Page 14 of Avenging Jessie (Black Swan Division Thrillers #3)

Fourteen

Spence

Spence eased the car off the shoulder, gravel crunching beneath the tires. There had been taillights—two red dots bouncing ahead of them—and then there was nothing.

No turnoff. No brake lights. No sign of the road ending.

Gone. Like vapor. The GPS signal with them.

He let the engine idle. The forest around them was thick, pressing in on all sides, limbs clawing toward the car like skeletal arms in silhouette. His fingers clenched the steering wheel as his brain ran through possibilities.

Jessie leaned forward, scanning the shadowed road ahead. “Where the hell did they go?”

Spence reached for the onboard sensor array and toggled thermal imaging. Nothing but the residual heat from the road. No tire tracks. No heat signature. No vehicle hiding behind the trees.

Ghosted.

Jessie broke the silence. “This doesn’t feel right.”

Spence grunted. “It’s a smart move, but I’ve seen better.”

Her tone sharpened. “No, I mean this feels like a setup.”

He stopped fiddling with the equipment. “You think Hastings knows we were watching?”

She didn’t answer.

“You know him,” Spence pressed. “Better than almost anyone. Could he have spotted our stakeout and led us here to pull us in?”

Jessie sat back in the seat, eyes still on the road like she was watching her own thoughts.

“It’s exactly the kind of misdirection Brewer pulled with my faked death, and when he wanted to get to Tessa.

Throw up a flare in one direction, strike somewhere else.

He must know all about me and Hastings. What if he’s been using him to distract me? ”

What he’d feared since the moment the truck disappeared. This was a psychological op. Brewer was gaming them. Yet, it didn’t feel like a trap. Only, like she said, a distraction.

Spence exhaled slowly, reworking his strategy. “Then we don’t get to make any more mistakes.”

Jessie was quiet for a long moment. “You’re right that we need to slow down and work this through. Maybe we should have stayed at the warehouse.” She dug out her phone. “I’ll call Langley and notify… Well, someone. We need to warn them about the impending attack.”

He touched her hand, stopping her. “We don’t know who to trust now, and we don’t want to hand them an invite to the party just yet. If they act and scare off Brewer or Hastings, we lose them both.”

“What about contacting someone in charge of the summit? They can call it off.”

His hand was still on hers. He didn’t move it.

“We don’t have any proof, only hearsay. They might not believe it, especially if word has already spread about Flynn’s disappearance.

We’re part of a group that most of the world knows nothing about.

Our word means zilch right now. But call Tessa.

Tell her what we know and what we think.

She has contacts in high places who can reach out to those attending the summit and give them a heads-up.

What they decide to do with the info is up to them. ”

She grasped his hand, squeezing it. “You’re good at this.”

The compliment shot right to his gut. He returned the squeeze. “So are you, Agent Mendoza. I’m glad you’re my partner.”

They locked eyes. In the dim light, he saw her smile. Not a cocky smile, or a confident one. This was one he’d never seen before—a shy smile. She chuckled. It was breathy and sexy as hell. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”

“For the record, I’ve never said that to anyone.”

A pregnant silence fell. Her eyes dropped to his lips again. She leaned forward. “Well, I’m glad you’re my partner, too, Spence.”

Like a magnet drawn to steel, he found himself moving toward her. His wildest fantasy—not about being on an op with her, but the one about kissing her—flashed through his mind. The moment was here. Right now.

But they were partners on a mission. He was technically her boss. And they were deep in the shit of an op that was likely to blow up in their faces if he didn’t stop mooning over her and get his head on straight.

As if she sensed the myriad of reasons rolling on his internal screen like code, she did the one thing he didn’t expect—she reached up with her other hand, grabbed him by the back of the head, and pulled him toward her.

The distance closed so quickly, he didn’t have time to blink. One second, he was lost in her eyes, the next, her lips were on his.

They were soft—even warmer than he’d imagined. She tasted like heat and defiance, and the last sliver of sanity he hadn’t already lost to her went out the proverbial window.

He didn’t move at first. Didn’t breathe. He was still computing, somewhere between logic and electricity, every nerve misfiring in disbelief. Then his hands slid into motion—one cupping her jaw, the other bracing against the console between them as he deepened the kiss with a low, hungry groan.

God, this wasn’t supposed to happen. Not now. Not here. Not…

The second her fingers fisted in the front of his shirt, he was gone. This wasn’t fantasy anymore. It was real. Too real.

Everything he’d wanted for so damn long.

He kissed her like he’d been dying of thirst and she was the only clean water left on Earth. Like he didn’t care what Brewer was planning or what awaited them down that road. There was only this. Her. Now.

Then—outside the car, a sudden screech.

Sharp and close, the sound cut through the moment like a blade. Both of them jolted.

Jessie pulled back, eyes wide. “What the hell was that?”

It took a moment for his brain to catch up. He knew that sound. “Screech owl,” he said, breath ragged. “Nature’s middle finger.”

She blinked. Her hand was still on his chest. He was still at her jaw. Neither moved.

Then, as if the enormity of the situation hit them at once—the mission, the road, the missing truck—they both chuckled. An embarrassed, what the hell did we just do laugh.

Each turned away fast, staring out their respective windows like guilty teenagers caught making out in their parents’ car. Spence scrubbed a hand over his face and blew out a shaky breath. “We’ve got to refocus.”

“Yeah,” Jessie said a tad too quickly.

He shifted in his seat and gestured between them. “Switch with me.”

“What?”

“I need to get eyes on the map, start running local scans. Time to see what’s in this area, big enough to hide a panel truck. You drive.”

She blinked. “You’re trusting me with the wheel?”

“I just trusted you with my mouth. Don’t make me rethink it.”

She snorted and unbuckled, and they exited the car, the cool night air welcome on his overheated skin. As she passed him at the front of the vehicle, she brushed his hand, that shy smile playing on her face again.

As she settled into the driver’s seat, Spence adjusted the passenger seat to fit his longer legs before he popped open the laptop, jaw still tight, mind split between the search for Brewer’s next move and the lingering burn of her kiss.

Damn. If not for that screech owl’s poor timing, he might still be lost in it.

Spence stared at the lines of code blinking across his screen, but his mind wasn’t on the information. Not really. His fingers moved with muscle memory as he pinged surveillance grids and checked maps for local hiding places, but underneath it all, a storm brewed—dark, unrelenting.

The drones in that truck had been built with his AI blueprint. He’d built the architecture. He knew precisely how adaptable, how lethal it could be in the wrong hands. How had Harris Brewer gotten hold of it?

If this turned into an attack—if cities burned or people died—that blood would trail back to him. Not Langley. Not Black Swan.

Me.

He shoved the thought away. Images of Victoria flickered unbidden—five years old, clutching a ratty stuffed rabbit. Big eyes. Braver than she should’ve been. She was still out there. Somewhere. At least, that’s what he told himself. That she was alive and well. If she ended up hurt because of this…

And dammit, he couldn’t shake the gut-deep fear that he was failing Jessie at the same time—letting her walk into danger, thinking he could protect her.

“Where am I going?” she asked.

He snapped out of his spiraling thoughts. “Double back. Let me see if I can use the thermal to pick up any heat signatures.”

A vehicle whizzed past.

“Wait,” Jessie said, sitting up straighter. “That’s the same SUV Hastings was driving.”

Spence lifted his head and tried to catch sight of it, but the vehicle was moving too fast, headlights off, blending into the night like a phantom. What he did confirm? No license plate.

The tires bit into the road as Jessie whipped the car around and hit the gas. “It’s him.”

His body snapped back in the seat. “What are you doing?”

She gripped the wheel and leaned forward, squinting. “He’ll lead us to the truck. Or Brewer.”

“Jessie—” Spence shot her a glance. “You need to slow down. He could be leading us into a trap.”

She kept her eyes locked ahead. “Then let him. I’m done wasting time.”

His mouth opened to argue, but then he realized she wasn’t a loose cannon. Not something he should—or could—rein in.

She was a guided missile.

And she might be the only one who could hit the target.

Securing his seatbelt, he turned back to his laptop and started tracking their course.

They followed the SUV for nearly twenty minutes, weaving out of the trees and into the fringes of the city. The roads widened. Streetlights flickered through the mist. Industrial buildings loomed—cold, silent monoliths in steel and concrete.

The SUV didn’t speed or swerve. No evasive maneuvers. Hastings wasn’t in a hurry, but he did seem to be on a schedule.

Maybe this wasn’t a trap. Or perhaps Hastings was laughing all the way there, knowing he was drawing them deeper into it.

The SUV drove into a guarded site with a high chain-link fence topped with coils of razor wire. Beyond it stood a sleek, glass-and-metal structure that looked like it belonged in Silicon Valley, not the outskirts of Gorlitz.

The name gleamed in silver against matte black glass. Datenzentrum Nord. Datacenter North.

Spence’s eyes narrowed. “This is a private data facility. Top-tier. No government contracts, no outside access, full-scale biometric security. I didn’t even know they had a node here.”

Jessie parked in the shadows of a loading bay across the street. “What would Brewer want with a data vault?”

Spence’s brain started spinning through possibilities. “If he’s transferring the prototype, this is where he’d do it. Air-gapped systems. He could upload it to a cold server, then distribute it across a dozen dark net nodes.”

“Or launch it from here?”

Spence nodded. “A logic bomb. A virus. Something designed to activate on a timer.”

He scanned the building again, looking for the panel truck—but it wasn’t there. Not parked. Not in the loading zone. “What if Hastings is freelancing?”

Jessie turned toward him, understanding dawning. “It would follow his MO—going out on his own and blackmailing his employer. You think he’s double-crossing Brewer.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time he’s burned someone, right?

If this facility wasn’t part of Brewer’s plan, and Hastings is making a play, he could be selling the tech behind Brewer’s back.

This might be his headquarters. Or he may be hedging his bets, holding back evidence to blackmail Brewer or turn against him if needed down the road.

Every law enforcement agency in the world wants Brewer in prison.

If Hastings gets in a bind, flipping on Brewer could give him a Get Out of Jail Free card. ”

Spence reached for the laptop again, fingers flying. But the signal here was tight. Firewalled. He couldn’t breach it from the car—not without drawing attention.

Jessie leaned forward. “So we sit and wait?”

Spence frowned.

“No,” she said before he could respond. Her jaw set. “We go in.”

He gaped at her. “We most certainly will not.”

“We need to know what they’re doing in there. Before sunrise. Before Berlin.”

Spence stared through the windshield, tension coiling like wire in his gut. “The first thing you’re going to do is call Tessa like we discussed.”

“And what are you going to do? Play with your tech for the next hour because you’re afraid to act like a field agent and actually shut this down now?”

The barb dug deep. He’d thought they’d made progress, but here they were again. She was ready to charge into a situation without knowing what that situation even was.

“I’m going to do what a good leader does—come up with a plan to breach the databank.

” He handed her her burner phone, smacking it into her palm when she accepted it.

“And you’re either going to cooperate and do this my way, or you’re going to end up zip-tied and in the trunk.

I’ll breach alone. Your call, Agent Medoza. ”