by Blake, Lexi
The bell dinged and the doors opened. Simon was ready this time. He was prepared to shoot anyone in the elevator.
Blissful silence met them.
“Come on.” He hauled her in with him and the doors closed again.
“Do you think he was lying?” Asshole Number One likely hadn’t gotten his job because he was such a stand-up guy.
“About there being others?” Simon shook his head, his eyes watching the floors tick away. This elevator was large and industrial, unlike the serene beauty of the ones meant for the residents. The floor beneath her feet was plain metal. “No. I’m certain he wasn’t lying about that. The good news is there’s no possible way the police aren’t coming.”
The elevator continued its smooth descent. “Do we want the police involved?”
She had a pretty shady past. Pretty? Try totally awful and dark past. She’d hidden it under various layers of security, but there was always the off chance that someone at DPD would be on top of things and start asking questions she didn’t want to answer.
How involved in the Deep Web are you, Ms. Dennis?
Up to my nose, Mr. Cop. I’m so far in that sometimes I can’t breathe. Sometimes I’m sure I’ll drown in there and no one will know where to look for me. I’ll disappear into the code like I never existed at all.
Yep. She didn’t want to get hauled to jail. She wasn’t completely certain Satan wouldn’t leave her there to rot. After some of the things she’d done, she wasn’t sure that wasn’t where she belonged.
Maybe she should have taken Asshole up on his offer. Maybe she really was one of the bad guys.
The ultimate good guy in her life took her hand again. God, the minute he touched her, she felt warm and stupidly fuzzy. “Stay behind me. I’ll pick you up again if we need to.”
“I’ll try to move as fast as I can.” Her weight couldn’t be great for his back.
“We’re going out the rear entrance. Let me go first and then I’ll give you the go-ahead.” The doors opened and it was like time slowed down.
Her heart threatened to pound out of her chest. At this time of night no one was in the hallways, but she could hear sirens in the distance.
Simon stepped out, looking one way and then the other before his hand came back, waving her out. She could see the back entrance up ahead. Just another hundred yards or so and they would be out of the building and hopefully Jesse would be waiting for them.
Chelsea stepped out as Simon moved down the hall.
And then she felt something move behind her. Someone had been waiting, hiding. A hard hand clamped onto her throat and an arm snaked around her waist. There was the cold press of metal to her head.
“Don’t move a muscle.” She could smell cigarette smoke on his breath as he spoke against her ear. “I already called it in. We’ve got a car on the way so there’s no point in trying to get away. Where is Carlson?”
Simon seemed frozen in place. Very slowly he turned, his SIG at his side. “If you’re referring to the man who came up to my flat, we lost him in the stairwell.”
Chelsea kept her mouth shut. If Simon didn’t want him to know she’d killed this Carlson dude, then she wasn’t about to tell him. She had to follow his lead. This was his area of expertise but it was hard when all she wanted to do was kick and wail and scream. She hated being held tight, hated the feeling. Her vision started to lose focus and she could smell sweat and the aroma of cigars. Just like that night. He’d wrapped his arms around her and she hadn’t been able to breathe.
Not like when Simon held her. She forced herself to fight back. Simon would never smell like days-old T-shirts and the cheap cigars her father’s men bought in the bars in Moscow. Simon smelled like sandalwood. Clean. Masculine. Simon needed her to not go all crazy PTSD on him.
Chelsea’s brain turned to mush but at least she was still in the here and now. The gun was pointed at her head but the man who held her could easily turn it on Simon and she would be forced to watch him go down.
She’d been selfish. She shouldn’t have come here. She should have gone to the police and taken her damn punishment like a woman. She’d done the crime, but no, she wasn’t about to do the time. Not her. She would rather drag the best man she knew into it. It was what she did. She dragged people down. She’d dragged her sister down for years.
“I’ll go with you if you leave him alone.” The words came out of her mouth in a little sputter.
“You’ll go with me, little girl, no matter what I do.”
“The police are almost here,” Simon pointed out.
She could practically feel the satisfaction oozing from her captor’s pores. His hold tightened around her waist. “I think you’ll find we have ways to deal with the locals, Mr. Weston. Or should I call you milord? Yes, we know all of you and we have ways to deal with all of you. I would greatly prefer to not piss off the Malones. Malone Oil is affiliated with our organization after all.”
“I don’t believe you.” But Simon had blanched, his face a chalky white.
“Then you’re naïve. Why don’t we all go back to my hotel and talk this out? I could get your uncle on the line. You’ll see for yourself.”
“Just let Simon go and I won’t give you any trouble.”
There was a low chuckle behind her. “I don’t think you’ll give me trouble. I’ll just break your fucking legs again and see that the job is done properly this time. If you give me a moment’s trouble, I’ll have someone cut them off.”
Just the thought made her fight. She struggled in his arms.
There was a loud bang and then the man behind her stiffened and slumped to the ground.
Chelsea shook a little. What the hell had just happened?
Simon stared at the man who had so recently been holding her. He was a heap on the carpet now, his vacant eyes staring up at her. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to get you with the spray, but I had to take him out.”
“Spray?” Something wet slipped down her cheek.
Simon frowned. “Yes, I was hoping the blood would go another way.” He pulled a handkerchief from his slack’s pocket and passed it her way.
Who the hell had handkerchiefs these days? Simon really was stuck in another time. She scrubbed at her cheek and sure enough, there was bright blood there. Not once in all her time as a hacker had her computer spat blood her way. It had been so much safer when she was happily behind locked doors.
“Come on. We need to leave.” Simon’s face had gone completely stony.
“Simon, you can’t really think your cousins are involved in this.” She’d heard the name Malone Oil come up more than once during missions involving The Collective.
He stared at the man a moment more before straightening his jacket. He strode to the exit and withdrew a card. He slid it through the key reader.
“How do you have a keycard to the service entrance?” She hustled to catch up to him.
“Because I own the building, of course.”
Of course. It made perfect sense that he just owned a building in the middle of one of the ritzier parts of the city. Didn’t everyone?
Chelsea stopped and stared back. Two down and they would just keep coming. “Simon, maybe you should…”
His hand found hers, pulling her outside and into the gloomy shadows of the trash bins. He tugged her close, dragging her into the dark with him. “Don’t finish that sentence unless you want the punishment to start now. If you think for a second I won’t discipline you in the backseat of Jesse’s vehicle, you’re wrong. I will have your pants down and I will tear into your backside if you even contemplate finishing that sentence.”
She huddled close, turning her face up to stare at him. “How do you even know what I was going to say?”
“Because I know you. A couple of people are dead and now it’s real. You feel guilty and you’re going into the martyr phase of your cycle.”
She could hear the sirens getting close, very close. Where the hell was Jesse? Knowing him he could have gotten lo
st. Or found some shiny object and chased after it for a while. “I have a cycle?”
Red and blue lights streamed from the other side of the building. “Oh, yes, you do, love. It’s a never-ending pain in my arse, and the part of the cycle I like the least is the martyrdom followed by the self-pitying cursed one you like to play.”
She frowned his way. “Is there anything you do like?”
His lips curled up just the tiniest bit. “Sometimes you forget to hate everything and you flirt a bit. I do like that part.” He reached down, brushing his thumb over her cheek. “You missed a spot.”
Of dead man’s blood. She tried not to think about how utterly pathetic she must look. She was dressed in an XL T-shirt with a snarky saying about T-rexes hating push-ups and a pair of PJ pants covered in puppies. Now she had blood all over her.
And he was heartstoppingly perfect.
She stared up at him and wished just for a moment that she had half of her sister’s confidence. Charlotte got all the good genes. She got the beauty and the curves and the…
“Holy shit. I do have a cycle. I think I just hit self-pity.”
He frowned even as his head came up and he started to drag her out into the alley. “Yes, I might have mentioned I wasn’t fond of that part.”
A Jeep turned down the alley, stopping on a dime.
“Our ride’s here.”
She followed Simon into the night.
Chapter Five
Jesse wasn’t alone. Simon opened the door to the back seat upon discovering the front was already occupied by a very wide-eyed Phoebe Graham. She peered at him through the thick glasses she wore.
“Are you all right?” Phoebe asked, her voice tremulous.
She was a little mouse, but one who seemed to have Jesse by the balls. They had started dating only weeks before, but Jesse seemed utterly fascinated by her. She was far too submissive for Simon’s tastes, but her very gentle nature obviously called to Jesse.
“We’re perfectly fit. I’m rather surprised to see you, Miss Graham.” Though he said the words to her, he meant them for Jesse, who should have known there were no civilians allowed during an escape from nefarious forces. “Come along, love.”
He would feel better once Chelsea was safely in the car. He ushered her in and then settled himself.
“I didn’t have a choice. I was on a date. You couldn’t expect me to just leave her. Not when I got that call about the emergency fumigation.”
Simon sighed. Emergency fumigation? That was the best he could come up with? Their eyes met in the rearview mirror, and Jesse grimaced.
They had to work on their scenarios.
“I didn’t know the bug problem was so big,” Phoebe said. “I would have thought a building like this would be very clean. And to think that it could potentially reach all the way to Jesse’s place.” She shuddered a little. “I don’t like bugs.”
Luckily Phoebe was a bit naïve. She was the accounting and billing specialist Ian had hired years before. She tended to stay in her office, only talking to Eve and Grace on a regular basis. The men of McKay-Taggart seemed to intimidate her. Until she’d met Jesse and then she’d been so charmingly graceless around him that Simon had to worry about getting a sweet tooth.
“Well, you know what they say about Texas.” He fell back on his cousins and the way they liked to talk. “Everything’s bigger here. Even the bugs. Scorpions. They sting and hard. We had to kill two of them on our way out of the building, so I think it would be good to put some distance between us and that particular memory.”
He heard Jesse curse under his breath as he pulled out of the alley. At least he knew Jesse had gotten the message. Two dead bodies. He would know to avoid those red and blue lights.
He turned left and stopped at the light. Jesse’s voice was tight as he tipped his head to the front of the building. “It looks like the situation is well in hand, partner.”
Or as he knew Jesse would say if they were alone, holy shit, we were almost fucked. There were two cop cars sitting in the circular drive at the front of the building. There was a uniformed officer standing by his car, his radio in hand. He was shaking his head and obviously calling for backup.
So they’d found the bodies. It was a good thing he’d bricked his phone because otherwise it would be ringing at that very moment. He would be one of the first people they called as the owner of the building. Luckily, he had the building manager’s number on file with the security company as his second in command. The poor man would be heartbroken that his lovely building had blood all over it, but he was competent enough.
Chelsea stared out the window, her anxiety a palpable thing. At least she understood what a wretched situation they would be in if they got hauled in by the Dallas police.
The light changed and Jesse very cautiously moved through the intersection. It was one of the reasons he and Jesse got along so well. The younger man almost never panicked. He was cool under pressure, although he had a few triggers that turned him into a beast Simon worried he might have to put down.
“I’m going to drop Phoebe home and then I’ll take us to a nice bug-free motel for the night,” Jesse said.
“You could stay at my place,” Phoebe said quickly and then seemed shocked at her own words. “I mean, only if you want to. I wasn’t like saying you had to or anything.”
For the first time, Jesse seemed a little flustered. “Uhm, that would be great. I mean I would love to stay at your place, but I can’t. I mean…”
Phoebe’s eyes widened. “Oh, okay. I understand. I just thought…”
Jesse shook his head. “No. No. I really do want to. I mean, we haven’t actually talked about…”
“Yeah. We should talk…”
Simon had no idea how they talked about anything since they couldn’t actually finish a sentence in each other’s presence. It was irritating. By this point Chelsea would have rolled her gorgeous eyes and told him to make a damn decision. He turned slightly to see a small smile on her face. She shook her head and gave him the universal sign for “they’re insane.”
They continued to speak in some weird shorthand, or maybe it was just that neither one of them wanted to end the painfully awkward conversation, but Simon had had enough. “Thank you so much for the offer, but I think Chelsea and I would be more comfortable in a hotel. It could take a few days.”
“Oh.” Phoebe blinked behind her glasses as she turned in her seat. “I suppose I understand. I actually have a really small place so I guess you would be uncomfortable.”
“I wouldn’t be,” Jesse said quickly. “I don’t need a lot of space. Trust me. I’ve been in some of the worst hellholes imaginable.”
He’d been in an Iraqi prison, or rather a jihadist one. Jesse Murdoch had been held for a very long time, so long everyone thought he was dead. He’d been forced to watch as one by one, the members of his team were beheaded. He alone had survived, and Simon rather thought that had been a part of his torture, too. Jesse would rather have died than watched his teammates killed. When he’d returned to the States, he’d had to deal with rumors that he’d turned.
Simon knew one thing about the pup. He wouldn’t have turned. He would have remained steadfast to his dying breath, but he didn’t always think things through. “Jesse, I rather thought you would come with us. We have that case Ian assigned us, you know.”
Dumbass. He was getting far too Americanized. He sounded a bit like his teammates now, even in his head.
Jesse nodded. “Oh, right. The case. Yeah, that’s why I should go with them. I have work to do.”
Phoebe sighed. “Of course. I understand. Maybe some other time. I just thought tonight could be…well, it’s all for the best.”
“Cockblock,” Chelsea coughed under her breath.
Jesse’s eyes came up and they narrowed as he stared back at Simon. “It’s a really important case.”
Yes, he had to hope Jesse believed that or Simon was in for a whole lot of explaining. “Sorry, mate.
It is vital.”
“Stupid work.” Jesse turned toward 75, mumbling under his breath the whole way.
For fifteen minutes they drove in silence until finally Jesse pulled up in front of a nice apartment building in North Dallas.
He hustled Phoebe out of the Jeep and Simon watched as he walked her to the door of her building. Phoebe strode forward, walking better in her heels than she ever had in the office. Curious. She always seemed to stumble along when she was working, but there was something about the way she followed Jesse, something about the easy roll of her hips and how her shoulders had straightened. She looked around and just for a second, Simon saw her eyes narrow as if she was taking in the night around her, evaluating, looking for threats. And then she was right back to smiling. She tripped on the curb, but it seemed an almost practiced thing.
Jesse bought it. He practically leapt in front of her to make sure she didn’t fall. She was in his arms and he stared at her for a long moment, no words passing between them.
“Dear god, Jesse’s in love.” Chelsea snorted a little. “They are going to make the world’s least communicative children. If they ever actually sleep together. I heard their first date consisted of watching Harry Potter until Jesse fell asleep.”
Jesse shook his head and said something that seemed to make her blush, but he finally got her to the door and kissed her. It was awkward, like all things but killing with Jesse, and yet there was a tenderness Simon couldn’t deny.
Jesse was falling for the girl and suddenly Simon wondered about her. It wasn’t anything tangible, just a feeling he got from time to time. Sometimes he could tell when someone was lying, and he would have bet in that moment that Phoebe Graham was hiding something.
“Was the first date at his place?”
Chelsea turned to him. “Why, Weston, I would have thought you would be above gossip.”
“No one’s above gossip.” Gossip could tell an agent things that facts would hide. Sometimes gossip had been his best friend.
“Phoebe and I aren’t exactly chummy, but Grace said they always stay at Jesse’s, though the rumor is they haven’t slept together. They’ve apparently slept in the same place, but not with like sex and stuff. So you really did cockblock the poor guy.”