Page 18

Chapter

Eighteen

ALPHABET

“ H old,” I ordered, not bothering to check if they listened. After all this time, we’d long since mastered the art of working together. We didn’t have to be getting along to communicate in a shorthand as familiar as our own heartbeats. I tracked the motion of a security patrol.

As late as it was, and with as little sleep as I’d had over the past few days, I was still restless. I was also more than a little annoyed. My irritation wasn’t aimed at the guys—not even Bones with his attitude. Grace wasn’t the cause either. Stubborn, fierce, and defiant to the point of obstinate, she fascinated and amused me in equal measures. I only wished she’d trust us.

Really trust us.

No, I was pissed that the clients who hired and then sold us out on the Rojas job in the first place. They’d made a call, determined they were better off writing us off as a loss and chose sacrifice.

Fuckers .

One of the reasons we vetted clients so damn thoroughly was to avoid situations like this. Since vetting was my job, I blamed myself. I’d missed something.

Wouldn’t happen again.

The only faint light in the clusterfuck was the identity of the man in the barn proved him to be just a drifter. He had no ties to the Rojas. Bastard still hurt Grace, but he was not a loose thread and he’d already been cut off.

"Status?" Bones asked in a tone that was both commanding and patient. The request wasn’t an attack or a demand. I didn’t tell them to hold for shits and giggles.

"Standby, Captain." I stared at the screen, the patrol continued up the farthest hallway on an external perimeter on the far side of the building. The laboratory facility was “closed” for the night. Night staff consisted of a pair of janitors—already done for their shifts—and a light security force.

Everything on paper said it was a standard laboratory processing medical specimens. All the licenses were current and inspections up to date. It was clean and neat, formal, nothing to look at twice. Which was exactly why we were looking twice.

The Rojas were a syndicate, smaller than most other Mexican and South American cartels. They produced high end product, and definitely illegal. The difference was they didn’t distribute directly over the border. They stayed on their side of the line. That meant they had to have a distributor here .

“Security cleared. Continue. You should be good for the next five minutes. No lab staff on surveillance. Start timers now.” I've been monitoring security at this building for the past three nights, they never varied. But it didn't mean I was going to just trust three days of data.

I hit a button on the screen to start a timer going for me as well as the guys split up. Lunchbox headed straight for the primary lab. He would get in, get samples, and a solid look at what they were doing. He was also the best suited for that task. He would know what he was doing.

Bones headed to the computer room, long-term data storage and the terabytes of data kept there. Voodoo diverted to the upper levels and corporate offices maintained here. Bureaucracy took on all forms. Pharmaic’s Neurosin lab was all about research. That would totally explain the security. It might even offer some insight into the military-grade encryption.

Legitimate businesses didn’t generally hire mercenaries to eliminate drug labs in a different country to shore up the stock price. Their executives had been busy little boys. As soon as Bones made it inside the data room, he’d get my thumb drive into place. My worm would go to work and I’d have control of all of their systems.

A whisper of motion behind me had me flicking a glance to the window in the upper left of my screen. We didn’t monitor everything in the house, but we had cameras installed for a “rainy day.” Currently, it seemed to be pouring, particularly with only me and Gracie in residence.

No one knew our location. We’d buried the deeds and bought up the surrounding land via separate LLCs. It was as secure as we could manage and as distant from who we were as possible. Base needed to be a place we could relax.

Freshly showered, Grace studied me with quiet, intense eyes. The crisp freshness of her shampoo and soap touched my nostrils. Three smothered pops tugged my attention from her to the screen.

Ambush? I narrowed my eyes, but the captain studied the interior of a room not on the plans I acquired nor on the surveillance. “Secure, Cap?”

“Secure,” he answered. “Blind spot?”

“Looks like, I’ll dig deeper.” I didn’t like blind spots. “Sweeping ahead. Watch your sixes.” I also didn’t like leaving bodies behind but since we weren’t planning on leaving the building behind, I guess that would deal with that.

A grunt of acknowledgement came from Lunchbox and a snort of laughter from Voodoo. Yes, watching our own asses was also second nature.

Bones was already on the move. A glance back to the door showed Grace had gone. I spared a moment to twist and study Goblin. He snored away. Gracie hadn’t looked upset but if she had been, he’d have reacted.

Trusting him, I refocused on the screen. Once they were clear, I’d go find her. We should've told her the guys were taking this mission. Guilt raked across my belly as if threatening to eviscerate me. Getting used to having Gracie there also meant we were taking her for granted.

We needed to do less of that and more of looking after her. We already had one discussion about revisiting our protocols. He wasn’t wrong. That said, I didn't actually have the time to do it right this moment. “I will,” I murmured as much as promising Goblin as myself.

Bones finally made it to their data room. “Going dark,” he said as he swiped a card and accessed the room. The signal cut once he was inside. I started another clock. If necessary, I could divert Lunchbox or Voodoo toward him.

For now, we were on schedule. We’d been hired by a small conglomerate of wealthy business owners based in and out of the States. They’d tried to root their businesses in Central America or make it look like that was where the contract came from.

Digging deeper had taken me through a series of shell companies that eventually led back to business interests State side. They’d deliberately set out to mislead us to eliminate an “illegal” enterprise choking out their “legal” one. While that might be partially true, the companies entangled in this little cabal were not clean.

If anything, they had their hands in a lot of shady shit. I didn’t like to be used.

With three seconds to spare, Bones was out of the data room and on surveillance again. “Locked and loaded.”

The programs were already waiting for the signal and I started the download. Over the next few minutes, I’d have every drop of data they had stored there. The backups were also on site. Normally, when a client attempted to fuck us over, it was about money.

I could go and get the money and take care of paying out what was owed. This was different. These so-called captains of industry were playing war games on a global level. That was no bueno.

The soft drag of a foot pulled my attention again and there she was, holding two large mugs of?—

I sniffed. Hot chocolate?

Fuck me, that sounded amazing. I cut a look from her to the screen then back. Right, she was here. I tugged a second chair over and patted it once then pressed a finger to my lips. She passed me one of the huge mugs and it smelled even better being this close.

She curled up into the chair, pulling her legs up. The back of my free hand brushed against her legs. Despite the sleepy eyes and flushed cheeks, her skin was freezing.

“Secondary lab coming up,” Lunchbox said. “It looks like there’s an ancillary data room here too. I take it you are going to want what’s in here?”

“Yes, please,” I answered. “The first round of data mining is still going.” But that was a lot of data to pull out. We needed to streamline it. I pushed my chair to roll to the side where I could snag a blanket and then rolled back. “Let me work on this.”

“Got it.”

I draped the blanket over her legs and she blinked at me with those spectacular blue eyes. They were so much more intense than a bright sky over the bay. I had to make myself look away or risk missing more.

“Voodoo, back it up five paces. What was that?” On the screen Voodoo did exactly what I asked and he faced a wall of thick glass looking right into an empty lab. Or at least it looked like an empty lab space , but the secure locks blazed red. There was also a warning.

“Not something I really want to open unless it’s necessary.” They had some PPE gear with them, but not enough to risk any kind of failure. Couldn’t really blame Voodoo for that. I wrote down the number on the door.

“You’re good, keep going.” I even managed to sound gracious about it.

“Thanks, dick,” Voodoo said with a chuckle. I grinned wider. Bones was almost to the corporate offices. They were on the far side away from the labs. Lunchbox was inside a lab, his white suit covered him from head to toe.

I took a sip of the hot cocoa and about fucking died. It was creamy, a hint of sweet with a little kick that added a burn and the chocolate was out of this world. I licked the flavor off my lips to glance at Gracie and toasted her with the chocolate.

A small smile softened her lips and Goblin bumped against my chair as he moved to rest his head against her blanket-covered lap. Yeah, she was more upset than she let on. But of course she was.

“Locked and loaded,” Lunchbox said as he left the cleanroom and began to strip off the hazmat suit.

The secondary set of downloads had already begun. This was going to take a lot more time than I wanted. “Set the timers to plus five when you’re on exodus.”

“We still need to finish evac,” Bones reminded me.

“I got it, Cap, don’t worry.” Speaking of onsite staff. I tracked down the security. They were crossing over at the farthest point on the perimeter and beginning to circle back around. “Also, time to pack it up, boys.”

I wanted them well and truly gone. I double-checked the file tree being built. The names were mostly letters and numbers. Nothing actionable.

Yet.

Like any other puzzle, I just needed the pieces so I could begin sorting them out and putting them together. It was like the dossier I was building on our Gracie. The surface image was very different from the woman underneath.

A part of me attributed that to gut instinct. I trusted that instinct, but I needed the evidence to back it up.

“Heading out,” Bones said. “Meeting at exfil.”

“Copy.” Lunchbox’s response was a beat before Voodoo’s. With care, I started setting off some of the smoke alarms elsewhere. We wanted everyone out before we blew it. Collateral damage was to be expected. We already had some, but I’d rather avoid more.

“Tripping alarms. Standby.” My fingers flew over the keys as I set up more alarms, including evacuation measures. The lab’s lockdown features would come in handy for this bit of misdirection. “Jamming cell signal in fifteen. You’re a go for exfil.”

They moved. I tracked them as they took different exits, but linked up outside. The security staff left on site were also evacuating. Their vehicles raced for the guardhouse at the gate while the guys headed west and into the open land that bordered the facility.

It would take them a little longer but they weren’t going to run into anyone and that was how I liked it. The first data room’s downloads completed at the three second mark. The second data room finished just a second later.

“Two—one,” I said, counting it down for the guys as much as for me. “Boom.” The explosion was impressive. At least what I could see of it on the screens before the cameras went down.

External cams would also go offline without the internal network. I gave it another few seconds. Then there was a crackle over the line.

“We did not use that much C-4,” Voodoo complained.

“No shit,” Lunchbox answered, but there was a note of faintly hysterical laughter under it. They’d survived, and that was always the sign of a mission well done.

“We said they were cooking something up there. Any ideas, Alphabet?” Trust Bones to stay on target.

“Not yet. I’ll start parsing soon. Get clear and then get back here.”

“Might be a little late,” Voodoo commented. “I’m starving.”

The ribbing continued, as much for their own distraction as they committed to the hike as it was to begin decompressing. This hadn’t been as much of a challenge as it could be and I was undecided on whether that was a good thing or not.

Blowing out a breath, I hit mute on my side and glanced back at Gracie. She was sound asleep and Goblin had gone to sleep on the floor between us. I reclaimed what was left of my cocoa and sipped it. Much cooler, but still rich and creamy, I soaked in the sight of her.

Sighing, I returned my attention to the computer. I wasn’t crashing until they were completely out of the zone and on their way back. So, I might as well start decrypting the data. Do this, wait for the all-clear, then I’d get her back to bed.

That was the plan.