Chapter Two
Jason King strode down the hallway after an hour-long video conference with the Directors of the Israeli Mossad, British MI6, Italian SISMI, French DCPJ, the FBI, and Homeland Security. Guardian was a 24/7/365 agency. Several operations were currently underway. The recent threat to their intelligence and communications systems had finally been cleaned up. During the chaos of a full system shutdown, he'd passed a total of five operations to the CIA and his counterparts overseas. That was a hard pill to swallow, but rather than risk the security of people, resources or nations, he'd made the call. Thankfully, it had only taken twelve days to purge their systems and restore operations. His sister and her team had kicked ass. She was a phenomenal force and the reason he was still at work after the video call ended. He'd seen her piece of shit, puke-green Toyota in the parking garage when he'd returned to the office at midnight after spending the evening with his wife and son.
Jason smiled as he headed to Jewell's office. His little family was the universe to him. He played with his son Reece and Tippy, the family border collie, in the backyard for over an hour after dinner tonight. They'd put the exhausted little boy to bed, and then Jason had spent some quality time with his wife. He would have loved to stay in bed with Faith. Unfortunately, the monthly video conference on the various facets of the Bravata's clean-up forced him to leave after she'd fallen asleep.
He entered Jewell's section of the facility and stopped to let his eyes adjust to the lower level lighting. The people who worked in his sister's section had individual workstations that had separate lighting, ergonomic desks, chairs, and keyboards. Some were using their standing desks while others sat on what looked like bouncy balls. Whatever, they were a breed unto themselves. Twenty-eight steps up to the top of the massive theater shaped room put him at Jewell's door. He placed his thumb on the keypad and entered his code. The door opened with an almost soundless click. He pushed it open and stopped dead in his tracks. Shit.
Take-out containers, pizza boxes, energy drinks and empty candy wrappers littered the area. The only space to escape the disaster contained a large leather chair at the back of the room. Jason drew a deep breath at the significance of that tidbit of information. Damn it.
His sister had fallen asleep at her workstation. She was slumped onto the hard counter, while curled up in the big chair she'd special ordered for herself. It allowed her to sit cross-legged. Jason walked over to her, intent on waking her up and forcing her to go get some rest. He'd find garbage bags and clean the shit out of her office before he went home. It sure as hell wouldn't be the first time he'd forced her to leave the facility.
He glanced at the four monitors and shook his head. Jewell's section was the brain of the organization, and his sister monitored everything. He flicked the screens off. A fifth computer screen caught his attention. He shifted his gaze. As his hand reached to turn off the screen, he read what was showing. Holy fuck. He grabbed the mouse and scrolled up and up… and up. Fuck. He read down the thread. Of all the stupid, hair-brained… The words that appeared at the bottom stopped his internal rant. He started at the beginning and re-read the words before he quietly stepped out of her office. Jason walked out of her secure area and made a call. Fuck, just when he thought things were getting back to normal. The phone rang once before it was answered.
"Reynolds."
"This is Arch Angel. Are you local?"
"Affirmative, sir."
"I need you to come in." Jason thanked his lucky stars that the man wasn't on an assignment.
"Where?" Reynolds asked.
"C3." Jason gave him the acronym for Jewell's section. It stood for Control, Computation, and Communications. The section did far more than those functions, but the designation had stuck.
"On my way."
Jason re-secured the phone to its cradle. He'd wait for Reynolds to show up before he woke his sister. When he did, shit was going to hit the fan.
Zane dropped his phone on his chest and scrubbed his face with his hands. Receiving a call from the CEO of Guardian Security had well and truly woken his ass up. The question was why was he being recalled and specifically why was he being asked to report to C3? No, he wouldn't speculate. There was no sense in wasting time wondering what the hell was going on. Arch Angel would let him know soon enough. Zane threw back the covers. Duty called.
Chapter Three
Zane stared at the screen and lifted away after he'd read it-three times. A small snore from Jewell earned the woman a sideways glance. Her hair fell in a shroud over the desk where she had fallen asleep. Her long lashes lay against her pale cheeks. The woman never went outside. Jason King pointed to the door, and Zane followed. They left the office and moved away from the door.
"Do you read that the same way as I do?" Jason's concern permeated the question.
"I…" Zane rubbed the back of his neck. "Yes, the hacker is a threat, not only to the company but to Jewell. He has obviously fixated on her. She needs to be under a protective detail, but I'm not the man for the job."
"You're the only one who I'd trust to watch her. The others don't have your… patience or your unique qualifications." Jason took a couple steps toward a vacant workstation. "She's a handful."
"Sir, with all due respect, your sister is a hot mess, not to mention she fucking hates me." Zane wasn't going to sugar coat it. "Not that her opinion of me matters, but for me to protect her, she'll have to agree to it."
"I agree, she is a mess, but she's my sister, and I don't give a shit if she hates you. You're back with her. 24/7. I'll increase your pay accordingly. I know you put in more hours than you logged the last time you were with her."
"My objection isn't about money. You have the entire agency at your disposal. I'm sure you could put a team or two on her." Zane didn't want the assignment. His reasons weren't all professional. A team could watch her. At least then he'd be able to forget the fall of hair against her neck or the blush that matched her pale rose-hued lips.
He wasn't the person to watch over her. His first day with her was one he'd never forget. He'd sat in an uncomfortable as fuck chair and watched her work for fourteen hours. She bounced between her employee's stations and her office, logging at least five miles and countless flights of steps. Zane had a huge breakfast before he'd been called in and briefed that he'd been assigned as protective detail for Arch Angel's sister, but after the entire day had wasted away, he was hungry.
When he placed a salad and bottle of water in front of her, she'd jumped, almost as if she'd forgotten he was there. The way she concentrated on her work, he had little doubt that she had forgotten. Confusion and then happiness raced across her face. It was only a split second, but he'd seen it. It buffered the snide remark that flew out of her mouth.
Jason interrupted his thoughts, "I could assign a team, but I'm not going to do it. You know her, know her routines, and in some mystical, magical way, you lasted. She likes you, or you'd be gone."
Liked him? Right, as if. "She asked you to fire me no less than twenty times, and that was while I was present. I can only imagine how many times she demanded I be removed during your closed door conferences."
"The topic never came up. Look, if you won't do this, I'll find someone else. I won't force you."
Zane stared at his boss. He weighed what he saw on that screen against dealing with his attraction to a woman who, in his opinion, would rather see him staked out on a fire ant hill than in her office. He figured she'd drizzle his ass with honey just to make it fun for the ants.
Zane opened his mouth to speak, but Jason interrupted him, "Just ask yourself one question. What if something happens to her? If she slips away from whomever I assign? If that computer fuck actually comes after her? Could you live with that?"
Well fuck . "No, no I couldn't."
"So you'll take her on?"
Zane drew a deep breath and
nodded. "Yes, but I have two conditions." Since he'd become a Personal Security Officer, he'd done his damnedest to remain as passive and compliant to directives as possible. He'd even congratulated himself for letting Jewell King talk to him like a two-year-old without reverting to his old ways. But enough was enough. He was done trying to fit in. Jason King's eyebrow raised and his eyes bored a hole through Zane.
"I'm listening." His boss ground out the words.
Zane put both hands in his pockets and drew a deep breath. "One, I'm only here until the minute this guy is caught or until we know he will no longer be a threat."
"I can live with that condition," Jason acquiesced.
"Second, I want complete autonomy."
"Define complete autonomy." Jason threw the words back at him immediately.
"If I see she needs to leave, to eat, to sleep, or to relax, I can pull her ass out of that box. I'll be granted support of other PSOs or teams if I need them." He pointed to her office at the top of the stairs. "She can bitch, but she needs to know I'll report any deviation directly to you and she needs to know my background." All the shit that bothered the fuck out of him during his assignment bubbled up and spewed out of his mouth, "She eats nothing but crap, drinks nothing but energy drinks or coffee and gets little to no sleep for days on end. The way she works? She's going to die of a heart attack at the ripe old age of thirty-three if she doesn't start taking care of herself. You won't have to wait for the hacker to come after her."
He finished his rant and realized he'd raised his voice. Every person in the section was either looking directly at them or pretending not to. Zane crossed his arms over his chest. He'd been working damn hard to change, to become what normal people assumed he should be, but with each passing day, the task was getting harder. The calm outside veneer was becoming harder to maintain.
Finally, His boss nodded and spoke, "Done. I'll talk to Jacob and Jared. But I have conditions, too."
Zane's eyes hardened as he gazed at his employer. The steel edge to the man's voice meant the terms were non-negotiable. He waited to see what stipulations would be placed on him this time. There was no way he'd stay if he were unable to comply.
"If you see that we as an organization are putting too much on her plate, you will let me know. I'll admit that I let her run her show. I don't monitor her schedule, nor do I micro-manage her section. If she needs more people, we will get them. If she needs an assistant, it is done. Anything. I couldn't live with the fact that my company caused her any harm, even by omission. Obviously, you're concerned enough to make demands. That took brass balls, by the way. Second, you will not tell her about your past. Period."
"I won't unless she asks, but I won't lie. She's an amazing person. A stone cold bitch at times, but amazing nonetheless."
"I can live with that, and she really isn't a bitch."
"You don't work for her." Zane had. The woman could cut a person to shreds with her words. She didn't do it often unless your name was Zane, but when she did, it was a figurative bloodbath. The saving grace was, except for him, the people she lit into were either incompetent or negligent. She tolerated neither, and that was a well-known fact.
"True. Let's go wake up sleeping beauty and get some answers," Jason granted.
Zane fell into step behind Jason. The sinking feeling in his gut had nothing to do with the fact that Jewell couldn't stand him. Rather it had everything to do with the fact that he'd fallen for the impossible computer diva. In his line of work, he couldn't form attachments. Zane tossed that thought to the side. He could form attachments, make a life or have friends. It was difficult to remember he no longer performedthose duties. He was no longer an assassin. He was a caretaker, a babysitter and the ability to actually save lives kept him on this side of sanity. Barely. If he'd tried to remain on the other side of the black door, he'd be dead by now.
Regardless of what he was, or had become when he walked out of her office over two months ago, he'd left knowing the feelings he had for her would never be returned. Absolutely nothing had changed. Zane walked back into her world tonight knowing that fact. Seeing her exhausted and asleep at her station had gutted him. Everyone, including her brothers, had their hand out expecting the impossible from her, and the woman would kill herself rather than disappoint any of them. When he was assigned as her security detail, he'd done what he could to mitigate the stress of her world, but with no authority to make her listen to him, his efforts were too little to make a difference. It only irritated her, which she announced loud and clear. Maybe, in the beginning, he'd tried to take care of her because it irritated her so much, but that was until he noticed no one else took care of her, not even herself. This time it would be different.
Chapter Four
"Jewell."
Her name registered at the same time as the dull ache in her back and neck. She lifted from her computer console and blinked repeatedly trying to get her eyes to focus. That's when she noticed her screens were blank.
"Shit!" She grabbed at her keyboard and fumbled with sleepy hands around her desk for her mouse only to hit it and send it flying in the opposite direction. She straightened from her curled up position and dropped her legs to the ground to reach for the damn thing. The sensation of a million tiny pins and needles ran through her legs when blood returned to her cramped legs. "Ouch, fuck!"
"Jewell, relax. I turned off your monitors." Jason's voice pierced the muddled fog of confusion that draped itself around her.
"Why? Why would you do—?" Jewell turned to face her brother. Her words dried up. Dark brown eyes stared back at her. No. "No. Whateveryou're doing here, the answer is no." Jewell wiped the sleep out of her eyes and turned her back on the duo. She swiped at her face cursing to herself and hit the power buttons for her monitors. She blinked when her office was flooded with light. "For fuck's sake, turn those off!" She squinted at the brilliant intrusion to her sanctuary.
"No. What's this?"
Jewell snapped her head around at her brother ready to hand him his head on a platter until she saw what he was looking at. "That?"
"Yes, this. I believe you were ordered to report any activity and not to engage."
Jewell glared at her brother. She meant to tell him about the contact as soon as she figured out the asshole's end game.
"There is nothing to report. He's fishing."
"No, he has threatened you." Zane's deep, gravelly voice chimed in. He always sounded like he'd had one too many drinks and smoked one too many cigars. As if. The man was a health freak. The likelihood of him having fun and doing something wild, like drinking too much or smoking a cigar, was next to zilch. Same odds as her doing either of those things, but for decidedly different reasons.
"Why are you even here?" Jewell held up a hand when Zane opened his mouth to speak. She didn't want to hear anything from him. "Just… don't, I don't care because you're not staying." Shit, she did not need this.
"He is here because you've been threatened," Jason repeated.
"When?" She looked at her brother and pointed at the screen that he seemed obsessed with. "He hasn't threatened anything."
Jason scrolled the page down.
"I'm coming for you. You can't stop me. This time, I will win. That sounds like a threat to me."
"Ahh… nooo… that sounds like a hacker who is going to try to beat my systems and shut me down, but if you look, he's already admitted that he can't get in any longer. Plus with all the new safeguards we've implemented, nobody could get into our systems. I guarantee it." Jewell scrolled up and pointed to the hacker's comment about stopping the virus.
"Which leads to the next question. Why didn't you tell me he alerted you to the virus?" Jason raised his eyebrow and waited.
"I did!" Jewell traced the things that happened that day in her mind. She had to have told him when she hit the alarm… didn't she?
"You did
n't."
"Well, I will when I finish my report on it. Why is he here?"
Zane scrolled the screen down farther. Jewell leaned into the monitor. She hadn't seen these comments, they must have come in after she'd fallen asleep.
"Okay, so that's a little creepy." Actually, the words were terrifying, but she wasn't going to admit that with Zane in the room.
"A little creepy?" Jason read the thread.
>I have found a way to make you pay. You will die for what you have done to my reputation.
The time stamp on that was 21:00 hours. Jewell looked at her last activity on her other monitors. She'd fallen asleep about a half hour before that came in. Two hours later the hacker had sent another message.
>I look forward to hearing you beg before you die.
"What is he making you pay for, Jewell?" Jason's words brought her attention back to the men in the room.
She shrugged as if the threats hadn't fazed her when in fact, they scared the shit out of her. She clenched her hands into fists to stop them from shaking. "Word around the Dark Net as of about a week ago is Vista has lost several big jobs. I'm assuming what was left of the Bravata has spread the word his work is subpar." She'd seen more than one post insinuating that Vista couldn't deliver what he was paid to do, and Vista's comments in their chat room had turned darker about the same time. She silently wished the men weren't in the room so she could burrow into the Dark Net and find out what happened to send the hacker into a tailspin.
"Who the hell is Vista?" Jason's growled words didn't bode well. She probably hadn't told him she'd discovered the hacker's handle. Not that it really mattered what the guy was called because he was a freaking real life ghost. There was nothing on him anywhere. She'd used every program at her disposal to try to find anything on the man, but she still came up with nothing.
"Vista is asshat's handle. I found out maybe… three or four days ago, but then we had that blow up in the Middle East, and then the team member with medical emergency in Afghanistan and after that Jared had two Level 1 backgrounds, and I'm the only one who can complete that level—"
Jewell (The Kings of Guardian Book 8) Page 2