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“So you’re the code whisperer.”
She ignored the bait. “You’re the hammer Ma’am sent to walk soft and hit hard.”
He didn’t smile. But something near his mouth twitched just once. “Ma’am?”
“She wouldn’t give me her name. She was demanding and unapologetic about it.”
“Director Lynne?—”
“Caspari. I know. I found out who she was ten minutes after I got home.”
“Don’t tell me. Snatched you off the street, hooded, no explanation. Fucking CIA.” His voice was deeper as if he was annoyed they’d treated her like that.
“You, too?”
He huffed out a laugh. “They tried.”
The confident sound of his voice was like a needle prick in that bubble that had been shaken when he’d plowed into her.
“Let me guess. You kicked their asses with one hand tied behind your back, then told her to get the fuck off your property.”
Before he could answer, the door behind him opened with a soft pneumatic sigh, and in stepped their new escort, a man in a slate-gray blazer that screamed “mid-tier clearance and inflated self-importance.”
“Mr. Rahim. Ms. Harlan.” The man offered a strained smile, carrying a tablet. “Rory Kendall. External Compliance.”
Grace didn’t slow. “We’ll need full access.”
Rory exhaled with barely suppressed disgust. “You’ll get read-only. Eighteen months of vendor logs and archive summaries. Standard scope for outside auditors.”
“That’s not going to work,” she said coolly. Exactly the kind of data that got scrubbed first when someone had something to hide. They were giving her a glass wall to press her nose against and betting she was too dumb, too green, or too bogged down in bureaucratic gobbledygook to notice.
She and Nash had the power.
She gave him her sharpest smile. “Again, there must be some mistake. We’re here for real data, not some mirror system.” Then she dropped her bomb. “You can take me to your air-gapped annex,” she said, voice neutral. Any company that wanted to protect their data kept one terminal air-gapped with no internet connection. No external access. An island inside the system where the real secrets lived. Hack-proof. This was why they had to get physically inside OrdoTech.
“Direct access to our primary data is excessive,” he said, eyes narrowed.
“Your noncompliant behavior to our requests is excessive, Rory,” Nash said, lifting a brow. “We’re busy, busy people, and this bullshit is wasting our time.” He stepped closer and Rory backed up. Grace didn’t blame him. Nash was living up to not only direct action, but violence of action. The man commanded the room already, now he was issuing orders.
The response came through gritted teeth. "I'll have to check---"
“You don’t have to check shit, my friend.” Nash gave him a lethal smile, a wall of kinetic threat. “You’ll get that access for us before we reach the door. Right?” Nash clapped him on the shoulder and Rory flinched from Nash’s grip.
Rory went still, something just below his veneer radiating something malevolent. "Of course. Let me show you to the annex."
“Not necessary,” Nash said, not waiting for permission. He moved like he owned the floor, and Grace followed because, God help her, she trusted him to clear the way. “Room number?”
Rory looked like he wasn’t going to answer for a moment until Nashlookedat him. The air dropped another ten degrees. “Two floors up, Room 405.”
As they moved, Nash fell into step beside her. He didn’t say anything until they were alone in the elevator, steel walls reflecting the flicker of overhead fluorescents.
“They think they can fuck us over and keep us in sandbox mode?”
Grace kept her eyes forward. The man was irritated, not used to being challenged. Sandbox mode was code for blocking their access. "Doing CQC all on your own?" SEALs were experts at Close Quarters Combat. After watching Nash work a room like it owed him something, she saw why. Operators were trained to overwhelm threats without ever drawing a weapon. Could the man be anysexier?
“I ain’t alone,hebbiti. I’ve got my own direct-action partner who’s too savvy to get caught in the crossfire,” he growled. She could feel the shift beside her. Theclickof something coiled that was relaxing just enough to let her in.
Not trust. Not yet.