Page 15 of Avenging Jessie (Black Swan Division Thrillers #3)

Fifteen

Jessie

Jessie’s fingers curled into her palms until her nails bit flesh.

Zip-tied and in the trunk?

He’d said it without blinking, voice cold enough to frost the windows. Not in jest, not as some flirty jab—he’d meant it. She’d seen the steel in his eyes, heard it in his voice.

The kiss was far away now. The connection they’d shared had snapped.

Her pride flared, hot and ugly, and underneath it came something heavier. Something she didn’t want to name. A burr inside her chest, pricking and ripping at her heart. She tried to laugh, to brush it off, but the sound died in her throat.

He thought she was a liability. Maybe he’s right.

Because as much as she wanted to tell herself she was still the same operative who’d bled and fought and survived alongside the rest of the swans, she wasn’t.

She couldn’t go back to being that agent ever again.

Not after Mosai Hagar’s death squad had dragged her across concrete floors.

Not after Brewer had leaned in close and told her in detail precisely what he would do to Tommy if she didn’t do what he wanted.

Not after she’d swallowed every ounce of fear she’d had and played the traitor to protect her brother.

That kind of betrayal—being used as a weapon against the people you’d die to protect—it didn’t simply scrape at the surface of who you thought you were. It gutted you and left your morals and ethics on the ground to be stomped on.

And now?

She couldn’t take orders without questioning the motive behind them. Couldn’t follow a leader without calculating the odds of them stabbing her in the back. Couldn’t be the swan she’d once been.

Maybe Spence saw that. Maybe since she’d returned, he’d always seen it.

Her pulse thumped hard. She gripped the door handle, not to get out, but to keep from doing something stupid—like slapping him just to make the hurt stop.

She turned to him, the glow from his laptop cutting sharp lines across his face. As always, he was calm and controlled. Already running ten mental scenarios while she was still chewing on the fact that he’d threatened to restrain her.

“Your way,” she said, the words tasting like ashes on her tongue, “is to sit in the car and play with satellites while the bastards we’re hunting waltz out with the keys to the apocalypse.”

His hands stayed loose on the laptop, but his gaze was direct when it slid to hers. “My way is to keep us alive long enough to stop them. You want to rush in blind, go ahead—but you’ll do it without me, and without the cover you’ll need to get out.”

That was the thing about Spence—he didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t have to. Every syllable smacked into her like a suppressed round.

She should’ve backed down. Should’ve played along until she could talk him into moving. That was the smart move.

Instead, her jaw locked. “I’ve been in tighter spots with less intel and walked out just fine.”

“Not with Brewer on the other side of the door,” he said. “He knows you. Knows your instincts. He and Hastings are counting on you to be predictable.”

Dammit. She hated that he was right. Hated it so much she wanted to break something.

She also wanted to prove him wrong. Needed to prove him wrong.

How?

She leaned back in her seat, staring at the shadowed outline of the data center.

Hastings inside. Was Brewer’s code already worming its way into whatever servers they had hidden in there, or was it spidering out to locations all over the world?

Every minute they waited was a minute he could be rewriting the rules of the game.

Spence wanted plans. Backup. Contingencies.

But what she saw—what she felt—was the narrowing window.

Brewer had already taken so much. Betraying his country and Tessa. Hurting her and threatening Tommy. Abusing and manipulating Jessie in order to turn her into a traitor…

More of his actions ticked off in her head: six months of the swans chasing him, along with multiple other agencies. Flynn, now missing. A summit in Berlin on the horizon, with a target painted on it the size of the Brandenburg Gate.

And if he succeeded—if those drones launched—it wouldn’t matter how many contingencies they’d drawn up. In her mind, she saw a drone dropping a deadly virus on a crowd, a city skyline going dark, military installations being destroyed.

The fallout wouldn’t be limited to Berlin or Munich. It would ripple through every city, every nation, every place she’d ever sworn to protect. Affect every person, from Tommy, whom she’d die to save, to the millions of people she’d never even met.

It wasn’t impatience driving her. It was necessity. She had to act before the moment passed, before this chance was gone forever, altering her whole world. Didn’t Spence understand that?

Brewer was a ghost. Hastings, too. If they were in range, she had to take the shot. It might be the only one she ever got.

Her logical self—what was left of it—stepped in and handed her the justification on a silver platter. If she could get inside, even for a few minutes, she might get proof. Enough for Flynn. Enough to stop the summit. Enough to end this and nail Brewer to the wall.

And if Spence hated her for going off-script, she could live with that. Would live with it. He and the team could hate her all over again.

Her heart pinched. She shoved the hurt into the deep hole she’d dug for such things. There was no emotion that should stop her from doing the right thing.

Because the alternative was living with the deaths of millions of innocents on her conscience. Living with Tommy’s, Tessa’s, Meg and Dec’s, and yes, even Spencer’s.

No way in hell.

She would die to defend her country. To save Tommy and the others. All of the.

Die to protect Spence from ever going through what she had at the hands of manipulative bastards like Hastings and Brewer.

Because if they caught Spence, they’d force him to do unspeakable things. She knew firsthand just how they’d exploit his skills, use his weaknesses against him.

Spence turned the laptop and shifted toward her to show her the screen. “All right. Let’s talk breach.”

Jessie blinked, not expecting him to flip the switch so fast. “Breach?”

“It’s just the two of us.” He flicked his gaze to her before returning to the screen. “And yes, we’re going in.”

Her heart rate spiked at the fact that he was willing to take action, but she kept herself from getting too excited. She heard a ‘but’ coming in his tone.

“But we do it right.” Yep, there it is. He pointed at the data center’s internal layout, a blueprint, complete with ventilation runs, stairwells, and service corridors. “I hacked into the county building permits database. These are the schematics for the last structural upgrade they did.”

She leaned in to scrutinize it. He smelled faintly of coffee and rain. And Spence. That tantalizing scent that was all his. It was steadiness mixed with adventure.

He slid the cursor to a spot on the west side of the building.

“Security is tight. Lots of cameras, but not that many human guards. There’s a service entrance here, with only two of them—one at the door, one on roving patrol.

This hallway is our entry corridor. We avoid the main lobby—there’s no employee on duty at this time of night, but there’s a guard plus full camera coverage. ”

The cursor slid again, this time to an area that showed a narrow hallway cutting deep into the above-ground structure.

There was a whole floor underground, too.

“Hastings will most likely be somewhere in this block. That’s where the offices are.

If he’s not there, he’s below deck.” He pointed to the underground level.

“Here we have multiple hub partitions—he could be in any of them.”

Every tidbit went into her mental copy of the blueprint, along with other things that might help her own plan if and when she had a chance to execute it. “Do we split up, then? I take the offices and you take the hub?”

“We do what we each do best. Once we’re inside, I take control of the security cameras to keep them off you while you hunt for the proof we need.

Photos. Audio, if possible. You know the drill.

Once we have our proof, we extract here.

” He pointed to a loading bay on the opposite side of the building.

“We slip out into the side street and use the tree line for cover. Ten minutes inside, max. No cowboy shit.”

His eyes held hers when he said it, and for once, she didn’t argue. She even nodded. It was a good plan. A safe one. Relatively safe. Things could go wrong. Probably would. If they did, she and Spence would have to improvise. “Sounds solid. What’s our contingency if we get caught?”

“I create a distraction by setting off the fire alarms and coolant systems. If I can hack into their security system, I can also manipulate which areas get locked down, trapping the guards in certain locations. Resorting to violence is our last resort, but we go in locked and loaded in case these other options fail.”

Damn. He was good at this job. She’d always known it, but it kept hitting her smack in the face. This plan was solid and could definitely work, but…

What if it didn’t? What if they both ended up trapped inside with Hastings? What if they were both killed?

The best option was for one to go in and the other to stay out here. “While this plan is solid and strategic, I have a suggestion.”

He quirked a brow. “Of course you do.”

“Hey, you’re the one who keeps insisting we’re partners. Do you want to hear it or not?”

He sat back and sighed. Motioned in a circle with his finger. “We are partners, and I welcome your input. Go ahead.”

“Since there are only two of us, and our backup is still several hours away, you and I have to be a complete team. If the other swans were here, you’d stay put and keep an eye on things via your computer. The rest of us would complete the breach, and if things went belly up, you’d be our rescue.”

He went still. “You want to go in alone.”

She nodded, hoping against hope he would see the logic in it.

She was making a valid point, even if the real reason was to initiate her own plan.

“If I get caught, you’re safe out here, and you can get me out.

It makes more sense because we both know what the odds are of getting in and getting out unseen.

If you put a cam on me, and I can get any sort of proof, though, before I get caught, you’ll be able to share it with the world. ”

His jaw ticked. He stared at the screen.

For half a second, she thought he was actually considering it.

“You and Hastings have too much history together. Plus, he might be screwing Brewer, and this is part of his plan. Or it could be a trap because he’s realized you were at the gala tailing him.

Too many variables. I can’t in good conscience send you alone.

Yes, I can manipulate a lot from out here.

Still, with their security system, I need to get inside and plug into it to take control of cameras and allow you to move around without it setting off alarms and alerting the guards. ”

Damn. That put a crimp in her plan.

Still…

She’d faced worse odds before when breaking into a building, and she wasn’t without her own hacking skills, even though they paled in comparison to his.

She pulled out her phone and called up Tessa’s encrypted number.

Spence’s gaze sharpened, but she typed and let him see the screen. Possible breach. Outskirts of Gorlitz, Data Center North. Meet us there as soon as you can. She slid the phone back into her pocket. “Okay, that’s done. Now, give me two minutes. I need to pee before we go play Ocean’s Two.”

He rolled his eyes and looked back at his computer. “Fine. I’ll load a USB with a virus so we can play dirty and take the servers offline.”

Again, he was so damn smart. She wouldn’t have thought of that. Was she being an idiot to betray him?

The thought made her hesitate. He would never forgive her for what she was about to do.

The thought of those drones, though. Of Hastings and Brewer wrecking the world. Of innocent people being hurt or killed.

She checked her weapon. “Pop the trunk so I can grab another clip.”

His eyes swung to her, and he hesitated. Her pulse skipped. Was he reading her mind? Did he suspect what she was about to do?

But then he just gave a curt nod and hit the lever, releasing the trunk lid, before he returned to his typing.

She flung open the door before she lost her courage or let Spence’s well-thought-out plan change her mind.

Her boots hit wet gravel. While in the trunk’s supplies of weapons, she did grab an extra clip for her handgun, along with the collapsible rifle, and a few clips for it, as well.

Stashing it under her long coat, she closed the trunk and raced for the nearby trees.

The night air was suffocating, thick with humidity and the lingering rain. The line of conifers and pines was dense and dark, a perfect cover. If she cut the angle right, she could be inside before Spence even realized she’d gone off-script.

Because Spence’s plan might be solid.

But hers?

Her plan was already air-tight.