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“So that’s your organization. The Black Swans.”
She lifted the bowl. “You’d have figured it out once you got back to command. Our directors run in intersecting circles.”
“Not enough to heads-me-up on your gig.” He tasted the ramen.Good.He made an appreciative sound. She smiled, and maybe he was tired, his guard down, but it hit him, a full-on punch: She was really pretty. Short dark hair, big green eyes. Petite but sturdy.
“Your accent?—”
“Midwestern.” She watched the screens. “It’s quiet. I’ll take first watch. You get some shut-eye.”
Huh. Right.
“I need to figure out our next move.”
“Not without me.” He put down the noodles. “That’s my asset.”
She raised a dark eyebrow, a smile playing at the edges of her mouth. “We’ll see, there, Frogman.”
Frogman.
It was the way she said it then, and later, that stayed with him, etched inside.
“The name is Steinbeck,” he’d said, getting up.
“East of Eden.”
“Yes.”
“The story of the fight between good and evil.” She set down her soup bowl, now empty. “And the idea that maybe it’s not quite so black and white.” She cocked her head and met his gaze. Smiled.
And that’s when he began to wonder.
Yeah, so played.
Now he motored up to Declan’s estate and pressed in the code. The gate opened and he pulled in, parked the four-wheeler, and headed inside to the security office, nodding to Ryland on the way in.
Zeus stood arms akimbo as Stein walked into the dark room. The man chewed on a toothpick. Dark-skinned and built like a tank, Zeus ran the small security crew with a tight fist. Former SBS in Great Britian, he’d set up the security system for Declan when he’d first built the fortress.
“Any movement in the vault?”
Zeus glanced over at him. “No. Why?”
“A feeling.” He leaned toward the vault picture. The feed indicated it was live.
“No attempts to hack it?”
“We found the code, set up an alert.” Zeus glanced at him. “Milton set it up.”
Milton, the white-hat hacker imported from Germany who’d spotted the hack. Too late, but soon enough for them to shut down anything that Phoenix might have tried to take.
Maybe it was a one-and-done attempt.
No.His gut still said she’d try again. Because he knew her.
Knew the lengths she’d go to in order to complete her mission.
And now acid pooled in his chest.
He braced a hand on the screen, still staring, something feeling not...Wait—“See this light?” He pointed to the bottom of the screen, the slightest hue. It disappeared after a second.