Technical Risk

by Sidney Bristol

  A large figure swathed in black and wearing a bulky coat and something over his face stepped in, but it was the gun that drew Miles’ attention.

  He’d been right.

  He hated being right.

  The man yelled something, but Miles was already moving. He ducked and yanked his gun out of his holster.

  A bullet tore through the wall just behind where he’d been standing.

  Diha screamed.

  The man lunged at her, but Miles was faster. He rushed the man, driving him through the open door and into the other room—away from Diha.

  They crashed to the floor, neither coming out on top.

  The man swung the gun. Miles blocked, barely avoiding getting hit. The attacker used the momentum to hoist himself up and over Miles, giving the attacker the advantage. Miles bucked his hips, but the man had to outweigh him by at least a stone.

  Movement just behind the attacker caught Miles’ attention.

  Diha came into view as she swung something. Was that a lamp?

  The lamp base connected with the back of the attacker’s head. He lurched forward, nearly sprawling over Miles.

  He used the distraction to twist out from under the man.

  “Get in the car,” Miles roared over his shoulder as he brought the gun up.

  The man twisted, aiming the gun at Miles and fired.

  The shots went wild, hitting the wall and ground.

  Diha dove out of sight, hopefully heading for the car.

  The man was desperate. These were not the actions of someone who knew what they were doing. This man was dangerous, not because of what he wanted but because of what he was willing to lose to get it.

  Miles had no choice but to abandon this fight. Diha’s life was more important. She’d gotten too close to Valentino, and they were coming for her. She’d put a target on her back because they’d asked her to. It was now up to him to protect her. To put her safety first.

  A car revved outside.

  Miles scrambled to his feet and threw himself out of the room. The headlights nearly blinded him, but he vaulted over the hood of the car anyway and to the passenger side. The car was already moving by the time he dropped into the seat.

  “Go,” he barked.

  The car lurched around as a figure stood in their doorway, back-lit by the room that should have been their haven.

  “Damn it,” Miles snarled as they turned out of sight.

  “Here.” Diha shoved the heavy messenger bag at him.

  Miles stared down at her laptop, all the cords and the one salvageable hard drive.

  She was brilliant.

  WEDNESDAY. BRISTOL, United Kingdom.

  Aleksandr pressed his back against the wall as the car sped out of the parking lot and onto the mostly empty street. His head swiveled back to the hotel room door standing open.

  Something was going on here, and he very much wanted to know the answers. But his job was very simple.

  He put the couple out of mind and slunk further down the line of rooms for a better vantage point.

  A few people had stuck their heads out when the shots were fired. The police would arrive shortly. That meant whatever Valentino was doing would have to be wrapped up soon.

  What had those people taken that was so valuable it was worth running the risk of getting caught? What was Valentino doing?

  Despite having studied the hacker, there were some things that didn’t make sense about him. Questions Aleksandr wanted answers to. If he was going to make the man disappear completely, Aleksandr needed more information.

  Then again, with Valentino outright assaulting cops, maybe the man was desperate.

  The large figure in black emerged from the room. He had a bag under one arm. His head swung left, then right.

  Sirens wailed in the distance.

  Right on time.

  Valentino did a hop and skip stride, then jogged north toward a breezeway between the main building and the remaining rooms, just ahead of Aleksandr.

  He held his breath until Valentino passed into the darkness before sprinting down the line of doors. At the corner he skidded to a stop and peered around just in time to see Valentino toss the bag over a fence, grab the top and vaulted over it.

  Should he do it here? Now? But then what about the woman?

  Aleksandr closed in on the fence and peered between the boards. He could just make out the figure of a man running down the alley.

  The chase was on.

  He had a good idea where Valentino had stashed his woman, but Aleksandr did like to be thorough about these things. He pulled the hood on his coat up and let the hunt begin.

  WEDNESDAY. BRIGHTON, United Kingdom.

  Diha sucked down air.

  She could hear a voice in her head—her voice—chanting, Oh, my God, over and over again.

  Her lungs burned. She needed more air. She sucked more in, but the burning never went away.

  “Diha? Diha,” Miles practically yelled.

  One of his big, warm hands covered hers on the steering wheel and squeezed.

  “Diha? Pull over.”

  But they needed to get away. They had to. That man with the gun...

  Her eyes blurred just enough it was hard to see the road.

  Miles was okay.

  She took her foot off the accelerator and shifted into a lower gear. The car lurched and groaned. It had been a long time since she’d driven a manual transmission, and this was Miles’ car.

  She winced and glanced at him.

  He was focused on her. It was hard to see him in the dim light.

  She navigated into a tiny parking lot of a strip mall just as the car sputtered and died on her for not downshifting fast enough.

  “It’s okay. Diha, it’s okay,” Miles said.

  “Is it? Are you okay?” Her voice was too high, too brittle.

  “I’m fine. Give me your hand.” He reached out and took her hand off the gear shift and squeezed it. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

  “I...” She felt a stinging on her brow but otherwise she was an all over numb. “I think I’m fine.”

  “Okay, how about I drive?” His tone was...warm steel. It was a question, but she also knew it was an order.

  She nodded and released the catch on the seatbelt, then fumbled with the door.

  Miles moved faster. He was outside, opening her door before her fingers had managed to find the handle. He took her hand and pulled her to her feet.

  “Jesus. Diha.” His big hand cradled her face and he peered down at her. “I’m sorry.”

  “What?” She frowned up at him.

  “You’re bleeding.”

  “I am?”

  “You didn’t...? Yes. Come on.” He let go of her face and wrapped an arm around her waist. “Let’s get you in the car.”

  She was bleeding.

  That was a revelation her dull mind wasn’t wrapping around.

  She let him guide her around the car to the passenger side and help her lower into the car. He even buckled her seatbelt for her and pressed a handful of napkins into her hand.

  They’d been attacked.

  By a man with a gun.

  These things just didn’t happen to her. Her life was boring. Predictable. It wasn’t this at all.

  Miles got behind the wheel. “I’m going to take us out of town to a safe house. I didn’t earlier because, it doesn’t matter. I know where we’re going and we’ll be safe, okay?”

  “Okay,” she whispered.

  He started the car again and got them back on the road, and then his big hand slid around hers and squeezed. It felt as though he squeezed all of her. It was a warm, comforting touch that calmed her insides.

  Miles had saved her.

  She would be okay so long as they were together. It was a truth she needed to hold on to.

  “What was your first job with the CIA?” Miles asked.

  “First job?” She frowned and turned her face toward his.

  “Yeah.” He glance
d at her and though he smiled, his eyes were worried.

  “The CIA was a letdown. It is a letdown.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s the ultimate boy’s club. I lack the...plumbing. Before Zora, I was pretty much just IT. Need your password reset? Something wrong with your email? Lost your phone?” She sighed, recalling those days all too clearly.

  “You... you’re serious?”

  “Completely. Looking back, I can see how depressed I was when Zora recruited me. I was starting to listen to my mother about how I should quit working, marry someone and settle down.”

  “I can’t honestly tell if you’re joking right now.”

  She frowned at him. “I told you I’m serious.”

  “I know that’s what you said, but...you’re serious?”

  She arched a brow at him. “You find it shocking that men would relegate me, a brown woman, to an out of the way support role?”

  Miles grimaced and looked back at the road. “No. No, I guess I’m not. Men are idiots. Sometimes we don’t see what’s right in front of us.”

  “Thank you.” She lifted a hand to her face and felt the sticky blood clinging to her temple.

  Her skull ached.

  She hadn’t realized it earlier. It was probably from the stress and adrenaline. Now she understood stories like the one Harper had told her about one of their Aegis Group friends who’d been stabbed several times, was bleeding out and suffering liver failure, but hadn’t stopped fighting.

  “Hey?” Miles reached back over and took her hand, giving it a firm squeeze that almost crunched her knuckles. “So, one of the first operations I went on was a raid. Simple bust in, arrest everyone, bag the evidence, get out. Well, they put me in front so I could really see what was going on. We break through the garden door, I step in and my feet go flying out from under me and I land in dog shit. They had one of those wee pads and there were turds all over it. I landed in dog shit.”

  “You—what?”

  Miles’ chuckle turned into a laugh.

  He was serious.

  “Oh, my God.” She laughed despite the pain in her head.

  “Yeah. The next day I came in and someone had a dog collar made with my name on it.”

  “They did not...”

  “They did. Luckily most of the people who were there have retired or moved to other cities. Every now and then I’ll still get a dog biscuit in a drawer.”

  Diha couldn’t help but laugh. It was so absurd, and yet it was the kind of thing she could see Harper and the team doing.

  Men could be such children the way they carried on.

  “How’s your head?” Tension was back in Miles’ tone.

  “It hurts.” She breathed in deep.

  He was distracting her. Keeping her mind off the pain and her mouth moving.

  “Something wrong?” he asked.

  “No.” She turned her head to look at him. “I’m okay. You don’t have to coddle me anymore. I’m fine.”

  He opened his mouth and his grip on her hands tightened. She braced herself to hear him reject the idea. He would never do such a thing. But then he closed his mouth and focused on the road.

  “I wasn’t trying to be patronizing,” he said.

  “I didn’t say you were.” She made herself let go of his hand despite the warmth and comfort of his touch. “Thank you for taking care of me. This... Tonight was not in my wheelhouse.”

  “You did good tonight. You didn’t freeze up. You acted.”

  She didn’t agree, but she also didn’t feel the need to say that to his face. She was allowed a first time mistake, now she’d made hers. From now on, she would have to be better.

  When that door had burst open and hit her right between the eyes, she’d been terrified. It had all happened so fast. The man had grabbed her. Her heart had felt as if it were going to break her ribs it beat so hard. And then it had gotten worse. That man, he’d tried to kill Miles.

  Diha still wasn’t sure what had come over her. A righteous, angry part of her mind had flipped on and she’d fallen back on her training. The lamp that she’d unplugged to charge her phone had been an easy weapon in the heat of the moment.

  “We’ll be there soon,” Miles said. “We’ll be safe.”

  She nodded, though he couldn’t see her and began counting the reflective lights along the road. Anything to keep her mind occupied.

  WEDNESDAY. MI5 SAFE House. Brighton, United Kingdom.

  Miles hauled the small grocery store haul into the safe house. It was hard to keep an eye out for Diha and on the cottage’s interior, but he managed somehow.

  He’d taken as many twisty, turning roads as possible to get to the house on the northeastern edges of Brighton in a quiet neighborhood. When he’d stopped to grab food and some medical supplies, he’d paid in cash and kept his face away from the cameras.

  Valentino might still find them. It was a risk they couldn’t escape, though Miles would be a hell of a lot more careful now.

  If only he’d paid attention to his gut. He’d known something wasn’t right.

  “This is cute.” Diha stood in the formal living room of the small house and turned in a circle.

  The house was in an older style with simple furnishings.

  Miles set the things down on one of the desks in what would have been a formal dining room in any other house. Here, it was a workspace for up to four agents.

  “Stay there while I have a look around.” He didn’t look at her.

  The blood had dried, covering half her face. She insisted she was fine now, but the sight of her like that was the kind of thing that would haunt him.

  A harder blow might have killed her.

  If he hadn’t reacted, if he’d been slower, she might have been shot.

  He pushed those thoughts from his mind and went through the house.

  There was a stale, musty odor to the place. It was tidy, but obvious no one had stayed here recently. A cleaning service would ensure it was kept in good repair, but not much else.

  Once he was satisfied that all the windows and doors were secured and the alarm armed, he drew an easier breath. At least until he turned around and spied Diha studying her reflection in a gilded mirror.

  “I could almost be one of those zombie extras,” she said dryly.

  The sight of all that blood was too ghastly for him to find humor in her comment.

  “Come on. I want to look at that wound.” He ushered her into the kitchen, pausing long enough to grab the medical bag.

  “I can wash my own face,” she said.

  He pulled out a chair for her at a two person breakfast table squeezed into the corner. “Humor me?”

  She sat, ankles primly crossed, hands in her lap.

  Miles got the water running and soaked a rag in warm water before turning back to her.

  Diha frowned at the rag. “How is it you wrestled with that man and didn’t get hurt and all I did was open a door?”

  The bruises on Miles’ shoulder and ribs said otherwise, but he ignored them.

  “Here.” He pressed a dry rag into her hand. “Now, look at me?”

  Diha tipped her chin up, her gaze locking with his.

  She really was put out about this. And she said she was disappointed in herself?

  His gaze traveled up to the gash along her hairline. It wasn’t a deep or large cut. Judging by the jagged nature he assumed she’d gotten caught by the security chain bolts in the door. Ever so gently he swiped the wet rag across her brow, careful to not press too hard.

  “How do you feel? Any light-headedness? Feeling dizzy? Sick to your stomach?” he asked.

  “You mean do I have a concussion from being hit in the head?” One side of her mouth hitched up and she closed her eyes. “I would say no. The light headed feel from earlier has passed. I suspect that was adrenaline. I’m not dizzy or sick to my stomach. Just very hungry.”

  “That’s good.”

  He was relieved, truth be told. She’d be
en hurt on his watch. This was on him.

  “Do you think it will scar?” There was an odd note in her voice.

  His gut said yes, but he didn’t want to say that. “I’m not sure.”

  “I’ve never had a scar. This would make for quite the story.”

  “No scar, never? Never skinned your knee or fell off your bike?” He had loads of them, and not everyone had a story behind it. Sometimes he wondered if they multiplied on their own.

  Her lips twisted into a curious smile. “I’ve never ridden a bike.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I wasn’t that kind of child. Priya was more adventurous. Always has been.”

  “Priya? Is that a sister?”

  She sighed. “Yes.”

  “You two don’t get along?”

  “We do,” she said hurriedly. “I love my sister. We get along fine. She’s just...Priya.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’ll show you.” Diha slid a hand into the bag still around her shoulders and pulled out her cell phone.

  He straightened while she fiddled with it a moment then showed him the screen. Diha was sandwiched between two other women with similar bone structure and brown eyes full of spark. The other two were taller than Diha, one by only a few inches and the other could almost put her chin on top of her head.

  “Which one is Priya?” he asked.

  “The model beautiful one?”

  Miles peered past the screen at her. “You mean the tall one? All three of you are beautiful.”

  Diha squinted at him a bit. “Yes, the tall one.”

  He bit the inside of his mouth.

  One thing he understood was contention between siblings. His oldest brother had always and would always be the favorite. No matter how many bad guys Miles put away, his accomplishments would never match his brother’s. But to listen to his brother, it was Miles who his parents doted on.

  Family dynamics were a curious thing. He couldn’t tell Diha that Priya wasn’t the pretty one, at least not to him.

  “Look up,” he said.

  Miles cupped her chin, turning her head a bit and focused on his task while Diha studied him, her phone now in her lap. He was aware of her scrutiny. It was impossible to not feel it.

  He was certain that Priya was a beautiful woman with her own charms. But she wasn’t Diha. He’d been with stunning women, but the truth was that they bored him. They didn’t capture his attention the way Diha did.