Makenna nodded. “Someone just upped the ante, so we need to counter and start tearing apart the case they have against you. We’ll need to find every discrepancy, loophole, and whatever else you can think of to blow this thing apart.”
She paused as a thought seemed to hit her. “Given the type of business you were working for, would there, by chance, have been video cameras around the office building, more specifically either inside or just outside your office?”
Her question felt like a wake-up slap against the face. I shook my head in disbelief, wondering why I hadn’t thought of it before. “The whole office is littered with cameras to ensure the financial managers are following ethical standards with the financial transactions. Our computers are monitored and recorded into the central hub of the whole business, along with cameras angled at each office and looking over the shoulder of all those working directly with money. They go to extremes to ensure no one is skimming money off the top of the transactions or taking from Peter to pay Paul to avoid the risk of a Ponzi scheme. These safeguards have been in place at most financial investment firms since the famous Bernard Madoff case.”
Makenna turned and leaned her body against mine, swaying a little, but on purpose this time. I almost asked if she was dizzy, when she leaned in, her lips close to my ear so she could whisper. “There are only a few places that aren’t covered with listening devices. Your laundry room, gym, bathrooms, and guest bedroom are in the clear, but that’s not to say the closest bugs couldn’t detect loud discussions. Anything of great importance regarding the case needs to be discussed in these rooms or typed on the computer so that we can share the information safely.
“Once we get to the living area, I’ll try to sit for a while, but if I need to stretch out on the sofa, I need to be in such a position that my laptop screen is facing the kitchen. Otherwise, the camera might be able to zero in on what I’m doing. Do you get what I’m saying, Marcus?” She queried.
I nodded. “You’re still suspicious of a mole somewhere within the FBI or elsewhere?”
“Yes.” She agreed, and then added, “Everyone seems to be in the know that we were once a couple. I want us to act cordial to one another but keep things professional in front of the camera. Any need to discuss issues regarding us”—Kenna used her finger to point between the two of us—“can be done upstairs behind closed doors.”
Okay, I didn’t see that one coming. “Why? Do you want to forget about our progress upstairs? Forget about the life we were both robbed of for five years? Are you saying there’s no hope for us?” I could feel myself getting angry, and Luke began a low growl as my voice started to escalate in tone and pitch.
Makenna was quick to put her hand over my mouth, which silenced me immediately. “To be honest, I don’t know where we go from here. I need time to heal, and with your court date now looming in front of us, we’ll probably spend every waking moment trying to find reasons to throw out the case.”
Reaching up, I removed her hand from my mouth. “I know. But can we at least promise we’ll try to reconnect? I don’t know about you, but I’ve only ever been happy when you’ve been in my life.”
She shifted her glance down toward Luke and petted his head. Her words were but a whisper. “A lot has happened in the five years we were apart. Both of us have changed, and I don’t know if we would be a good fit anymore. Do I care about you? Yes. Can I get past the hurt and the lies? I don’t know.”
I wanted to argue with her, but nodded in agreement instead. “We were both hurt and manipulated badly. I don’t blame you, and I hope now you see I was just as much a victim as you were.”
Makenna lifted her head as a few tears escaped out the corners of her eyes. “I know. I no longer hold you accountable for what happened. I should’ve pushed Cassia out of the way and demanded to know what was going on, but I didn’t.”
My hands came up to cup both sides of her face, drawing her line of sight to mine. “You’ve already explained, and I forgave you. All I ask now is that we at least make an effort.”
A smile spread across her lips as she nodded and whispered, “I’ll try.”
Makenna leaned on Luke and me as we helped her to the sofa. I retrieved everything she needed to get started.
I stayed by her side while she tried to find a position she felt comfortable in, which didn’t happen until she removed a gun and holster from her hip and hid it down by her leg. Even while healing and unable to move much, she kept her guard up to protect me. God, I loved this woman!
Luke began to turn away from me, causing me to realize I needed to get a shower. I caught a whiff of my odor and was surprised the run had caused me to work up that much of a sweat. “Will you promise to stay in this position until I return?”
“I’ll be fine. Please take that shower, but don’t be too long.” She made a motion of pinching her nose and waving her hand in front of it. Luke had to be a little stinker and join Makenna by placing his paw over his nose.
I didn’t know whether to be pissed or laugh at the sight of them. I saw now how relaxed Kenna was with Luke being there in comparison to yesterday. He really did calm her. I just hoped he wasn’t too fond of that title, because I wanted to be the only person she leaned on and depended upon.
After showering in record time, I dressed in some sweatpants and a T-shirt, given Makenna was still in one of my shirts and some sweatpants. I wanted us both to be comfortable, but admittedly, I also had ulterior motives—trying to remind her of the times we used to sit around in matching attire while we worked on our university studies at our apartment.
I paused when my feet hit the lower landing of my place. There were a couple of large boxes filled with food items on my kitchen island. “What have you done?” I rushed over to Makenna, kneeling down in front of her on the sofa, checking her side to ensure she hadn’t bled through again.
She grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze. “I promise I didn’t move. Yesterday I remembered you had limited supplies in your kitchen. So I called in an order to a store around the corner that delivers, putting it on Titan’s tab for now.
“The items just arrived a couple minutes before you did. Kyle brought them in and placed them on the counter.” Shaking her head and smiling, she continued, “I haven’t moved from this spot, though I’ll need some assistance to the bathroom soon.”
She motioned toward the boxes. “You might want to put the things away, because I did order some frozen items along with some luncheon meat and other perishables.”
I didn’t say anything, just smiled and went into the kitchen to put everything away. I was in awe at all she’d ordered. It was everything I needed to make us meals for the next week. She’d gotten all our favorites from when we’d been together and then some. If I didn’t know any better, Kenna was definitely trying to recreate some memories we’d shared.
Glancing over, I noticed she was typing away at her laptop and appeared to be in deep thought. I took that moment to make us an antipasto platter. I remembered how we used to love to sit on the sofa and nibble on all the goodies while we studied for our classes. It was my mother’s go-to for a quick lunch, where there were enough options to appeal to everyone.
I kept myself busy preparing a variety of cheeses, Italian meats, roasted red pepper strips, cherry tomatoes, a cannellini bean dip drizzled with olive oil, some cut bread, a few different crackers, some dried figs, and fresh grapes. I cut some wedges of lettuce, which weren’t typical of a platter but neither were the grapes. However, we enjoyed it back then, and hopefully we’d enjoy it today. I didn’t dare let her know I hadn’t bothered to make anything like this since she left. It brought back too many memories that I couldn’t face at the time.
I grabbed my laptop, notebook, and phone along with a few other things and went over to Makenna. I motioned in the direction of the sofa, indicating I’d like to sit by her if it was okay.
“Luke, let Marcus sit there.” It was amazing how well-behaved her dog was. If I had to guess, I’
d say he looked like a Belgian Malinois or a German Shepard Mix, though I’d bet the former. I’d heard my brother Jackson express interest in possibly getting one for his wife and kids, all thanks to Rick praising the breed.
Luke moved without cause and whined a bit, so she added, “I can’t take you outside. Just use the downstairs bathroom.”
She looked up to me and asked, “Can you help me up and we can show him where it is?”
To say my mouth was agape was an understatement. After helping her stand, we made it over to the bathroom. I watched in complete awe, as Luke had been potty trained in every sense of the word. I’d heard people claim dogs and cats could be trained to use the toilet like humans, but had never believed it until now. He had better aim than most men.
“Does he ever need walking?” I knew I was being nosy but had to ask.
Makenna just laughed the best she could, grabbing her side in the process. “He loves to go on walks, but sometimes the assignments don’t allow us time away from our charges to enjoy a leisurely stroll. He’s been trained to adapt where needed.”
Once Luke was done, I helped Makenna inside the bathroom until she was able to hold on to the vanity for balance, then turned around and gave her some privacy. “You can go outside and close the door completely. I don’t need an audience.”
Without budging, I stood in the doorway, my back to her, and said, “You’re hurt, unsteady on your feet, and there’s no chance in hell I’m leaving you alone for any length of time. You had no problem with us sharing the bathroom and getting ready in the morning when we lived together. Just imagine we’re back there again.”
A low growl of displeasure left her throat, but she complied, and before long we were back on the sofa working away and munching on the food.
Marcus could be infuriatingly overbearing when he thought I needed to be taken care of. In one way, I loved it, because as a Master, or Dom, he always knew my needs before I did and anticipated everything, caring for me as if I were a fine porcelain doll.
I just wished he could remember the fact that I was in the Air Force, was a sniper, and managed to take out the shooter on an opposing rooftop last night. It’s not like I’ll break, although getting shot did make me a little more fragile and definitely slowed me down.
His concern and offer to assist me was, indeed, forming cracks in the wall I’d built around my heart. In one sense, I felt maybe we could, with some work and honest discussion, get back to where we once existed together. Unfortunately, the odds were not in our favor, with the threat of gunfire, court dates, and whatever else came up.
How on earth was I supposed to tell Marcus that while he was in the shower earlier, Rick sent over a report saying the shooter had managed to crunch a cyanide capsule, dying before he was fully interrogated?
Granted, Titan was looking into any cash influx into the shooter’s bank accounts, searching his residence for any clues as to who hired him, and trying to answer the most alarming question yet: why did he have a couple of pictures of both Marcus and me in his pocket? Both were taken yesterday morning shortly after I’d arrived here at Marcus’s penthouse. So how did he manage to get them from one of the cameras inside the condo, and which camera? Was it one of the FBI’s or one of the ones I’d found inside?
I’d already suspected that I might be the main target last night, given how aggressively the shooter had come at me inside Marcus’s bedroom and up on the roof. He’d been relentless. I’d had to duck and cover I don’t know how many times to avoid getting shot again. Thankfully, my small size had allowed me to get behind some equipment on the roof, which provided me with cover and a perfect line of sight to take the bastard out.
Whoever hired the asshole better know that I’ll find them, and when I do, I might just accidentally discharge my weapon. Or not. I’m still pissed I got shot to begin with, less than twenty-four hours of arriving here.
Marcus tapped my arm and turned his computer screen around. It read:
Can you pull the client files of the people I supposedly duped on this scheme from W.H.A.T.’s data server? I know I have the list of names, but need to see at what point I supposedly became their financial advisor.
I nodded and silently went to work. I’d already had a copy of the list of names. I just needed to break into the system without being detected.
While I worked to hack his former employer’s main computer hub, Marcus pulled out a couple calendars—one personal, the other business—and started making comparisons to the times he was out of the building when some of the crimes had transpired. This would give me an avenue to look at, but I’d need hard evidence putting him at another location, showing he couldn’t be in two places at once.
A couple hours had passed, but I finally had all the files on my computer and was ready to put them onto a USB stick for him to upload. The firewall at the company was pathetic at best. I’d found multiple hacks already existing, with few fixes to keep people out. I would’ve thought a financial conglomerate would have better defenses, similar to that of global-banking systems or even Fort Knox, but this . . . it was laughable.
The day seemed to fly by in a blur of activity. I’d been successful in setting up a meeting with one of Titan’s top lawyers for late tomorrow afternoon and figuring out which cameras yielded the pictures found on the shooter, so I’d moved on to trying to track down timed footage outside Marcus’s old office. Hacking their computer system hadn’t been an issue, but the way they stored video footage was unsettling. It was the equivalent of trying to find a needle in a haystack. It had no specification for what floors the footage was from or which office location, only the date and approximate time of day. Geez, looking through forty floors of footage around that time frame . . . no big deal, only I wanted to throw the computer against the wall. My eyes grew tired, and the inability to find what I needed frustrated me.
Needing a break from mindless footage of people getting on and off elevators, walking hallways, typing in information on the computers, etc., I opted to hack the FBI’s video monitoring to run through yesterday’s footage after I’d arrived.
I knew I only had a few moments before I’d be detected, but I quickly found what I was looking for when I fast-forwarded through the first hour I was at Marcus’s penthouse. At that moment, I’d just flipped Marcus and was straddling his lap. I froze the frame and matched it up with one of the photos Rick had forwarded to my e-mail this morning.
The hitman’s other photo had been a bit grainer, most likely coming from a subpar camera system, which led me to believe it had been taken with the cameras we’d removed yesterday. That photo was a close-up of me during the one brief second I’d removed my sunglasses.
At least I now had proof that we did, indeed, have a leak. The only problem was to figure out who the culprit was. Was it someone monitoring the FBI video feed, someone who was outside guarding the door, one of Titan’s guys, or someone with mad computer skills? The list of potential suspects was growing longer by the minute and too massive for one person to handle on their own.
The first rule I learned when getting into this field was to trust no one, and as of this point, I was fully on board with operating that way, with exception of Rick and my computer-hacking associates. As for Spencer and Kyle, I was still trying to decide. I asked my cohorts for any assistance they could provide, given the massive amount of data that required searching along with the short time frame we had been given.
I knew Ethan and Sophia, back at Titan’s home base in Orlando, were anxiously awaiting babies being born, but I knew they’d go nuts if they didn’t have anything to do in the meantime. Plus, I’d already sent Rick an e-mail requesting their help and had been approved.
Sophia had military-grade abilities to dig into past and current files. Her skills were far superior to mine. She managed to hack into places I could only dream of and wanted to learn to do.
Ethan was a wizard at tracking monetary flow to see if any of our “trusted” guards were getting any kickb
acks or owned any offshore bank accounts. He’s created accounting software for financial systems around the world.
I needed both Sophia and Ethan to be on the prowl for any issues with the FBI, SEC, and even our own Titan team members we were using here.
Did I like asking for assistance? Hell no. But I knew we’d been dealt a shitty hand with the case being pushed up for trial. I suspected Cassia Hamilton to be a little whiny ass bitch who probably complained to her father, one of the owners and partners of the firm Marcus had worked for. She’d most likely pitched one mother-of-all-that’s-holy temper fit to get her way, demanding Daddy help her capture “her man” by putting the squeeze on Marcus. She’d seemed adamant that either he would sign those papers and become her personal slave or she’d basically see him in hell. Yet she claimed to love him? All I can say is Psycho Bitch Barbie Warning at extreme levels.
Things didn’t make sense. I could understand Cassia wanting to fight for her man, but according to Marcus, he’d been holding out hope of my return. I shook my head as I realized the full extent of my thoughts. He really did love me enough to wait. And you didn’t do the same? You know that no other man came close to comparing to that fine specimen of hunkiness. Just talk to him. Tell him your concerns about being back together. What’s holding you back, girl?
“Dinner’s ready.” Marcus made me jump as he held out a plate in front of me. It looked delicious and smelled heavenly. I can’t believe I let him sneak up on me again.
I held up my finger, letting him know I needed to power down my computer, when an alarm sounded, indicating someone was trying to hack in through the Wi-Fi router. Ethan and Sophia always used an identifier to let me know they were about to send information my way, or they’d just send a message via e-mail or cell phone. There was no e-mail, no pop-up notice, nothing, just a signal of a failed attack on my system and someone attempting to go around the opening I’d plugged in his system yesterday.
Makenna's Trust: Titan Security Series #3 Page 13