Page 2 of Avenging Jessie (Black Swan Division Thrillers #3)

Two

Spence

Spencer Stirling stared at the screen, trying to forget the look on Jessie’s face when Flynn had forced her to work with him as a condition to returning to the field.

She was brilliant, ruthless—and a liability. No one wanted her back in the field. No one wanted to work with her.

She’d been branded a traitor. Nothing official—the charges were dropped once Brewer’s blackmail came to light—but the stain lingered.

The fact that she could be forced to aid a terrorist was enough to make her untouchable.

Most of Langley wouldn’t work with her. No one wanted her on their op.

Hell, most wouldn’t even look at her. It had taken every Swan and Flynn himself going to bat for her just to get her clearance reinstated and land her a desk back in the building.

He hated himself for doubting her before the truth had come out.

But the moment he learned she’d done it to protect her brother Tommy?

That was when the bottom dropped out. He knew exactly what that felt like to choose blood over everything else, no matter the cost. She hadn’t just survived Brewer. She’d sacrificed herself for family.

And God help him, that only made him fall even harder for her.

Lines of code streamed down like rain—encrypted chatter, corrupted logs, a digital breadcrumb trail buried under layers of false IPs and firewalls. In the mirrored glass of Langley’s walls, he caught his own reflection—tired, wired, and already regretting not stopping Jessie before she stormed off.

Jessie…beautiful, dangerous, unpredictable Jessie. A storm front he’d learned not to stand in the way of.

Flynn had done the right thing. Working alone might have sent her into a spiral. A dark hole of revenge that she might never come out of.

He’d had more intel to share with her and Flynn before she stormed out of the director’s office. He’d shared it with Flynn, who’d then been summoned by Deputy Director Michael Stone into a meeting. The situation was escalating fast.

Flynn’s assistant was working on their flights. Spence was waiting for her to give the go-ahead that they were ready.

With a tight exhale, he pushed away from his desk and headed down the corridor, weaving past early-shift analysts and operatives.

Jessie’s cubicle was a closet-sized corner of the counterintelligence floor, wedged between a storage room and the stairwell.

She liked it that way—isolated, out of the flow, forgettable.

Even after six months, she wasn’t ready to be seen again.

But he saw her. In ways she hated.

He paused, peering over the blue freestanding partition panel, his height making it easy for him to see over the top.

The flickering overhead light gave her a spectral edge.

She was already packing gear, stuffing her laptop and zip ties, along with a handheld scanner, into a weathered bag.

Her back was rigid, her movements precise.

Another of her coping mechanisms, he’d learned. The armor she always wore.

“You’re wasting your time,” she said, not looking up. She had an uncanny sense when he was near. “I don’t need backup. Why don’t you stay here with Meg and Declan? They need you more than I do. Be useful where you’re comfortable, Spence.”

A jab and twist of the knife. “Yeah, well, I’m not backup.” He filled the threshold, crossing his arms. He was damn tired of having to justify his presence on the team with her. “I’m mission-critical.”

Jessie zipped her duffel with unnecessary force and snorted. “We need to confront Brewer face-to-face, which means physical access to him. You can’t gain that playing Minesweeper from a van.”

Spence’s jaw ticked. He stepped fully into the cubicle, tamping down his irritation.

“You think that breach at the Pentagon happened because someone guessed the admin password? I’ve been tracking that signature for weeks, all over Europe and our embassies.

The AIs he’s after have ties to ones I designed three years ago and never should have left the lab. ”

She finally looked at him. Her gaze wasn’t dismissive. It was defensive. Like she’d been backed into a corner and didn’t want him to see the bruises.

Or her scars.

He hated that look.

“Let me guess,” she said, grabbing a pen light that was much more than a pen light. “You want to come along to prove you’re not just a desk guy.”

Was she deliberately pushing him away, or was she simply testing him?

“You know I’m not just a desk guy. I’ve been in the field more than you have.

I’m going because I built the thing Harris is after.

” Spence stepped closer, voice low. “If he gets access to that AI, we’re not talking EMP attacks.

We’re talking autonomous sabotage. The kind of system that can learn how to tear apart infrastructure in real-time.

Power grids. Stock markets. Defense satellites.

It could literally take down our government in the blink of an eye. ”

Jessie flinched and hesitated, her fingers stalling over a flash drive.

Spence pressed on. “The Pentagon breach is a test. He’s probing vulnerabilities—figuring out how far he can go without setting off every alarm from here to NORAD. The moment he integrates it, we’re blind and bleeding before we know we’re hit.”

Jessie’s brow furrowed. “Don’t be dramatic. Your AI was decommissioned.”

“That’s what they told me, but I know that design.”

She caught his drift. “Your ego is so big, you think your version is the only one he would go after.”

Low blow, but more defensive than cruel.

A retort was on the end of his tongue, but he held back.

He needed her to trust him. To want him as her partner on this mission.

“It was decommissioned, and I was told the software was destroyed.” A memory of the last time he’d seen the code in action and the failed mission that had resulted from it made him cringe inwardly.

Man, he’d created a lot of shit in his time, most of it he considered failures.

“This isn’t about my ego. I know that code.

Harris has a copy—and he’s feeding it government-grade security data. ”

She straightened, the weight of her duffel tugging at her shoulder, as she went all agent-mode. “You should’ve told Flynn.”

He tried to catch her eye to make sure she understood the stakes. “I did. And the fallout is already starting. That’s the real reason why Flynn is sending us together, J.”

Her lips parted, but she didn’t speak. His eyes rested on her near-perfect lips. The rest of her face was unreadable, but those lips... Yeah, he could read them like his own thoughts. “No one in their right mind wants to work with me.”

Ah, and there it was—the crux of the matter. “I do.”

Her eyes met his. Skirted away. “You’re a fool.”

His phone buzzed before he could argue. It was a text from Flynn’s assistant. Jessie’s phone buzzed right after his, probably with the same message. The flights were booked.

“Clock starts now,” Jessie muttered, tapping her smart watch to start a timer.

“Look,” he said. “I get it. You want to do this mission solo because you think this is your chance to make it right. I get that, but you don’t have to do this alone. We’re a team. Again. Like we were when Black Swan first started.”

She looked away. Not out of weakness, but because she never held his gaze for long. He wasn’t sure if it was because she knew he had a crush on her or because facing him was too raw. Too real. She couldn’t face her failures, and he reminded her of them.

And God, he hated being that reminder. What woman in her right mind would want him around if he caused her to remember the worst time of her life every damn time she looked at him?

“I work better alone,” she said.

“Maybe.” He shrugged. “But I don’t.”

Her chin snapped up. A strained silence stretched between them. He met her glare and the silence head-on. It continued to expand, taut, sharp, and threaded with the things they never said.

Finally, she brushed past him into the hallway. “I’ll meet you at the airport.”

Spence turned to follow. “We could—”

“No, we can’t, Stirling.”

With clenched fists and squared shoulders, she left him standing there. The sound of her boots faded down the corridor.

He stayed where he was, watching her go. He could hack firewalls and trace digital ghosts across five continents. But Jessie Mendoza? She was the one code he’d never cracked.

“But I will,” he promised himself. Spencer Stirling was no quitter. Not when he wanted something. And he wanted her. “I most certainly will.”