Chapter 29

Twenty-Nine

Just getting the last piece of equipment didn’t mean the system was up and running. But it was the final piece of hardware I needed to begin setting up the desktop. The little machine was a powerful tool, and it had all the memory and hard drive speed I could ask for to go with the internet connection we had at the house.

It did, however, open up a new series of tasks for me. As sore as my fingers were, they still flew across the keyboard. I had to start with the kernel and build it out. The first few commands I entered seemed to ease everything in my gut.

This I could control. I had power again. Confessing everything to the boys had cracked more of the deep glass between me and the rest of the world. But I was still relying on them for survival. On the one hand, it was perfectly rational, reasonable even to rely on them while I healed.

Didn’t mean I enjoyed having everything taken out of my hands. I couldn’t fire a gun with precision or take down a host of men as I fought my way through them. No question about breaking into highly secured facilities and lifting priceless objects with no one being the wiser.

No, I couldn’t do those things. They weren’t in my skillset. Though, arguably, I could get around electronic locks with a little time and planning.

But this? Building the kernel, then installing the programs so I could take back over my corner of the internet and hunt down my enemies? This I could do.

It took me the better part of three days to get everything where I was ready to start firing off bots to do my searching. I had to mask my internet footprint, but that was old hat at this point.

I would have been ready sooner, but the boys insisted on regular breaks and sleep. The one argument I’d had with them, I lost when McQuade just carried me off to my room and set me on my bed. Then he held up the power supply he’d taken from the computer.

“When you’re one hundred percent, Sugar Bear, you feel free to kick my ass. Until then, you need to heal and you won’t if you don’t rest.”

As irritating as his high-handed manner had been, he wasn’t wrong. Not that I planned to admit it. Fatigue was my constant companion. There was so much I needed to do before I could get to work digging up what we needed.

Neither Remy nor Locke offered any kind of back up on that one. If anything, they’d merely given me sympathetic looks and suggested that I go ahead and rest. A part of me wanted to rage. But only part. Because the rest of me understood it. I really did need the rest.

On day four, however, with everything up and running, I triple-checked the firewalls before I fired off the first set of bots. They would skip trace across several servers, laying false trails for the information gathering.

If they were tracked by another program, their server hopping would give us another leg up on avoiding identification. Most programs would give up after the first server hop. The more specialized would begin to error out at three.

Government programs needed five or more. Even my trackers ran into issues after five servers. Course, you also risked information degradation with that many handoffs. It was why I used bots. Break the info down into smaller chunks, reduce the risk of corruption.

Reduced, not eliminated.

This was a test run. I was going after the military contractors that McQuade, Locke, and Remy identified. In addition to being a part of the black bag team that scooped me up, they worked for the highest bidder. They also had a bone to pick with McQuade.

Their business, like any good off the books operation, was highly compartmentalized. It also meant that their systems weren’t all connected twenty-four seven. Instead, they opened up burst uploads to sync up their databases. Good plan, especially if you only did it intermittently.

In theory anyway.

Still left me with a route in. The best part of bots, you could send them out to “sniff” the information packets. They would find where the “pops” came from. Then they could be ready to act when the next “pop” happened.

Like I said, it was good security, in theory. But if you were familiar with the types of protocols they would use and how they would write them? Well, then it was like baiting a hook before you cast the line. You just needed the right bait.

Pretty sure my grandfather wasn’t talking about computers or the internet, but the principle applied. Movement behind me served as a reminder that I wasn’t alone. The guys kept their distance once I’d begun writing code, installing it, and building the tools I would need.

Not everything was proprietary, but a lot of it was. It was easier to make sure no one could trace my tools if I developed them on my own. Also, I was familiar with the trap and traces we used to run from my days in the department.

Chances were high they’d brought in someone else after me. It was also equally as likely that they’d worked to not only improve on the tools I’d left them, but retrofit them. Coding was pretty personal. You could learn a lot about a person based on how they coded.

How their mind worked.

What options they worried about.

What signatures they left behind.

What flaws appeared in their code.

Everyone had flaws. If you could find a pattern, you could find their code. If you could find their code, there was a good chance you could track them.

The next set of bots I dropped out there would be looking for my own code. Unless they’d rewritten it wholly, I still had some stuff out there.

Once the last of the bots were released, a timer began running in the upper right corner of my screen. Fingers hovering over the keys, I tracked the information beginning to feed back into my system from the first skimming attempt.

The bots were already returning. By the time it zeroed out, I severed the main connection between my machine and the internet. Isolating the data onto a partition with no access to anything at all.

Now my decryption programs could go to work, break it down and see what the first skim attempt netted us.

“Well?” Locke said after another long, pregnant pause. I could practically feel the curiosity swirling around him. It brushed over me like a breeze.

“Not sure yet,” I admitted. The faintest of trembles revealed itself in my fingers and I had to curl them into my palms. The decryption would take as long as it took. The machine was a muscly little thing, but it didn’t have near the processing power of the monster I’d had at home.

“No?”

Was he disappointed? I twisted to glance up at him. He wore a long-sleeved Henley in a deep cream color that gave him a more tanned appearance. He wore it untucked from the faded denim jeans.

Everything about him was so utterly human and at odds with the cool thief who took insane risks. The dark hair he normally kept short but currently brushed his collar, was tousled like he’d been running his fingers through it betrayed an agitation he never showed on the job. While he’d been clean shaven this morning, there was a shadow of growth on his cheeks.

I couldn’t deny that this Locke fascinated me. The other Locke, the all business one who rubbed elbows easily with aristocracy seemed almost too aloof. Too professional. Too unflappable. Or maybe it was the mannerisms. He lacked this Locke’s warmth and ease.

Frankly, I liked Remy and McQuade here too. They were still themselves, but—more casual versions. No, casual wasn’t the right word. They were just—easier versions maybe. I really lacked the right descriptions.

They were more than the men I’d talked through everything on the phone. They were just more.

“Patch?” Locke frowned, concern evident. Oh, I hadn’t answered him.

“Sorry,” I told him, waving off the worry. “I was thinking. No, this is just a first attempt.” I motioned to the screen. “A test run, as it were, I wanted to see the strength of the bots against their security systems. I wanted to grab a pop of information as they did a data sync, then siphon it to here. Now?—”

I touched my tongue to my teeth. Excitement shivered through me. Not everyone enjoyed the cat and mouse, which usually involved a lot more patience than a hunt of that kind normally indicated, of data acquisition.

He ghosted a hand over my hair to rest on my shoulder. The earlier shiver redoubled and it was like a current raced under my skin. It prickled over my scalp and sent a pulse up my spine.

The weight of his hand was barely there, and yet I was achingly aware of it. The brush of his thumb against my throat sent a jolt to my pulse. If he hadn’t been right there, I might have sucked in a deep breath. As it was, every single inhale filled me with more of his scent.

“Now?” he prompted. The crinkles at the corners of his eyes deepened a fraction.

“Um…” What had I been saying? I tried to replay the earlier part of my conversation but it stuttered out the longer I stared up at Locke. Information. Skim. “Oh, I—got a lot of info, I just don’t know what it all is yet. The bots returned the packets and I have them isolated on a partition where they can be decrypted without alerting anyone that someone else has them.”

“So you have the box, essentially,” he murmured. “But you still need the combination to open it and the time to do so without worrying about the alarm.”

As analogies went. It wasn’t a bad one. “Yes. More or less. I mean—definitely more, not less but yes.”

The fact I couldn’t seem to adjust the flow of information escaping me registered on some level. I made a face and then nudged my chair back to stand.

Locke didn’t retreat far. In fact, he barely retreated at all. He raised his hand briefly and the loss of contact was as keen to my senses as him putting his hand there in the first place.

I almost sighed when he slid his hand against my shoulder then around to my nape. There was an intimacy in this hold. A flirt with closeness we’d been developing but I hadn’t wanted to read anything into.

They rescued me. Transference of emotion was absolutely normal. Textbook case even. I should remember to not act on these impulses. Clearly, it would be a terrible idea.

“Patch?” Not that I could look anywhere else when his voice dropped into that softer register.

“Yes?”

“I’m going to kiss you right now.”

“You are?” He was? “Why?”

Why? I asked him why? The earlier tingles seemed to ignite like sparklers on fireworks as he stroked his thumb down the column of my neck. Why the hell had I asked him why?

Rather than answer me, he dipped his head. When his lips were nothing more than a breath away from mine, he seemed to hesitate. My pulse jackhammered, no way he couldn’t feel it. The scent of him was an utter intoxication. I pushed forward, closing that gap.

I wanted to know.

His mouth was fierce and firm. Nothing gentle inhabited the kiss. If anything, the moment I put my hand on his chest and leaned into his touch, he took over the kiss. There was a kind of raw demand that urged me to pay attention.

His tongue stroked against the seam of my lips, and I opened my mouth to him. There was no way to deny him. To deny me. He squeezed my nape firmly, the grip burned through me and left a mark far deeper than just my flesh.

Then he was sucking on my tongue and nibbling bites against my lower lip. From pressing the pedal, to hitting one-sixty on the speedometer, Locke’s desire ignited my own and I had to grip his shirt to stay on my feet.

The drag of his teeth over my lower lip signaled an end to the contact. He didn’t seem to be in a hurry at all, the lingering connection sent tingles vibrating through my whole system. Then he lifted his head. Thankfully, my breath wasn’t the only one coming a little faster. The hammer of his heartbeat beneath my fist promised me he’d been every bit as affected as I’d been.

“Wanted to drop a kiss on that sexy mouth for years. Sorry it took so long.”

For years?

My heart stuttered.

For…years?

He licked his lips then brushed his knuckles down my cheek. “I think your program is done with one of them. More coffee?”

“Yes,” I said. “Sure.” The words were perfunctory and then I forced my hand to uncurl from the softness of his shirt. He snagged the chair and pulled it over for me.

Right. Sit.

Finally, I broke eye contact and looked around. Once I was in the chair, he nudged me closer to the desk. Then he brushed his fingers against my nape and another shudder went through me that had my cunt clenching and my nipples taut.

Holy shit.

“I’ll get your coffee,” he said, the whisper a seductive promise or maybe my brain was just conjuring all of that. A moment later, he stepped away but I kept feeling his gaze when it touched me.

I couldn’t focus for the array of shocks hitting my system one right after the other. Remy kissed me and I hadn’t even spoken to him about it. I’d almost have thought he’d forgotten about it, but I kept catching him watching me.

With Remy, like now with Locke, my awareness of him seemed to take over everything.

Remy kissed me offering me salvation and freedom. More, it had been a cold kind of heat that warmed as it chilled and set my whole being on fire.

Now Locke?

Locke had absolutely blown my damn mind like he’d discovered the secret to crack me open.

Knowing him? He had.

I touched two fingers to my lips as I tried to focus on the screen in front of me.

Whatever was going on, I liked it.

I liked it too damn much.