Everything handed over to the SS department was parceled out so they never knew the particulars of the larger task at hand. We never wanted anyone to be able to stand up and point their finger at Wolf Industries for any sort of cyber espionage.
Before cyber hacking, cyber terrorism, and cyber security were things to be feared or praised, our mother knew cyber work was going to be a big moneymaker. Thanks to her vision, Wolf Industries had excelled at keeping many corporations safe, governments satisfied, and rivals always one step behind the Volkov family.
Wolf Industries’ reputation for the white hats—the guardians of the web—trumped our competitors’. We didn’t get that reputation by accident. It was solely owed to our black hats, the hackers who zone in on the weaknesses of the white hats, and their determination to expose vulnerabilities.
Let’s be honest.
How can a company know what to look out for unless they employ the masterminds behind the attacks? Of course, our black hats would never attack our own clients, and our white hats would never know we have black hats on the payroll, but it has kept us one step ahead.
“So, while you take care of hiring Joel’s replacements,” I joked, knowing we’d never replace him, only assist him, “I’ll start to comb through the manifests.” I adjusted my suit jacket. “I’m sure there will be a few shipments we can easily latch onto for the right price.”
“We don’t have much time to figure it out.” Jaxson looked distracted as he glanced at an incoming email, and my chest tightened. My brother usually hid his emotions well, but I saw an edge of worry outline his features.
“When do we ever?”
Jaxson’s jaw tensed, but I knew it had nothing to do with my sarcasm.
“What’s up?” I asked, propping my elbows on my knees. “You look upset about something.”
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
My phone buzzed and I glanced at the incoming message.
The new uniforms with the specifications you requested will be delivered by our supplier tomorrow. By making these changes (two inches longer, black with sleeves, not the halter style) it will add an extra twenty dollars to each uniform. We’ve begun the process to hire more male servers. I’ll keep you informed about the hiring process. Unfortunately, we had an incident with one of our servers last night. Avery is no longer with Meta.
My blood boiled instantly.
“Now it’s my turn to ask what’s wrong with you.” Jax’s gaze switched from his laptop to me.
“They fired Avery last night, and I bet it was through no fault of her own. Everything I saw from her looked like she was doing a phenomenal job.”
Beyond phenomenal, actually.
I’d had to force myself not to think about her since I left Meta last night. I sent off several emails pointing to the issues I discovered and pushed her out of my mind. She wasn’t cut out for my world. Not because she wasn’t a strong woman. Her strength was written all over her expression, and her measured movements throughout the bar were nothing less than graceful. She knew how to command attention, and in a city like this, that was hard to do, but it was that softness underneath all those layers that worried me.
I sensed a misguided curiosity about her, and I didn’t want to destroy that sense of wonder. Unfortunately, she was also one of the most gorgeous women I’d ever run into so that only complicated my ability to slide her out of my mind.
“There isn’t a reason in the world that they should have let her go.” My eyes landed on my brother.
“That’s because you want to sleep with her.” Jax sucked in a breath, and I caught a slight smile. “But. . . I was meaning to tell you about her.”
I ignored his first comment and drilled into the second.
“You knew?” My heart hammered in my chest, and he nodded slowly.
Something told me that whatever happened last night after I left Meta wasn’t in any way Avery’s doing. By the look on my brother’s face, I could tell he’d been scheming yet again.
“What happened?” My grip on the cellphone was getting tighter by the second.
Avery certainly didn’t deserve to be out of a job. Anyone who’d put up with what she had needed to be rewarded, not fired.
“After her shift, some guy followed her out the door and down the sidewalk. When she asked him to leave her alone, he got more handsy. So, she elbowed him in his nose.”
“I don’t see the issue.”
Jax laughed.
“What was the guy doing following her anywhere?” Fury was pulsing through me. There wasn’t a reason in the world she shouldn’t still be working at Meta.
“Don’t know, but she broke his nose in two places.” Jax looked almost tickled by the thought, and I knew his mind flashed right to where mine had.
Our sister, Vera, had done a number on an unwelcome advance back in high school. We’d always made protecting our sister our number one priority until she came home with a suspension from school, and we realized she had no problem taking care of herself.
Some sophomore had learned that lesson the hard way when he tried to touch her inappropriately. Vera’s response was to slam him against the lockers before kneeing him in the groin. She probably wouldn’t have gotten suspended had she not kicked him one more time when he fell to his knees, but he deserved it. She was only fifteen and had every right to walk down the halls of her high school without feeling threatened.
Suspension or not, it was a proud day in the Volkov house.
My throat tightened and I cleared it, glancing out the window.
No matter how many years ticked by, it still felt like any second, Vera would come bounding into our lives again.
But we’d failed her. We couldn’t protect her when it counted most.
Anger boiled over, and I shot off the chair with no particular place to go.
“And now Avery is out of a job? It was self-defense.”
“We don’t know that. Maybe she’s a loose cannon.”
I knew Jax didn’t believe it so I didn’t bother to answer.
I paced.
Jax stood up and pushed in his chair. “Settle down.”
“Am I in the Twilight Zone all of a sudden? Since when have we ever turned our backs on employees?”
Jax’s lip twitched slightly. “I’m in complete agreement, but he’s a son of some hotshot politician for the city. We don’t need trouble. He went back inside Meta bleeding, and he demanded Avery be fired at once. I do understand why the manager took the action he did.”
“She wasn’t even working. I don’t care who this guy was. He had no business following her. Who knows what he was really up to. . .”
Jax smirked, and I suddenly had the desire to smack the expression right off his face.
“Easy, buddy.” Jax shook his head. “Things work out the way they should.”
“What are you talking about?” I glared at my brother as hate and anger churned through me. I felt unsettled, tense, and always ready to rage. I knew the slightest things tended to set me off, and I couldn’t do anything about it.
Theoretically, I was in the perfect profession, but it often dangled temptation I didn’t need in my life.
I didn’t used to be this way, but ever since Vera’s death, it’s always felt like I couldn’t take in a deep breath, only little gasps of air to prolong my life until the next day when the horrors started all over again. I turned my attention back to Jax and crossed my arms over my chest, waiting for him to explain himself.
“Yesterday, Greta informed me that she’s been thinking about cutting back her hours to part-time.” My brother touched the tips of his fingers together.
“You didn’t mention it over dinner.”
“I hoped she would change her mind, but maybe it’s time.”
Greta was the receptionist who instantly warmed up everyone’s morning. She ran the office and made sure we were all taken care of. Whether it was down to what type of coffee we each preferred or what kind of toner we needed for o
ur photocopier, she was on top of it. She was also well past retirement age, and I think we all prayed she’d never want to leave, so every year, her Christmas bonus got larger, her vacation time got longer, and our worries grew that she’d leave us.
“You think Avery might be a good fit?” I asked, shifting uncomfortably in my seat. “How do we know she can run the office?”
“Greta will train her on everything she will need to know to run a tight ship.”
“I don’t know that this is the best idea. Avery might not want to work in an office. Maybe she needs the evening hours Meta afforded her for school or something.” I cocked my head. “She should never have been let go in the first place. She might want nothing to do with us, considering her last twenty-four hours.”
“She seemed very receptive, actually.” Jax pulled his mouth into a smile that bordered on offensive.
“You spoke with her?”
“This morning.”
“And?” I felt my pulse spike for no particular reason other than the fact that I was intrigued with the idea of seeing her again.
“She sounded relieved and excited to come in and speak with Greta.”
“I don’t know that this is the best idea,” I said, shaking my head. “But we certainly owe her something.”
“There’s certainly one benefit to having her here.”
“What’s that?”
“If anyone gets past our security in the hall, we know she can take them down before they get anywhere important.” Jax’s smirk turned to a wry grin. “Besides, maybe you need a little entertainment to get your mind off Cynthia.”
I stiffened at the mention of my ex-girlfriend. The topic wasn’t exactly one I loved discussing, and my brothers usually did a good job of leaving it alone.
Except for Jax.
My relationship with Cynthia was complicated and losing her still haunted me, and I wasn’t even sure why. It wasn’t like we’d gotten along particularly well. I cared for her and I did my best to protect her, but it was never enough.
“If we finally find someone who can fill Greta’s shoes, I’m not going to screw that up.” I smiled. “Avery wasn’t off-limits working at Meta, but here, she is—so thanks for that.”
My brother laughed. “Glad to see you have restraint.”
“One of us has to.”
“Speaking of restraint. . .” My brother’s eyes narrowed on me. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”
“About what?” I asked, eyeing him suspiciously.
Chapter Five
Avery
I sat in the rocking chair in the studio apartment lent to me by the department. Nothing inside these four walls offered comfort. I missed my place, my things, and my privacy. I looked around the bare room I’d been living in for several weeks and felt completely alone.
The white kitchen cabinets were dingy, the pale yellow countertops were cracked, and the wood floors worn down. The grey and blue fibers on the corners of the couch had split and unraveled, exposing yellow foam underneath, and the Murphy bed was permanently stuck in the down position.
This place gave me the creeps.
The only spot I felt safe was sitting in the old rocking chair in front of the television. Not to mention, I didn’t buy the whole “we only have one camera over the desk” line from Lieutenant Davis either. She didn’t remind me of an overly trusting person. I never knew how awful feeling watched could be until I became cooped up in this gem.
I let out a sigh, rocked in the chair, and glanced out the window that pointed directly at a brick wall.
This was the life.
At least the department spared no expense.
The moment I’d been fired from Meta, I went home and did as instructed. I wrote that surprising piece of news on a piece of paper on my desk so the camera could pick up my message before I shredded it.
I swore I could hear Lieutenant Davis screaming insults from miles away, so when I got the call from one of the Volkovs this morning, I was beyond relieved. I never expected to hear from anyone at Meta, let alone Wolf Industries, ever again. I certainly didn’t expect to hear directly from one of the brothers. I figured my assignment was officially done for.
I knew I shouldn’t have popped the guy in the nose.
Twice.
But the creep grabbed my ass, and I pushed him away, only he didn’t stay away.
He followed me down a street that had very little lighting, no people, and no way out. The man had no business following me. When I stopped to tell him that he needed to go back to Meta, he forced himself on me.
The rest was history, but I had my father’s incessant hounding to thank, or my evening might have turned me into a statistic that I’d spent my career fighting against.
My dad was a police officer in Idaho where I grew up, and by the time I was a junior in high school, he’d signed me up for Krav Maga. While all the other girls went to cheerleading practice and softball, I was at the gym learning how to crack someone’s skull open.
My chest tightened as I thought about my dad. He should be alive and by my side, giving me advice, not six feet under because of some dirtbag walking freely around the streets of my hometown.
I hated how there wasn’t a day I didn’t get angry about his death. I knew the five stages of grief, but I never seemed to break free from that first one.
I pushed myself off the rocking chair and made my way over to the coffee pot.
Even though I missed my apartment, felt completely isolated, and didn’t know what my next move was going to be, I was surprisingly okay with where I was in life. Getting an assignment like this was going to open so many doors if I could just get through a few hurdles.
I knew this was going to be my last shot at proving myself worthy to stay on Lieutenant Davis’ good side.
I couldn’t blow this assignment.
I poured myself a cup of coffee and thought back to the Volkov table last night. All four men were domineering, curious, and extremely observant. I understood why they commanded respect both on and off the streets.
Unfortunately, one of them was especially alluring.
All the brothers seemed like a solid family unit, but there was something about Devin that made me think he wanted to break free and prove himself in some way. He seemed less interested in what his brothers had to say and more interested in me, which could bode well for what I needed to do.
I closed my eyes and took a sip of coffee as Devin’s blue eyes flicked through my brain. There was no getting around it. He was drop-dead gorgeous.
He also had some decent qualities about him that possibly separated him from his brothers more than he realized.
After all, he was the only one who came to my rescue or even bothered to notice that I had an issue in the middle of Meta.
Until this morning.
Getting a call from Jaxson Volkov wasn’t anything I expected at ten o’clock in the morning.
He wanted me to come in to interview for an open position. Jaxson didn’t apologize about anything that went down at Meta. He only explained how he thought I’d be a perfect fit for a receptionist position at the corporate headquarters.
How he would know that without seeing a resume was beyond me.
I finished my cup of coffee, checked myself in the mirror, and grabbed my bag.
I had forty minutes to get to the appointment and didn’t plan on being even a second late. I looked at myself one more time in the mirror and hoped I’d chosen correctly.
It wasn’t like I had a ton of clothing options in the closet considering my life mainly consisted of uniforms, even at Meta. I smoothed my hair, ran my hands down my black slacks, rolled my eyes at the white silk blouse, and headed out the door.
Once I got to the end of the block, my toes ached and my arches burned. I’d chosen a pair of black heels that went with the outfit but stanchly protested movement of any form. I flagged a cab for the rest of the journey and hopped in, giving him the address.
We ar
rived in under ten minutes, and even though I’d seen the building that housed Wolf Industries a million times before, there was something awe-inspiring about pulling up to it from this vantage point.
The architecture was sleek, beautiful, and mysterious, much like the men who owned the building. It was hard not to be impressed with the accomplishments of the Volkov family. Not only had they accumulated great wealth, but they had managed to stay out of the hands of the authorities, which made me wonder the obvious.
How?
I thanked the driver, climbed out of the cab, and looked up at the imposing skyscraper as men and women hurried through the doors in both directions.
An eerie sensation rolled up my spine, and I glanced over my shoulder as the cab pulled away. I felt as if I was being watched.
I took in a deep breath and climbed the steps to my second chance. As long as I didn’t break any noses or knee any men in the groin, I should be set. I hid a smile and made my way into the expansive lobby, where a woman with cool hazel eyes sat. She scanned me and arched a skinny brow. Her dark hair was in a sleek bob and her lips were lined perfectly in crimson.
“May I help you?” she asked, standing up behind the tall counter.
Two security guards sat behind her, closely watching monitors while letting her perform her job. I noticed each man had more firepower than most private security roaming the streets of New York.
“I’m here to meet with Jaxson Volkov at ten.” I brought my eyes back to hers. “My name is Avery Hill, and—” I smiled and stopped speaking once I realized how official I sounded. I wasn’t knocking on someone’s door and demanding to be let inside.
I cursed myself silently.
“Right. May I see your driver’s license?” she asked.
“Sure.” I pulled out my fake identification and handed over the card.
“Perfect.” She pointed behind her toward a row of elevators before handing me a badge and my driver’s license back. “Scan this in the elevator, and you’ll magically find yourself on the correct floor.”
“Thank you.” I nodded and took in a deep breath.
Devin: A Romantic Suspense (V Mafia Series Book 2) Page 4