Lost Faith (The Firm Book 1)

by April Zyon

  “I hope that you are right. You have me, so whatever you tell me to do I will do it.” She said simply. “I can move with the best of them and I’m not afraid of running should I need to.”

  “No need to worry about anything like that for now. At this time, we are going to get dinner prepped, make ourselves lunch, and then listen in on what the team is doing while we wait for things to happen.” He urged her up to her feet. Following her, he went to the fridge to dig out everything they’d need to make the lasagna.

  “It may still look like it could die at any second, but we did repairs on the majority of the appliances when we got here to keep them running fine. It won’t have any problems. A bit of rewiring, some new elements and it does better than it likely did back when it was new.” He looked at everything he’d dug out and then to her. “Anything I’m missing, let me know. I haven’t done a lasagna in years and the last time I was being instructed by one hell of a drill instructor, my mother.”

  “I think you have it all.” Gabby appeared a little shocked by how much they did have.

  “You have obviously never eaten an MRE,” he said. Making a face, he shook his head violently. Then he moved to a bag by the door. Coming back to her, he handed over a silver packet. “That is an MRE. Give it a go and you’ll see what I mean. It’s beef stew in case you wanted to know what it’s supposed to taste like.”

  “Oh, dear god, seriously? Okay, so I can see why you guys are all about stocking up and I’m good with that. I’m glad that you guys thought ahead like you did, it gives me some serious hope that we will have good food for whatever time might be remaining here for us.”

  “Won’t be much time if everything goes as planned. The instant we’re sure all the targets are neutralized we’re on a plane out. We only need to give the pilots a two-hour warning and then we’ll be wheels up. Whatever is left here I’ll arrange with a local contact to donate to a shelter, I’m sure they can put it all to good use.”

  “I’m sure. With everything that’s happening around here I’m sure that they would be able to use anything you could give them. Two hours, really? Wow, that’s impressive.” That meant that he had to either have a plane ready and waiting at the airfield she flew in on or else they had one that was making wide circuits around the city.

  “Yup, two hours. Give or take a couple of minutes. We’ve got a plane sitting just over the border that is fueled and checked every twelve hours for readiness. The moment we call the pilots are in, up in the air, land here, and pick us up. It’s our end that’ll take a bit of time. We have to ensure this place is scrubbed down to keep our identities secret, and that we take every single piece of equipment we came in with or acquired while here. Nothing can be left behind to potentially be used against us or anyone else later. That’s a little tedious but pretty much old hat for us at this point.”

  “This is very true. Wouldn’t it prove to be more prudent to just burn the place to the ground? It is abandoned and it’s not like anyone else is wanting this place. Heavens, if anything this place is honestly about to fall to the ground.” It sounded right to her, but what did she know? Nothing.

  “We could burn it, but we’d have to remain behind to keep an eye on it. We don’t want to be the reason the country ends up on fire. One stray spark is all it takes. Don’t worry, we have ways to speed things up on the cleaning front,” he said. Looking at everything he rubbed his hands together. “What do you need me to do?”

  “There is a natural break that we would be able to use to keep the fire from hitting the jungles. The people who lived here before were serious freaks about the jungle. They built up lots of stone fences as well as trenches. I think that they thought that zombies or something silly like that would come out and get them.”

  “Seriously? Zombies? Oh, good lord,” he muttered. “I’ll consider it. But the fact we can’t stay to watch it burn is my biggest concern. One gust of wind could push a single spark that could destroy a lot of trees. I don’t want that on my conscience, sweetheart. I have enough weighing me down not to add causing a forest fire to my list.”

  “You have to remember most of the people in this region fully believed that their loved ones would and could come back from the dead. However, I fully understand your reasoning and I’m good with doing it your way. You just tell me what to do when it’s that time and I will do it. Okay?”

  “Good to know.” Tobias rubbed his hands together and looked at her squarely again. “Now, for a second time, what do you need help with for this lasagna? We should likely get it ready before the op goes down, after all. Be nice to eat a hot meal before we all need to bug out.”

  “Oh, this is fine. I will start to assemble it as soon as the pasta is finished cooking.” She promised him. “However, if you want to put together a salad for the side I wouldn’t mind that either, but it’s up to you. You know your crew and what they will and won’t eat.”

  “I will get right on that. Do you have any ideas what you’d like to do after dinner?” Tobias asked as he pulled the salad ingredient out.

  “Okay then, since we know that you can clean the floor with me in cards, what do you want to do now? I know we have to stay inside but I really don’t want another movie because I don’t want to go to sleep, so what should we do?”

  “Well, the only other option is to work out. We only have movies, cards, or some random shit we cobbled together to give us workout equipment. Those are the options unless you want to go have a nap without bothering with the movie first.”

  The look he gave her had her wondering what was going through his head. “Well, what I want to do to pass the time is off the table until we return to the real world. Which means we’d better stick to something safe like cards. We’ll play go-fish or something instead of an overly competitive card game.”

  “Sounds good.” She fanned herself. “How many days in the real world? How many days are you going to make me stay from you?” She wanted to know. “I just need to know how long I have because I will be counting down every single moment in time that I have away from you.”

  “A week at least. And you’ll be on a cruise with some guy or ten trying to make a move on you I’m sure.” He didn’t look happy with that thought. “You could get off the boat and not want anything to do with me, Gabriella. When all this finally fades, and reality kicks back in you could decide you’re better off. Which is why the full seven days.”

  She reached out impulsively and placed her hand on his cheek. Her thumb stroked over his lips and she smile a sad smile. “And you could have that seven days and realize that I’m not what you want. I don’t want another man. I’ve met any number of them and none of them kick me in the stomach with a sense of rightness like you do.”

  “Ditto,” he muttered stepping in closer. His hands landed on her hips and squeezed. “I fully plan on obsessing the entire time you are gone. You should be glad that my access to spy satellites has been greatly reduced since I left the military. Not saying I couldn’t get my hands on one, but it would take me a lot longer to manage these days.”

  She stepped in closer to him as well and moved her hands so that they were wrapped around his neck and she did something she had been waiting for all morning. She pulled him down and lifted on her toes to meet the kiss halfway. She moaned into his mouth. No words, just the truth of her body to his. She simply needed him to know how she felt and had to know if he felt the rightness of how their bodies fit together as well.

  The low growl that Tobias let loose poured through her. His hands moved to her ass and grabbed hold, lifting her up tighter to his body. Opening his mouth, he teased hers to do the same and then took the kiss to a level she couldn’t have imagined. He didn’t rush but he didn’t go easy on her either.

  She lifted her legs and trusted him to keep hold of her. She wrapped her legs around him and clung to him while they kissed. She rubbed against him as best she could because she needed him to know that this was truth for her, this was her missing piece. Him. On
ly him and she knew it to the depths of her soul.

  Tobias lifted her higher, giving her a better angle to kiss him, and to hook her legs around his waist. She felt like they were moving. Her back hitting a wall proved she’d been right. But it didn’t matter, all that did was kissing him some more. She was starving for him and if his response was anything to go by, he was just as hungry for her.

  She was slightly above him and looking down at him. She pulled back and licked her lips. “God, I love the way that you kiss me. More.” She didn’t wait for him to say yes or not, instead she started to kiss him again and using the wall at her back rubbed her body against him as best she could.

  One large hand slid up her side to cover and squeeze her breast. He nibbled on her lips before taking her mouth in another deep kiss that sent need pumping through her. A tweak to her nipple made Gabbie jolt, rubbing her covered clit against the hard ridge of his cock.

  She knew she had gooseflesh covering her body and she liked it, loved the feeling of it. She was rubbing hard against him as she devoured his mouth with hers. Her nails were scraping against his head and neck. She wanted more, she needed to have more. When he growled, it was seriously the sexiest sound she had ever heard in her entire life. It made her only want more from him.

  He sucked on her lower lip before drawing his head back to stare at her. She tried to pull him back but his attention had shifted with a frown tugging his brows down. That’s when she heard a buzzing noise, much like the annoyance of a mosquito. “Shit, that’s the radio. I need to get that,” he said softly. Tobias didn’t put her down though. Instead he carried her to where an earpiece rested on the table. He settled down on a chair and stuck it into place while she adjusted herself for comfort.

  “Go,” he said into the mic piece. After listening a few seconds, he pulled his laptop closer and flipped up the lid. He hit a few keys and she found herself looking at a view of her father’s compound bathed in green light. “Yeah, I’m looking now. What exactly am I looking at or for? Okay, yup. I see it. We’ll keep an eye on it from this end.”

  She had been rubbing against him when he set them onto the chair. She was leaning in and running kisses along the side of his neck and nipped the ear that he didn’t put the ear thing in. When her father’s compound came into view she frowned and hesitated. She pointed to the screen and said, “That’s new. It wasn’t there when I got home a few days ago.” It was a large column that had looked as if it had been added to the front of the patio and looked completely odd to her now.

  “It wasn’t there yesterday either. We don’t know what its purpose is. They’re pulling the video feed for the compound to see when it was brought in, installed, and hopefully to get some more information on it. We run the cameras constantly for something like this when we’re working our regular team without any additional support since we can’t always be there. Unfortunately, because of the tech your father and Quan have in place within the compound we couldn’t risk doing a live feed and having them pick up the transmissions. Which means they’ll dump it in our shared cloud drive and then you and I can review it while they check for other problems.”

  She nodded and leaned her head on his shoulder. “I keep feeling like I’ve seen that before.” She told him with a frown. ‘I’m trying to figure this out because I know I’ve seen it before.” She whispered and felt both of their bodies cooling. Talk about damn the bell for interrupting them. “Wait. I know what it is.” She pulled back from him. “I remember it now. I was eight. Daddy brought one in and it’s got a stone on one side that you push in and it has automatic guns and I think even one of those things that sends off bombs. I can’t remember what it’s called, I’m sorry.”

  “A stone on one side,” he repeated quietly. “Shit, that isn’t good. It’s basically a security trap. You can get them customized however you want, depending on what use you have for it. If he’s got it pointing the right way he could mow down everyone that’s showing up. Or use it as a deterrent for them leaving. Why do they always take it to the next level?” Gabbie knew the question wasn’t for her and she listened while he relayed the information she’d given him to the team.

  “It’s the only opal stone. It was momma’s birthstone.” She told him quietly. “He brought it when I was eight to my birthday party. There was an issue of someone threatening me and he had that installed. Nothing came of it and that makes me happy but I knew what it was because he was talking to the head of my security as well. Yes, I had a man who was tasked with being the head of my security. I didn’t understand it at all but now I do.”

  “One thing I have to give him credit for, he at least ensured you were always safe. The second good thing he’s done in life,” he said. Tobias hit a few keys on the computer and the view of the front doorway was crisper. Leaning in he was squinting at the screen. “Looks like the panels are on the outside. Either he’s expecting trouble or plans to terminate his crew. Might be a backup plan if things don’t go well. Which means he found out about the transfers a lot sooner than we thought if he brought this in. No other reason for it. And if he found about the transfers that quickly… Did you ensure to cover your tracks?”

  “Yes, I did. I hijacked a CIA hub which in turn hijacked a Russian hub and so on. Once I had the official hubs I then went in and started to get in on hacker channels and going back door through a bunch of companies so that no one could find me. He doesn’t know I can do this, never did. Most of my life he would pat me on the top of the head and tell me I was a good girl. It was irritating as hell.”

  Tobias turned to look at her, his lips twitching. “I’ll keep that in mind, no head patting.” Gabbie knew he was teasing her on the subject and found she didn’t mind when it was him. “I’m glad you thought to cover your tracks. Given how quickly he discovered the hack though I’m betting he had alerts set on the accounts with someone specifically tasked to monitor them. The longer that money sits where his guys can’t retrieve it, the more frantic he’ll get. Can they retrieve the money?”

  “Not a chance in hell.” She said with a laugh. “Unless he had me, and he doesn’t, so nope. He can’t get it. It’s hidden, and I mean hidden deeply, in the other people’s accounts. They won’t see it yet either.”

  “No, that’s great. The harder it is for him to get to the longer we have. He’s going to know where it went but if he can’t access it then he needs to keep them alive. At least long enough for us to capture one and blow the others up.”

  “That’s my hope.” She told him honestly and sighed. “But your men will be blowing the floor from under them so that’s a good thing, right? Hopefully the explosives and the floor falling in around them will get rid of most of them?’’ God, she hated that thought, but it was what it was.

  “It will. The percussion wave from the blasts will do most of the work, the collapsing floors and walls will do the rest. The team will do a sweep if possible to be sure the main players are out of it, but if not, they’ll lob in a few RPG’s and grenades to do even more damage to everything. Once the civilians are safe.”

  “I don’t think that there are many civilian’s in dad’s employee. Even the maids were fighters and could take out men twice their side. They were totally badass and taught me a few things, not as much as I wanted though.” She grumbled.

  He rubbed a hand up and down her back. “I’ll teach you whatever you need or want, Gabriella. Or there is a woman on the team who could teach you. She’s about the right size to teach you things for those vertically challenged. I will warn you though she’s a serious smartass.”

  “I like her already then.” Gabbie said with a laugh. “And being vertically challenged isn’t a bad thing, you know. Honestly, I think that I’m the perfect size and if you don’t then you need to rethink. You know that you like how compact that I am.”

  “I definitely like how you are built. The absolute perfect size for me to nibble on,” he said. Leaning in he gave her a hard kiss before drawing back. “You are just right for me
to manhandle in every way I can imagine, and then a few more that I’m sure I’ll come up with in the days and years to come.”

  “So, can we please get back to the kissing and the rubbing and everything we were just doing? It felt so good to feel how hard you are and to know just how perfect it feels to have you touching me like you did. Please?” She begged.

  Tobias let out a groan that had her curling her toes from the need she heard in it. “Woman, you are trying to kill me. We need to behave ourselves here. We have a job to do and while getting you naked is super high priority, if we’re interrupted I’ll have to kill them all. Which means finding a new team and I just, mostly, got them all house trained.”

  “Damn.” She muttered and pulled back. “Then one of us should likely go and take a cold shower, alone.” She wasn’t sure if it should be her or him. “Are you sure that you are going to make me wait seven full days?’ She added.

  For a long couple of minutes, she wasn’t sure he was going to answer her. Then his arm tightened and he drew her in closer to him. She could feel the steady, if quick, beating of his heart against her breast she was that tight. “I’m beginning to think that making either of us wait for seven days is dumb. That I’d be a fool, and it’s nothing more than torture.” Tobias blew out a slow breath. “I don’t even want to let you out of my sight for seven fucking minutes, woman.”

  “I don’t want to either. It just feels so right. You feel it too, right? The connection. The second you started to kiss me I felt it. I felt as if we were created for each other and we had finally found the other half of our souls. I know just how silly that sounds, but there it is.”

  “I’ve felt it since the first day you glared at me. But that wasn’t exactly the time to put the moves on you. Especially since you were pretty much trying to figure out how to put my balls into my throat at the time. Hardly romantic in my opinion.”