by Linzi Baxter
She propped herself up on the kitchen counter. “Antonio’s parents are coming over to spend time with Antonio Jr. I can help Sophie go through her data while they are watching him.”
Leave it to my sister to come up with a good plan. I had a feeling she also wanted to know what was happening with the mission. As it was, we would be told only what they wanted us to know. If we were in the room when transmissions came through, they wouldn’t be able to keep the information from us.
Brock didn’t answer right away. He reached for the spatula and flipped a Mickey-Mouse-shaped pancake he was working on. “Stay out of the mission. If you find something that will help, I will take it under an advisement. Otherwise, you need to stay out of the mission going on.”
Kat and I both nodded, but when I looked into her eyes, I could tell she was thinking the same thing I was. We would do whatever we had to in order to protect our men. Wow, where did that come from? I was already calling Zane my man. I had never believed in love at first sight. That was something that happened in fairy tales, not real life.
Jessica, Brock’s fiancé, walked into the kitchen. “I’m so excited to spend the day in the lair.” Jessica seemed to think she was joining us. I took a second to register the shirt she was wearing. It said, “Future Hacker In Progress.” I jumped out of the chair and gave her a hug.
“When did you tell everyone?” I couldn’t believe they were having a baby. The thought sent a jealous twinge through my gut. I hurriedly hid my emotions.
Brock pulled her into his arms and kissed the top of her head. She was glowing.
“This is how we are telling people. If they see the shirt, they figure it out. You were the first one to notice. I spent the morning downstairs, talking with Mia and the team members still around. For a bunch of operatives, they aren’t very observant.”
Brock chuckled at her. Everyone had gathered around the counter to congratulate the happy couple on their announcement.
“Have you called Patty and Sam yet?” Patty was Jessica’s twin sister and the next queen of Shialia. Since their dad had gone MIA, Patty had temporarily taken over. She would be so happy to find out her sister was pregnant.
Jessica’s face lit up with joy at the sound of her sister’s name. “Yes, we called them last night. I wanted Patty to be the first person I told, besides Brock. She is so excited. They also set a date for the wedding. It will be in May, which is close to my due date. I will be a whale for the wedding.”
“You will be beautiful because you will be carrying my baby.” Everyone oohed and ahhed at Brock’s statement.
I loved Brock’s lair. It was every hacker’s dream. He had two stations with eight monitors. At his station, he had three of his screens linked to different missions. On the center screen were Zane and Antonio. They had their heads down, studying the schematics of the building they were going to tonight.
The man could take my breath away. It should be illegal to look that sexy. It almost seemed like he could sense me watching him. His head rose, and when he saw me on the screen, a cocky grin came across his face, like he knew I was checking him out.
At Zane’s movement, Antonio looked up, and his eyes lit with joy when he saw Kat standing next to me. “How did you sleep last night, Kitty Kat?” Antonio’s deep voice boomed into the office.
A red blush came across Kat’s face. I didn’t need to know what was going on between those two. Antonio let out a chuckle.
“Fine.”
“Where’s our boy?”
I had a feeling both men would not be happy with Kat and I digging into Sanchez. Too bad. We were both out for vengeance, and it would be ours.
“He’s with your parents. Sophie and I will spend a couple hours comparing the data we compiled.”
When I saw Zane open his mouth, I held up my hand for him to stop. “Us comparing data will not affect your case. Let us do something. We’ll stay in this compound and not leave.” I was almost sure we wouldn’t leave, but that would depend on what we had found.
After breakfast, Kat and I had sat down to talk about our lives. Sanchez had taken Kat in and informed her he was her only living relative. He took care of her and sent her to military school, where she excelled in becoming a sniper. She was one of the most sought-after snipers in the world. Ice was her special ops code name. Ice was so much cooler than the normal color names the CIA gave out. Kat was also skilled in close hand-to-hand combat. Brock was in awe when he heard who she was.
Sanchez had tasked her with a mission to protect Yermushin at the charity event. She was supposed to be his bodyguard and make sure the sale went through. When everything was complete, she was to kill Yermushin.
He had promised her this was the last mission. She wanted to retire and work as a social worker. She wanted to have a safe life for her son and not go on deadly missions anymore. The older Antonio Jr. got, the harder it was to sneak off without him asking questions.
Zane pinched the bridge of his nose. I could tell he was holding back. “Go over your data together. Let me know what you find, but you have to promise to stay in Brock’s custody until we get back.”
“Sure.” Did that count since I had my fingers crossed behind my back? If we found something, I would go after the director myself. Nobody would stop me from my end game, certainly not some man I’ve known less than a week, even if that man made me wish for things I knew I couldn’t have.
Kat and I had worked on figuring out our trust. With Kat’s knowledge of the director, it didn’t take long to find the trust documents. She knew who his lawyer was and the firewall was impressive on the firm’s computers. So, instead of spending hours trying to find an open port, I spammed the company, hoping someone would give me their user name and password.
Five minutes later, someone clicked on the spam email and entered the information I needed. People needed to take a closer look at emails before clicking links. In an instant, it worked, and I was in. A couple of keystrokes later, I had the trust information pulled up and copied over so I could figure out how to cut Sanchez out of the money.
The money was funneled monthly into two accounts, one in my name and one in Kat’s name. Sanchez would drain the money out of both at the beginning of the month. Kat and I could change the information so Sanchez wouldn’t be able to get in anymore. He had set up the accounts when we were kids. Since we were adults, according to the trust, he shouldn’t have access to the trust money anymore. With a few key strokes, we cut off his cash cow.
I had to take a second look at the trust. I couldn’t believe what my eyes were seeing. Each trust had close to a hundred million dollars in it.
16
Sophie
Kat and I had sifted through data for two hours straight. Jessica and Brock had left to grab lunch. Zane and Antonio were going over the guest list for the charity event. No matter how hard I tried to stay focused, my eyes kept wandering to the monitor they were on.
“Sophie! I found something!”
I glanced over at Kat’s monitor.
“The Prime Minister of Russia is blackmailing Sanchez.”
Blackmailing wasn’t the reason he brought me in. There had to be more.
“Okay, explain how that affects me?”
“You’re not looking.” Kat pointed to the bottom of a page.
Holy shit! The Prime Minister of Russia and Sanchez used to work together. Yermushin was the Prime Minister’s younger brother.
“Yermushin and the Prime Minister are brothers. Wow.”
Kat let out an aggravated huff. “The Prime Minister has all the information about our parents’ deaths, and it looks like our grandparents’ deaths too.”
Based on a transaction sheet Kat had found, Sanchez was paying the Prime Minister money each month. She was right. Two weeks prior, an email had come from Russia, demanding more money. Sanchez couldn’t pay, so he was helping Yermushin sell the nuke codes to North Korea. If he produced the codes, and the sale went through, his debt would be cleared.
When I stopped returning his calls, he must’ve thought I was working on collecting data. Then, when I didn’t turn over the communication I had, Sanchez must have been worried I would bring him down.
He was smart to have kept my sister and me apart. In one day, we had stopped his money train and figured out why he was after me. What we needed to do was get information from the servers that confirmed he killed our family. That, along with the recording Kat had about the nuke codes, would put the director away for a long time.
“Do the boys have a trace on Sanchez?” Kat was peering over to Brock’s station.
We were told to stay out of the current mission, not the mission of destroying Sanchez. Swiveling in the chair to Brock’s station, I pulled up the closed browsers. Brock was tracing Sanchez’s movement. He was near the meatpacking district. Since losing Kat, maybe Sanchez planned on taking Yermushin out himself.
“You keep digging on the server. I’ll look around on the dark web. Sanchez is in New York.”
The dark web was a place where you needed to know what you were looking for. Google didn’t exist on the dark web. The government had put up false pages, hoping to catch people doing the wrong thing. I was looking for archived data of when a hit might’ve been placed on my parents. I pulled up a page I was familiar with AlphaBay. AlphaBay was one of the top sites used for hits.
I accessed a well-known hit list page. What I saw made my heart drop. Antonio and Zane were both on the list.
I clicked the link to see who took out the hit, but I didn’t have time to look further. I heard footsteps coming down the hall. I exited out of the page ten seconds before Brock walked through the door.
“Jessica and Bridget are upstairs with the food. I figured you guys needed a break,” he said.
No, he wanted us out of the room so he could talk with the guys with us not around. I wanted to get Kat’s opinion on the information I’d found, so when I saw Kat start to protest, I shook my head at her.
I couldn’t help but smile at the women around the table. Jessica and Bridget each had a container of Chinese food. Two more containers waited for Kat and me to dig in. No matter how much I wanted to have a fun lunch with my friends and sister, Kat and I needed to discuss the information I found online and whether we would let Brock know or be stupid and try to save them ourselves.
“Hey, I need to talk to Kat about something. We’ll grab our food and go.”
When Bridget’s family went on the run for her father’s mistakes, they had moved into the same neighborhood CJ and I lived in. Our love for computers made the friendship effortless. The three of us had spent hours together, coding and fine-tuning our craft. When Bridget’s previous life came out last year, it hurt that she hadn’t told me. I contemplated coming clean about my past, but she had just gotten pregnant. I knew she would want to help, and I couldn’t put her in danger.
Bridget smiled and pointed to the chair. “Come on. Don’t cut us out. I want to help. Jessica counts numbers all day. We know she needs something fun in her life.”
Jessica swatted at Bridget. “My man keeps me entertained.” A slow blush crept over her face.
Bridget reached over and grasped my hand. “Tell me what the plan is. How much money do you need, and where are we going?”
“We figured out why Sanchez is after me.” I shook my head when Bridget went to jump in. “Kat and I wanted to dig deeper. I was checking out the dark web and pulled up AlphaBay. I wanted to look at the archives. I never made it past the new posting page. Someone hired a hit on Antonio and Zane.”
Kat gasped. She leaped from her chair and was heading for the door, but we needed to talk for a second and work this out our way. “Kat, sit back down.”
“I’m going after my husband.”
“Already planning on it, but we can’t walk out of here without someone knowing. Let's formulate a plan, steal a jet, and save these men.”
The owner of AlphaBay was an acquaintance. The first step was to get the hit taken down for a few hours. The next was getting back to New York.
“Fine.”
“Bridget, can you watch Antonio Jr. while we go to New York? We need guns and plans for protecting them. I also need to borrow Alex’s jet somehow.
Jessica nodded immediately. “Alex might ask questions. Royal Airlines has spare planes for us at the hanger. I can call my pilot. Royal Airlines won’t say anything to Brock, either.”
Words couldn't express my gratitude. It meant so much to have friends that could help at a moment’s notice. “Okay, guns. Anyone know how to find them?”
“Sophie, we’ll stop by my storage unit in New York. There is only one gun I will use to take this man out,” Kat said, propping her chin on her hand on the table.
“Who are you planning on shooting?” I asked. “We’ll make sure our men make it back alive. Guns are only needed if someone is in trouble.”
Bridget and Jessica both agreed. This was a backup mission, not a search and destroy.
“I’ve been in the spy game for years. Sanchez took out the hit. I will bet my rifle that he also told Yermushin they were coming for him. Our men will be walking into an ambush.”
I reached for the laptop to pull up the schematics of the building. Kat reached over and closed the lid on my fingers.
“What are you doing? We need to figure out everything about the event.”
An evil smile spread across Kat’s lips. “Nope. Antonio and Zane are planning on taking Yermushin down before the charity event at his warehouse in the meatpacking district. If we leave soon, we can set up in the rafters and wait for the meeting to go down.”
Zane would be angry with me for putting myself in danger. He gave me the one thing I wanted in the world. Kat and I would have their backs during the meeting. I was still worried about Kat going on a kill mission, but I knew she wanted to protect her husband.
Kat had broken down and cried this morning after breakfast when we talked about Yermushin. She felt stupid for working with the man that killed our parents. Her need for vengeance was clouding her judgment. The right thing would be to let Brock know what we found.
“Are you sure about this? We couldn’t hear anything they were saying.” Brock had put the feed into his ear when talking with the guys. He was definitely keeping us out.
Kat shrugged her shoulders. “Yes. When they talked to Brock, I read their lips.”
How do you respond to that? From a young age, Sanchez had shaped her into a super spy. Zane and Antonio should have used her on this mission. Kat talked about how Sanchez started taking her to Camp Peary at the age of ten. Camp Peary is the CIA training facility for covert spies. What other super skills would she pull out?
Bridget gasped. “Holy shit. You read lips? When are you going to give a training lesson? These prissy moms at the jungle gym are always catty. I want to know what they say when they are on the other side of the playground. Alex confiscated all of my listening devices.”
There were so many things wrong with Bridget’s statement. Surprisingly, none of them shocked me. I didn’t care about learning to read lips. I was hoping she would teach me to shoot so that the next time I had to kill someone for real and not electronically, I could do it without unloading the full clip.
“Our biggest challenge will be getting out of this building without being caught,” Kat said. “This place is covered with cameras.”
Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out my phone. It rang twice.
“Hey, Sophie.”
“Hi, Daisy. Can you help me? You will get in trouble from Neal.”
Daisy was Neal’s submissive. She had been kidnapped and tortured for years. She was still recovering and lived with Neal. Neal was Patty and Jessica’s best friend, and he ran Patty’s security company. There had been talk about merging Patty’s and Bridget’s companies.
“Oh, yes. Neal has been lax on Daisy. Daisy needs a g
ood punishment.” Daisy was a borderline masochist.
It was hard not to laugh when Daisy spoke in the third person. “I need a ride. We will meet you at Chubby’s Diner in thirty minutes?”
They wouldn’t think to track Daisy’s car until it was the last one. Now, we needed to get to the cameras. The only person watching the cameras was Brock. Jessica could help us with our next op.
“Jessica…” It was hard to ask her to get in a fight with Brock. When he found out, he would be angry with her.
“No problem. I will seduce Brock. Let’s get you ladies in the air. I called my pilot. He is at the airstrip, ready for you.”
When I stood up, Bridget engulfed me in a hug. “Be safe.”
Before Kat knew what was happening, Bridget had her arms wrapped around my sister. “Take care of her. I’m trusting you with my best friend.”
Ten minutes later, we were slipping out the back door. I couldn’t help but hold my breath for a few seconds, waiting for someone to run after us. No one came. We made it out. Now, to save the men we love. I wasn’t sure where that thought had come from. We were saving my brother-in-law and someone who helped get my sister back.
17
Zane
I took a deep breath. Our plan was working out perfectly. We had received intel earlier that Sanchez put a hit out on us. We were working on two cases at once. Sophie might be mad about us killing the director and Yermushin.
Earlier in the day, we were able to get bugs into the house Yermushin was staying at while he was in New York. Antonio’s company had some of the coolest gadgets. I thought the CIA gave me amazing technology to work with, but it didn’t compare to what Antonio had. We took a drone shaped like a fly with listening and camera tech and flew it into Yermushin’s hideout.