by Lexi Blake
“He’s watching out for himself even as we speak,” the detective affirmed. “You’re a young woman with a future ahead of her. Don’t you want to protect that?”
She had no future at all after this. Her project would be given to someone else, and they would erase her name entirely. If she was lucky she might be a footnote in a journal somewhere, but no one would hire her.
Jessica Layne would ruin her. Even if she managed to get out of jail time, she would spend everything she’d saved on fighting her former boss in a court of law.
Her dad was going to be so upset. He’d sacrificed to help her get here. He and Lila had worked hard to put her through college and grad school, and it had all been a waste.
“I would like to make a phone call.” She didn’t know who she would call. She should call her dad, but god, how was she going to tell him it had all gone wrong? Maybe she could call Cara. Cara was a reporter. She might know people who could help.
The detective huffed. “I can’t help you if you won’t help yourself.”
There was one thing she could do to shut this down. “I want a lawyer. I have the right to an attorney, and you will provide me with one.”
There was a knock on the door and then it came open and a familiar woman walked in, though she looked way different than she had the last time she’d seen her. Mistress Lea strode in wearing a dark business suit, her hair sleek. She carried a brilliant pink bag, and sky-high heels clicked along the floor.
She frowned down at the detective. “I’m Lea Stone, Ms. LaVigne’s attorney. I would like to know why you’re questioning my client without representation present because my client is an incredibly smart woman who knows not to talk to the police without proper representation. So I think you’re the one who’s fucking up right now.”
Detective Grady sighed, a long-suffering sound. “She’s all yours.”
“In my defense, I didn’t realize I was your client, Miss…Miss Stone.” She’d been about to call the woman Mistress. Even out of fet wear Lea Stone kind of scared her. She filled the small room with her presence.
Lea’s dark eyes pinned her. “Yes, you are, and we’re getting out of here now. I believe the detective will find this has all been a mistake. You can apologize now, Detective. It might go a long ways to calming my client down after her false arrest.”
“False arrest?” The detective stood. “Are you fucking with me? Have you read this file?”
“Take it up with the DA.” A shit-eating grin crossed Lea’s face. “My partner and I have been talking to Ms. Brighton all evening, and her office has come to the conclusion that this was all one big mistake.”
“Maia Brighton?” The detective took a step back as though he’d realized the danger he was in.
“The bitch herself. She’s on her way in,” Lea explained. “She will be after she talks to your chief.”
Another knock and an older man was poking his head in. “Grady, cut her loose. We’ve got problems, and I need you in my office in ten to talk to the DA.”
Grady went pale. “Of course, Lieutenant. I’ll be right there.”
He strode out without a backward glance.
“What just happened?” Noelle’s head was reeling.
“Big Tag happened.” Lea turned. “Come along. We’re leaving before they decide if they’re going to fight or not. Right now, they’re dealing with shock and awe.”
“Shock and awe?”
“The district attorney. She’s been informed about the case and she’s taking exception to having DPD do Jessica Layne’s dirty work. I honestly don’t know what’s going on. I was having a nice night at Sanctum disciplining a gorgeous, naughty boy, and then Mitch and I were on our way here. He’s getting Kyle, who managed to be so obnoxious they actually threw him in a cell,” Lea explained. “Let’s go. I want you processed out as soon as possible.”
Noelle was on her feet. “I want to know what’s happening. Where is Hutch?”
“He was at Sanctum the last time I saw him. He was with Big Tag and a couple of civies I didn’t recognize.” Lea’s foot tapped on the floor. “Do you want to stay here?”
There was an easy answer to that. “No. I want to go home.”
“Then it’s sad that I have strict instructions to take you back to Sanctum,” Lea announced.
Noelle shook her head. “I’m going home. I want out of all of this.”
And by home she meant she was packing up her bags and heading back to Papillon.
Lea’s eyes rolled. “I knew you were going to be a pain in my ass the minute I saw you.” She sighed. “All right. I’ll try to avoid stuffing you into my car in front of a police station by giving you the talk. I don’t know exactly what went down. I suspect there are layers upon layers to this thing, but our problem right now is you’re upset with your boyfriend.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Oh, is he not? Because I recently changed my whole training program rules for him. He’s your boyfriend and he pissed you off by not getting his ass arrested with you. He’s waiting for you at Sanctum. Face him like the grown-ass adult woman you are and make him either explain his actions or pay for them. Do not sneak off in order to avoid confrontation because confrontation will find you one way or another. Do you want to be the sad sub who gets hauled into interrogation rooms, or the badass bitch who makes cops so scared they’re willing to do almost anything to keep you happy? It’s your choice.” Lea turned and started out. “And know that I will stuff your ass in the car. You’re going to Sanctum. Spend the car ride deciding how you want to deal with your man.”
Noelle forced herself to follow the Domme.
Maybe it was time she faced Hutch. But he wasn’t her man. He wasn’t going to be anything to her but a regret.
Chapter Sixteen
“She’s not answering her phone. She has her phone back, right? Lea said she was processing out half an hour ago. The police would give it back to her.” Hutch paced the conference room floor.
Sanctum’s conference room was there for the numerous times play nights had gotten interrupted by some case they were all on. More than once in his time with McKay-Taggart he’d gone from spanking a sub to sitting in this conference room hacking into the CCTV feeds of a European country because an op had gone south.
This one had gone so far south it might be rounding north again, and it was the most important case of his career because he’d fallen madly in love with his client.
“She’s not answering her phone because she’s probably still in shock.” Big Tag had changed out of his leathers, though it seemed his night had sucked before Hutch’s issues had arisen. Charlotte had gone home to deal with some kind of teen girl problem, and that had left Tag growly. “Have we figured out why our mystery lady left the cameras on while she stole the data and then turned them off as she left? Why not simply turn them off when she’s ready to access the data?”
“Because that would tip off security.” Hutch was guessing here, but Kyle had mentioned that security monitored the cameras from their phones from time to time. They could be alerted if the systems went out. It would be a calculated risk on the operative’s part. She balanced the risk of someone watching one particular camera among hundreds at precisely the right time versus the absolute certainty of the alarm going off. “She shut it down when she was okay with the chaos the alarm would create. She’d already gotten away, and she could erase whatever she liked.”
Tag’s hands had fisted. “MaeBe, I want a name.”
MaeBe looked up from her computer. She’d made it to the club before he had and apparently taken the brunt of Big Tag’s bad mood. “I can’t get a name if I can’t see a face.”
“What does that mean?” Tag stalked over to her, looking over her shoulder. “I thought you said she walked out of the building. Did she find a way to take out every CCTV camera in downtown Dallas?”
“No, CCTV is working. I can show you that she walked from the Genedyne building three blocks to a hotel w
here I lose her. And yes, I’ve made note of the hotel and I’m investigating, but I would bet she’s not a guest. This woman planned her op carefully, and that means she planned how she would get away. I would bet she met someone there and they left via the underground parking garage. It’s what I would do if I wanted to go unseen.”
“Show him. He doesn’t understand how she could keep her face down for that long.” Hutch moved in behind Tag. He’d been down here while Tag had dealt with Cara and Chris. He’d been trying to track the woman who’d fucked up his life because this had been one long setup.
MaeBe’s fingers raced across the keys, bringing up the moment the woman walked out of the Genedyne building.
“What is she wearing?” Tag asked, pointing to the odd glasses on the woman’s face.
“She’s wearing state-of-the-art, fuck-the-facial-recognition-software gear,” MaeBe stated flatly. “The LED lights confuse the AI. She can smile right at the camera and I get nothing. It’s even bending the light around her face slightly so I can’t print it out and get anything useful. She presents as female. She’s roughly five foot seven, and that’s all I can tell you. The jacket she’s wearing is shapeless. She knew exactly what she was doing, and that was getting away with stealing Noelle’s research.”
“How is she able to see anything with those lights on?” Tag leaned in, looking at the screen.
“Like MaeBe said, that’s state of the art. There was a professor in Japan years ago who played around with using LED light to fool an AI. This looks like someone’s taken his work to the next level,” Hutch explained. “And maybe using meta materials to bend light around her face. Again, not something that’s on the market.”
“So she’s our Collective friend,” Tag surmised.
“Or something like it.” Hutch was sure they weren’t calling themselves The Collective these days, but it was the same shit. It was corporations at war with each other and willing to burn down the world for fun and profits.
The fact that they couldn’t ID the woman who’d stolen Noelle’s research made anger roll in his gut.
But that was nothing compared to the anxiety of not being with her, of knowing she was going through something horrible and not being able to do anything about it. After Michael had picked him up, he’d worked as fast as he could. He’d immediately called in Tag, who’d gotten Mitch and Lea on the case. He hoped the booking process had taken a while and they’d managed to get her out of there before she’d been taken to a cell.
The door came open and Chris Taylor walked in, Cara moving behind him. “You had to sic the DA on them? Do you know the kind of hell I’m going to catch once this story gets around? No one outside of major crimes knows what I’m working on right now, but they’ll find out eventually, and I’m going to catch hell for sending in the dragon.”
“I have questions about involving her, too. Maia Brighton’s got quite a reputation,” Cara complained.
“A reputation for being a man-eating, ruthless she-demon?” Hutch had known her for years. He’d avoided falling even temporarily into her web, unlike many of his friends.
“Hey, don’t misrepresent a long-time… Well, she’s not really a friend.” Tag took his place at the head of the table. “And she is a true pansexual. She’ll take it from anyone she finds vaguely attractive. Maia is many things. The one thing no one can accuse her of is being corrupt. There’s zero threat of her working with Layne. In fact, she’ll happily help you take her down. But for tonight she’s the only thing keeping my people out of jail. I don’t know what is going on with this third party. Hutch is going to give us an update on what he thinks is going on as soon as our friends get here.” Tag looked down at his phone. “And they’re coming in now. Lea’s got Noelle. Mitch had more trouble getting Kyle out because they’d tossed him in a cell. He’s running a couple of minutes behind.”
She was here. Thank god. “I’m going to meet her.”
“Does she know about me?” Cara asked.
“No. I took the deal seriously.” It had been a mistake on his part. “But she has to know everything now.”
“Agreed.” Cara took a seat next to Chris. “We need to protect her. It’s obvious she’s not involved in this.”
If only they’d figured that out days ago. He pushed through the conference room door and out into the hallway. The first floor of Sanctum was fairly normal looking. It was where the offices and locker rooms were. He could hear the sound of industrial music pulsing from above.
He wished he was up there with Noelle, wished they were a Dom and a sub, enjoying a night for themselves.
Instead he had to tell her that everything she’d worked for was at risk.
The good news was he’d saved her research. All of it. He’d risked his neck and put her first. She was going to understand, and he was going to figure out how to fix this for her.
He strode to the lobby, though there wasn’t much to the lobby of Sanctum. There was a security desk that was manned by one of the Doms on play nights. The rest of the time a state-of-the-art security system protected the building.
He watched as Lea strode up and the guard allowed her in, followed by Noelle. She leaned on her cane as though the day had taken a toll on her body.
His whole soul softened as she walked in, and he rushed to her. “Noelle.”
He wrapped his arms around her, needing to assure himself that she was safe. He breathed her in and brushed his lips against her hair. It took him a moment to realize she wasn’t hugging him back.
“Good luck with that one, Hutch,” Lea said. “She’s already fired me, so I don’t think you’ll be around for long.”
She’d done what? He stepped back. “Baby, you can’t fire Lea. She’s the best defense attorney in Dallas. We managed to get the charges dropped tonight, but I have a feeling Jessica Layne will come back fighting. Lea, you’re not fired.”
Lea started for the locker room. “And this fucks up my training class because she also quit that. I planned for a certain amount of couples, and now I don’t have that number. This is why I shouldn’t deal with tourists,” she muttered.
“You don’t get to make that decision,” Noelle said quietly after Lea was gone. “I’m here because your friend there wouldn’t let me be anywhere else, so I’m going to let you know that if you ever come near me again, I’ll get a restraining order.”
Okay, she didn’t have the whole story. She’d been through a lot, and he could understand why she pinned it on him. “Noelle, we need to talk.”
She shook her head. “No, we don’t. The whole drive over here I thought about what I would say to you, and I realized I don’t need to say anything at all. I don’t need to listen to you justify your actions. Maybe that’s not true. I do need to let you know that you won’t break me.”
His heart ached at those words. “I would never do that. Never. I’m sorry I had to run, but you’ll understand once I explain.”
She stared at him, not a hint of affection in her eyes. “Did you or did you not break into the server room and download data?”
His heart seemed to clench because she didn’t look like a woman who wanted to listen to explanations. “Yes, but I did it for you.”
A humorless chuckle huffed from her. “For me? You broke into my employer’s secure computer systems for me?”
He needed to tell her what he’d discovered and she would understand. “Yes, and come into the conference room and I’ll explain everything. A lot has happened tonight. I’m sorry you had to go through that alone, but I had a good reason.”
“How did you know? I walked from behind the elevators and the guard was waiting for me, but he didn’t see you. How did you know to stop? Why didn’t you follow me?”
He wasn’t going to lie to her. “MaeBe had cut into the cameras and she saw them. I had her in my ear, but she didn’t say anything until it was too late. You have to know I would have gotten you out if I could have.”
“Oh, tonight has proven that I don’t know a
nything at all. You’re the mastermind. How long have you known you were going to do this?”
“In the beginning we talked about the fact that I might need to get on the systems.” Hutch felt the need to defend himself. “It was the whole point of getting Kyle a job at Genedyne.”
“I thought the point was protecting me,” she shot back. “I didn’t feel protected today, Hutch. I felt used.”
“Used?” He understood her anger, but she needed to think for a second. “If I had gone in with you, it would have been much longer before we could have gotten you out.”
“So MaeBe wouldn’t have called someone in?”
He sighed. “Of course she would have, but getting myself arrested would have led to questions we don’t want to answer, and it would have led to us losing all the data I pulled down. Including your research.”
That seemed to stop her in her tracks. “You downloaded my research?”
At least now he had her attention. “Yes, I went in to gather intel for the feds.”
“The feds?”
This was another tricky part. “I spent most of the day with the FBI special agent who is investigating Genedyne for fraud. The whole company, including you, baby. I made a deal with her to keep you out of any prosecution, but I had to get the financial records.”
“Her? Who is her? I thought Chris Taylor was probably the one watching me,” she began, and then it was easy to see that big brain of hers making the leap. Her head shook and there was a shine to her eyes. “Cara. Of course. She came along at the right time. I was lonely and happy to have a friend.”
“I think she likes you. She made that deal to protect you without hesitation, Noelle.” He could save this. He could show her that she wasn’t alone even though she felt that way. He could make her understand that he’d done everything he’d done with her safety in mind. “Part of the deal was not giving up Cara’s cover until the end of the op. I was following the rules of the deal but I shouldn’t have. I should have told you what I was doing.”