article in the Intercept about him. Quite a character. According to the article, of the thousands of people on the dark web offering assassination services, he’s the only one who can make good on them.”
She speaks from behind me. “We have a trail that connects you and Alpha Wolf.”
“No.” I turn slightly, so her blur is in my peripheral vision. I can smell her with more clarity than I can see her. “No, you don’t.” I turn back toward Agent Rott
er. Even in the corners of my vision, Grinstead is distracting. She takes up way too much room in my attention. “You could just tell me what you want.”
Rotter’s watch tick-tocks. The air conditioning snaps off. I hear Grinstead breathe. Otherwise she is immobile behind me. I know she and this plastic version of a man are talking with looks and hand signals.
“Two years ago, you invested in QI4,” Ken says.
“My friend Taylor came to me with an opportunity I had the resources to take advantage of.”
Such a flat answer for such a thick web of motivations. Taylor’s a genius. I wasn’t surprised when he cracked quantum computing. Anyone would have invested, but I did because it’s the right way to thank him for his friendship and loyalty before the rest of my plans go into motion.
“You and Keyser Kaos have been partners for years,” Rotter says. “We’ve tracked everything, and now you’re claiming to be legit? How could we not follow up?”
He shrugs as if this is just procedure. He’s going to be the good cop now. The role reversal is standard in Reid technique interrogations. I feel as though I’m the only audience for a play that’s been put on every day for a generation.