Nicolas looked over and nodded at Zane. "Hey, you need help?" The man was up and moving across the floor before Zane could respond. He called over to Jewell, "Get off your lazy butt woman; you have groceries to put away." Nicolas turned back to Zane and winked.
Jewell groaned but got up to help. She was wearing a pair of yoga pants and an oversized t-shirt. Her hair was gathered back in a ponytail. Zane was pleased to notice the black circles under her eyes had reduced dramatically, although she still looked exhausted.
"Mr. King had to leave?" Zane asked as he battled the anger that welled up inside him. While Nicolas was one of his superiors, the man had a reputation and he, for one, did not like the man around Jewell.
"I brought over coffee and said I'd stay so Jared could go have an early lunch with his husband." Nicolas tossed the comment out there.
Zane could understand that, but having Nicolas here still set his nerves on edge. Zane waited until the groceries were stacked along the countertop before he took his duffle bag into the same room he'd used the last time he'd worked as Jewell's PSO. He took the time to unpack and stow his clothes and opened the door to take his shampoo and toothpaste into the hall bathroom. He did an about face to grab his toothbrush and body wash, but the conversation that drifted into his room stopped him in his tracks.
"So you'll go out to dinner with me?"
Zane's jaw tightened at the tone his boss was using. The guy was a player, by anyone's standards. Why in the hell would he be targeting Jewell? That was a sticky situation no matter how you sliced it.
"I'm not interested in being one of the slew of women who fill your little black books, Nic. I'm not interested in you in that way." Jewell batted him down, and Zane mentally gave the woman a fist pump.
"I can assure you, you wouldn't just be a name in a book to me. Come on, go out to dinner with me. You have to eat, right?"
God, again with the seductive voice. Zane gritted his teeth and waited. Jewell wasn't a pushover, surely she saw through whatever bullshit the man was casting.
"Just dinner?"
Zane closed his eyes and leaned against the wall at the innocence in her voice. No, Jewell, it wouldn't be just dinner. Nicolas was legendary at Guardian for his body count, only he didn't count kills, he counted women he bedded. Shit, Nicolas had to pick up on her vulnerability. Fuck, she wasn't someone that man should be hitting on.
"I promise, just dinner. I'll pick you up here at eight. Zane can have the evening off, and you and I can get to know each other a little bit better. Everybody wins."
Zane's eyes popped open, and he turned his head toward the living room. He sneered and silently mimicked, everybody wins. Juvenile, but fuck it.
"Nicolas, don't get me wrong, I like you, I mean you're handsome and fun, but why the sudden interest?"
Zane slapped his forehead. Great, just fucking great, Nicolas is handsome and fun, while I'm a forced intrusion into her life. He drew up short, pausing his mental diatribe to catch whatever his boss was saying.
"…for a while now. I just never found the opportunity to ask you. So, Friday night? We can hit up one of your brother's restaurants, or I could make you dinner. I'm a killer in the kitchen."
Oh, I just bet you are. Zane rolled his eyes.
"I'd prefer going to yours. I've never liked to dress up and pretend to be socially acceptable."
Zane damn near growled out loud at Nicolas's laughing reply.
"I've never been socially acceptable, so we are even. I hate to run, but I have a meeting, and your brother will throw a fit if I'm late."
Zane cracked his neck. He made a production of rattling the handle of his bedroom door and walking across the hall to his bathroom. The apartment door opened and closed. Zane waited until he heard Jewell throw the deadbolt before he exited the bathroom.
"So, it's just us again." Jewell flopped into the couch and stared at him.
Zane nodded and headed to the kitchen. "Have you eaten lunch?" He started to pull out the makings for a salad and a carton of eggs for an omelet. His words were more clipped than he'd wanted.
"No, I just woke up about twenty minutes before you came back. Did something happen while you were out?" Jewell walked over to the kitchen and sat on one of the bar stools.
Zane cast her a glance. Her brow was drawn together, and her eyes traveled over him as if assessing him. He shook his head and started breaking eggs into a bowl. "No. Why?" He purposefully kept his attention diverted from her.
"Okay, look I get that you don't want to be here—but…"
Zane interrupted her without turning to look at her. "Who told you I didn't want to be here?"
"Nicolas."
Zane put down the whisk and straightened from his task. He turned around and met her gaze with a straightforward, honest stare. "My concerns about taking this case were based on the fact that you despise me." A look of surprise spread across her face before he turned his attention back to making lunch.
"I don't." Her comment was small and low, but he heard it.
Zane chuckled and shook his head. He grabbed a skillet and turned the flame on to warm the pan while he divided some mixed microgreens into bowls. A tomato, knife and cutting board landed in front of her right before he dropped a pat of butter into the skillet.
"What? You don't believe me? I don't hate you." Jewell's words seemed forced.
He glanced over and winced internally. The woman was cutting way too close to her fingertips. He took the knife and the tomato away from her. He positioned his hand, so his fingertips were tucked back, guarded by his knuckles. "Like this, otherwise you won't have fingers. Saw, don't push the knife through the poor thing. What did it ever do to you?"
"Nothing and I like my fingers where they are. I kinda need them to type." She chuckled at her own joke and frowned in concentration, duplicating his hold on the fruit.
Zane dropped the eggs into the skillet and swirled it, lifting the edges to float the liquid under the set eggs. "Cheese?"
"Yes, please, and I don't hate you."
"The day before your brother released me from my duties, you called me by two different first names, asked your brother to fire me for at least the twentieth time and told me to… what was it again? Oh, right, it was to, 'Sit down, shut up, and color'."
"Yeah, about that, I'm sorry. I was stressed. The damn firewall was giving me fits, and you kept bringing up the stupid meeting that I didn't have time to go to anyway."
Zane added cheese to the eggs and folded the mixture over the top. He took the skillet off the flame and let the heat of the hot eggs melt the cheese. He leaned against the counter and talked to his boot. "I was trying to tell you the upcoming meeting with Jason was about me being reassigned. But, I did what you directed. I sat down, shut up, and colored until I received my notification that I was no longer required."
"You didn't say goodbye." Jewell handed him the cutting board with an assortment of irregularly cut tomatoes.
He slid them off into their salad bowls as he spoke, "I'm a fairly intelligent man, Ms. King. I understand the context of 'shut up'."
Zane slid the massive omelet onto his plate and cut it, giving her the smaller portion. "Ranch or blue cheese dressing?" He opened the door and glanced back at her freezing when he saw her tears.
"Look, I'm sorry for the way I treated you. I know I'm a bitch. I don't hate you. If I'm honest, I kinda got used to you. I only asked Jason to fire you because it was what everyone expected me to do. I didn't mean it that time." Jewell gave him a half smile and snuffled before she wiped the tears from her cheeks.
Zane chuckled and grabbed the blue cheese dressing because it was her favorite. "That time?"
"Yeah, well… you grew on me." She drizzled some dressing over her greens as she spoke. "You also said you wanted to be reassigned the second Vista was caught." She peeked up at him from under her eyel
ashes.
Zane took a forkful of eggs and nodded as he chewed. He reached for the dressing when she'd finished. "I did. Again, refer back to the point about you hating me." Zane winked at her and stabbed a forkful of greens.
"Zane?"
His eyes immediately popped up to where she sat. She'd never said his name before, at least not in his presence. The simple gesture got his attention quick.
"I'm pretty freaked out about what Vista said in the chat room. When I woke up today, I did some checking on the Dark Net. He's been blacklisted."
Zane ate his salad while he processed the information. He put his fork down and leaned back on his barstool. "I need more information, or maybe it's perspective. I know a computer hacker can cause mayhem, spread viruses, and break systems, but what exactly are hackers?"
Jewell moved her salad around and shrugged. "We are just like other people. There are the ones who only use their abilities for good. They are the ethical ones. They're hired by government agencies, large corporations and other entities that require someone to watch out for their digital interests."
"So you are an ethical one?" Zane leaned forward. In the months that they'd inhabited the same space, they'd never had an honest discussion.
She wagged her head and rolled her eyes before a shy smile spread across her face. "Well, I plead the Fifth. What I do is based on the needs of the agency. I have the authorization to mine for the information I need to find, but… is it technically legal? Most of the time. Have I crossed lines? Maybe."
"Maybe?" Zane smiled at the blush that spread up the woman's neck and over her cheeks.
"Okay, so I bend the limits of the law, and occasionally I walk all over them, but it is never for personal gain. So I guess on a continuum from legal to criminal I'm straddling the middle but wanting to lean toward the Jedi side rather than the dark side." She speared a tomato and looked at it.
"Personal gain is the dividing line then?"
"Again, yes and no. People who do what I do get bad publicity because of idiots that try to do stupid shit that is way over their heads. They get caught because the policing agencies or "ethical hackers" are watching for them. These agencies are the organizations who do things like keep the Department of Defense's systems from crashing and safeguard the world's banking institutions. There are other entities for whom a failure of cyber protection would be catastrophic. Can you imagine if the security systems at the CDC were compromised? What would happen if the secrets the government has held for decades were leaked to the general populace? Mayhem for sure."
"So where does Vista fall in all this?" Zane ate the last piece of his omelet as he waited for her answer.
Jewell set her fork down and leaned her chin into her hand propped on the countertop. "Vista is the antithesis of ethical. He causes damage because he can, and I believe he enjoys it. Since we eradicated the viruses he planted, and there were five, not one, he's again launched a barrage of bot attacks against our primary firewalls. Millions of robot programs hitting us at once, trying to find a weakness. So far he hasn't found a way in, but I have three of my best evaluating his methodology and building countermeasures."
"How do you know it was him?"
"Technically, I don't, but since he is the only one who has been actively trying to break through our safeguards, it is a safe assumption."
"What happens if he gets past your firewall? Can he take Guardian down again?" Zane pushed her plate toward her. She scrunched her nose at the food but picked up her fork. "Not this time. My team and I have built…" She glanced past him focusing on the backsplash over the kitchen sink and sucked her bottom lip into her mouth. She did that when she was deep in thought. Zane wanted to reach out and pull her lip from the hold her teeth had on it. Finally, Jewell continued, "Well, it is kind of like an entrapment area immediately behind the firewall, and then we've built a new obstacle that acts as a second firewall but is, in fact, this wicked ass, self-replicating program that will attach itself to any system that breaches it. It's an irradiated nuclear version of one of the viruses he embedded as a latent program, which was pure genius and like nothing I'd ever seen before. Anyway, we morphed the basic code and grew something new. We call it Godzilla. If he makes it through the firewall, gets past the entrapment area and finds Godzilla? His systems will be fried."
Her brain was marvelous. Zane wondered how many people truly understood how brilliant she was. He pushed the thought to the side and asked, "On a scale of 1-10 where do the two of you stand as far as capabilities?"
Jewell stood and took her plate to the sink. She'd eaten nothing. "We're tens, maybe elevens. We are pretty evenly matched. Darren Kowalski giving him access codes and intelligence on us put me at a disadvantage. Who could have imagined one of our own turning on us? The psychological exam on that guy was way wrong."
Zane agreed. Every last member of Guardian was hand selected and passed through multiple batteries of psychological exams. It was why he was currently a Personal Security Officer instead of… He catapulted himself out of his spiraling thoughts. "I guess my question then is, what does he know about you?" Zane rinsed his plate and scraped her uneaten meal into the disposal. He wouldn't force her to eat healthily, but he would limit her options, so she had little choice.
"I don't know. He was able to find out about Gabriel's wife, and that was tied up and put into a vault so far underground it should have been impossible to find. So it is safe to assume he knows everything."
A red-hot thread of 'oh shit' wound down his spine. "Do your brothers know that?"
Jewell shrugged as if it didn't matter. Zane wasn't having any of that. "No, seriously, this guy could know where you live?"
"It is a possibility. Like I said, he found Anna, and the Bravata tried to take her out at the same time as they tried to kill Jason, Gabriel, Faith, and Reece. But he doesn't have any muscle anymore. He is by himself. He's been blacklisted. Anything he could do to me now would be via a computer and believe me, I'm shielded against this guy. He can't touch my money. This apartment isn't connected to me and isn't traceable to Guardian. Even if he did figure out I lived here, what could he do?"
"The man was humiliated by you, and he has threatened your life. Don't discount the human factor in this equation." Zane had seen what a person was capable of doing when they wanted vengeance. He'd been the tool that Guardian used to track down and stop the people who stepped across the line into murder and even genocide.
Jewell turned to him and blinked as if he'd spoken a foreign language. "I don't know how to do that. I'm good with computers. People? Not so much." There wasn't any pride or smugness in the comment, just simple fact.
"I know, but you're in luck. I'm good with people." Zane smiled at her through the lie and handed her an apple.
She chuckled and bit into the fruit. "Good thing, otherwise I'd probably be living at my office."
"You were living at your office." Zane spun her around and pointed her toward her room. "Get ready, we'll go in at 2:00 and work until 10:00 tonight. You can check on your day and night shift that way. Besides, I need to talk to Jason."
Jewell spun around and cocked her head at him. "About what?"
Zane put both hands on her shoulders. Her grey-green eyes blinked up at him. He drew a deep breath that was clouded with her clean, warm scent. This was the first time he'd been this close to her without her lashing out at him, and the moment didn't slip by unnoticed. "This guy has the motive to hurt you. He's already threatened you. We need to ensure he doesn't acquire the means or have the opportunity to do what he said he'd do."
Jewell lowered her eyes. She shivered under his hands. Without thinking, he hugged her into his chest. "I will protect you. I promise."
She relaxed into him for several long seconds before she pushed back and nodded still looking at the floor. She turned away from him and pointed toward the bedroom. "I'm… y
eah… getting ready."
Zane waited until her bedroom door was shut before he let the smile he was holding in spread across his face. Nicolas might have a date with Jewell, but Zane lived with her, and he'd learned long ago that fighting dirty was the only way to fight.
Chapter Six
Jewell sat in her chair and stared unseeingly at her computer screens. She pretended the situation that was compromising her concentration wasn't actually the thing that was distracting her. When Zane held her in his arms earlier today, she'd felt safe, granted, but it was the other sensations that she'd been trying to analyze.
One, she most assuredly wanted to feel that way again, and she'd admit she wanted more than a friendly hug from the man. She was nothing if not honest. Well, at least she was honest with herself—most of the time. Two, she'd acknowledge she had wanted to wrap her arms around his neck and ask him to kiss her. Jewell squinted at the screen directly in front of her, focused on her thoughts, not what was scrolling past. Three, she found him sexually attractive, wait, that was more like an addition to point one. Whatever. She'd accept that. But sex wasn't something she usually sought out. The times she'd engaged in the act it had been… meh. Hot, sweaty, uncomfortable and mostly unsatisfying. Her sister Jade told her it was because she hadn't been with the right man, but her options were—limited. Or they had been. Four, the fact that Nicolas had asked her out confused her, but he was amusing and harmless. Zane? Zane was… what was he? Too calm for his own good. A freaking health nut, which she was decidedly not. He worked out and ate well. She didn't. He seldom talked. She had been told she couldn't keep her mouth shut. Which was true. He didn't even know the basics of her job. She had to explain the different shades of hackers to him. She tapped her finger against her lips. She'd given his file a cursory look when he'd first showed up. He was moved from a section on Jacob's side of the house to Jared's, which meant he'd dealt with issues overseas. The redacted and masked material gave her a pretty good idea of what he'd been doing, but she couldn't be certain. He was basically her total opposite. But that was a good thing, right? Opposites attract and all that shit?
Jewell (The Kings of Guardian Book 8) Page 4