Page 6 of Avenging Jessie (Black Swan Division Thrillers #3)

Six

Spence

The apartment was above a bakery that hadn’t seen a health inspection since the Cold War. The scent of yeast and cinnamon clung to the furniture, but Spence barely registered it.

The safehouse apartment was sparse, featuring a sloped ceiling, a threadbare rug, and a kitchenette the size of a postage stamp—but secure. It was close quarters and did nothing for his restlessness, but it would hold, for now.

Spence kicked the door shut behind them and engaged the deadbolt.

Three more locks followed, all of which were old-school.

Manual. No digital footprint. The place was a dead zone—no Wi-Fi, no Bluetooth, no easy signals to trace.

Just the way he wanted it. He could link to a secure Agency-approved satellite for what he needed, and no one could pick up on his extracurricular activities.

Jessie sank onto the worn striped couch without a word. Her eyes were glassy. That slap at the gala must have been brutal. Her ankle was swollen. She did her best to hide her limp, but he’d noticed it. He noticed everything about her.

They’d stopped at the hotel only long enough to change and grab their things. He set down his go-bag and crossed the room, kneeling in front of her. “Let me check you over.”

“I’m fine.” Her voice lacked conviction.

“You’re limping, your face is bruised, and you haven’t blinked in forty seconds. You’re not fine.”

She pushed against his shoulders and stood. “Spence—”

He didn’t budge. “Sit down, shut your gob, and let me help, luv.”

Something flickered in her eyes. She bit her tongue, but didn’t move. “Gob?”

“Mouth.”

“I know what it means. Just surprised you’d be so impolite when I’m injured.”

He chuckled. “If you want impolite, I can use my street vernacular, which consists of plenty of curses and vulgarities, and you just said you were fine.”

She winced. “You got me, okay? I’m not fine, but I will be. I don’t need a nursemaid.”

He angled her chin toward the light and examined her pupils. One was slightly more dilated. Just as he suspected, she had a mild concussion. “So I’m only good for wig detail and finding a safehouse?”

A one-shouldered shrug. “You have various uses.”

In the bathroom, he rummaged through the cabinets and found a few first aid supplies. When he returned, she was still standing. Swaying, of course, but staying on her feet just for spite. So damned stubborn.

“Sit.” He dropped the first aid stuff on the coffee table and pointed at the couch cushion. “I’m not asking. Do it, or I’ll put you on your ass.”

Jessie gave him the kind of look that had once made grown men rethink their careers. He didn’t flinch. “Foot up.”

With exaggerated exasperation, she muttered, “Fine,” and herself with rigid control. As she lifted her leg, he sat on the coffee table and took it, bringing it to his lap.

He peeled off her shoe gently, his hands steady, but his pulse was going haywire. Her foot was bare inside the blue sneaker, her skin bruised and motled on the outside of the ankle. Her calf flexed under his touch, and she hissed.

“Breathe,” he said, not sure if it was for her or him.

He pressed his thumb lightly along her ankle bone, gauging the damage. Jessie’s mouth twitched. Another hiss escaped her sexy lips.

“Hurts?” he asked.

“No, feels great, Spence. Please do it again.”

When he cocked a brow at her, she relented. “Only when you touch it like that.” She’d still gone for derision, but her voice betrayed her, coming out too soft, almost erotic, to pull it off.

His gaze dropped to her lips. She cleared her throat. He dragged his attention from them, and their eyes locked. The moment suspended—quiet but volatile.

He didn’t say a word. But he knew she felt it, too.

His own voice came out like his vocal cords had done a two-step with sandpaper.

“Soft tissue injury. A strain.” He wrapped a support bandage around it, not rushing, his fingers brushing against her skin with more care than he’d allow himself to admit.

When he secured it, she left it in his lap.

His cock was hard, and her eyes lingered on the bulge just inches from it under his zipper.

“That kiss at the gala,” she said suddenly, eyes refocusing on his hands where he still held onto her foot. “Don’t read into it.”

Damn. Of course, she’d tackle the elephant in the room right now. And of course, it would be to shut down any possible feelings he had for her.

His jaw tightened with words he wouldn’t allow himself to say. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

She flinched, and he hated himself for saying it like that, but screw it. He had feelings for her. She knew it. He wasn’t going to pretend otherwise.

He checked her over once more, then grabbed a cold pack from the freezer, adjusting his pants as he went. Returning, he handed it to her. “Put this on it. Keep your foot elevated. You need rest.”

“What I need is to know who those men are, and what the hell they’re building.”

“That’s my job. I’ll figure it out.”

Another flinch. He set his jaw and didn’t let it get to him. She wanted him to be impersonal and stay on task? It was a load of tosh, but fine.

In the small, cramped corner filled with bookshelves and smelling of must, he powered up his laptop. It took ten minutes to establish a secure connection to a satellite, then he routed the data through ghost servers and encrypted lines.

While he waited for facial recognition to process the photos from the gala, he toyed with the vintage Queen Victoria shilling he carried with him.

The silver edges had gone smooth from years of rubbing—habit, ritual, a tether.

It was the only thing he’d kept from his mother after she shoved him out the front door at age eight with a busted lip and no coat.

She’d handed him the coin like it meant something.

Maybe it had. Maybe it was her version of goodbye. All he knew was, he’d carried it every day, his whole life. It wasn’t worth much, just like him. But it was all he had of that previous life before Ian Bastion, the mucker, had taken him off the London streets and become his mentor.

Another life. Another false identity. Another fucking trainwreck.

Spence rubbed a hand over his face and set down the coin, staring at it. Not tonight. He wasn’t going down the rabbit hole now.

He picked up the shilling again, rubbing a thumb over the queen’s face. Victoria was his sister’s name, and Spence had carried the damn coin into every part of his life. Every mission.

For Vicky. For him. For a life they’d never gotten to share.

A superstition? Sure. But also a promise. He still didn’t know what had become of her after his mother’s ex took Vicky away. And until he found her—until he fixed what had been broken—he wasn’t losing this coin. Not ever.

His computer pinged, and there it was—the identity of the man who’d attacked Jessie. Darian Voss.

He dropped the name into a database, knowing it would trigger things on Langley’s end. He’d been expecting a call from Flynn anyway. At least now, he might have something to tell him.

Minutes ticked by before the file revealed a plethora of intel. Voss wasn’t just a muscle-bound brute—he was a former DARPA contractor with clearance higher than God and a specialty in AI-driven weapons systems.

Spence’s gaze snagged on one section. Voss had been declared officially dead six months ago.

“Of course he’s not dead,” he muttered, clicking into another file. “No one ever stays dead anymore.”

He froze for a second, listening to the sounds behind him. All he needed was for Jessie to have heard that off-the-cuff remark and get all up in his face about it.

But she didn’t say anything. When he glanced over at the couch, he saw her stretched out on it, her arms hugging a pillow and her eyes at half-mast.

He let out a slow breath and went back to his digging.

Transaction logs linked Voss and Hastings to a front company headquartered near Gorlitz—the exact location flagged by the CIA drop. The same compound that Voss and his friend had discussed at the gala—autonomous drones, facial recognition, and AI targeting protocols.

The pieces snapped together like a loaded weapon.

“J.” He carried the laptop over to her, interrupting her half-dozing state. “I’ve got confirmation. The man who came after you is Darian Voss. He’s helping Brewer weaponize the drones.”

She sat up, blinking. Slowly, she shoved the pillow away and reached for the laptop. “At the Gorlitz facility?”

He set the laptop in her hands to let her read the files.“Everything points to it. From what’s in his dossier, I’d say it’s a good bet that if Voss is involved, we’re not talking about theoretical tech. Hastings and Brewer are planning for deployment on a massive scale.”

Her jaw tightened as she scanned the files. Every few seconds, she blinked rapidly as if trying to bring the words into focus. “Then we go. Tonight.”

“No,” he said, sharply. “Not tonight. Not without more intel. That compound will be a fortress, and you’re not going in there with a concussion and a rolled ankle.”

Her eyes flared. “I’m not broken.”

Broken. Her voice cracked on the word.

Why was everything a fight with her? He modulated his tone. “I didn’t say you were, but I’m not letting you get killed because you’re pissed off and rushing to get payback. Think it through. The payoff will be better.”

She stood, grimaced, and quickly sat back down. “So what, we wait around? Bake some croissants while they ship out kill bots?”

Spence took back his laptop. “We do what we do best—recon. We pull surveillance from the area. We speak to our contacts here in Munich—Flynn and Del can obtain satellite passes, power grid layouts, and possibly even a roster of personnel at the site. We notify our team and create a plan. And then, we assume we’ll need contingency plans, so we create a few of those, too. ”

“That will take days.”

“Yes, and it assures we get Brewer and all of his assets. You’ve waited this long; you can wait a few more days.

Our mission needs to be airtight. We can’t let Brewer slip through our fingers this time.

” He looked at her and tried to see past the mask, past the fight.

Tried to see the woman who’d nearly collapsed in his arms not two hours ago. “Do you trust me?”

She didn’t break eye contact for once, but her pause made him squirm. Finally, when he thought she was going to eviscerate him, she sighed. “With my life.”

He took a breath, then had her steal it.

“Just never with my heart.”

The words landed like a sucker punch. He almost reeled backward. He wanted to slam his laptop down. To ask her what the hell she wanted from him.

Instead, he remained as impassive as the wall behind her. She could push him away all she wanted. He hadn’t gotten this far in life by letting people trigger him. Even if she never gave him what he wanted—that very heart she didn’t trust him with—he’d take what they had right now.

She watched him carefully. Trying to read his mind?

When she couldn’t see past his aloof expression, she mirrored it.

“Three days. That’s it. You have seventy-two hours and then, regardless of what Flynn says, with or without your help, I’m going to burn that place to the ground and rid the world of Harris Brewer. ”

Spence kept all emotion off his face. “Okay. Three days. It’s a deal.”

Her brows hiked up and her eyes widened. She hadn’t expected him to agree with her.

He sat beside her, not too close, but close enough she could see his screen. He thought she might move, at least an inch or so, just because she was stubborn like that. She didn’t, surprising him in turn.

The smell of bread and burnt coffee drifted up from below. Something about it reminded him of home. His mother. His sister.

He touched the coin in his pocket.

Outside, the sky over Munich was black and bottomless.

And somewhere east of them, in a fortified facility full of secrets and steel, Brewer was building a war.