Page 34 of Midnight’s Captive (Stroke of Midnight #2)

“You hungover, Ash?” Mendez asked the next day, riding his ass.

“What?” Ash stared at his screen. His concentration was shit because he couldn’t stop replaying the scene with Taryn last night. Fortunately, the pings were slow and infrequent today, because he was off his game. Even his coworkers had noticed.

“You’re off today. What the fuck is going on?”

“I just...” Ash had no idea what to say.

“Aw, did you strike out with that girl of yours?”

He felt everyone’s eyes on him, but Ash stayed focused on the screen. “We had a fight,” he admitted.

“What did you do?” This from another member of his team.

Ash swiveled in his chair to face the speaker. “Why do you assume it’s my fault?”

“Because you’re a guy,” Ava said.

Laughter filled the room.

He sighed. “Something I shouldn’t have.” The total truth, despite the lack of details.

He understood why Taryn had tossed him out. He’d grabbed her. He’d overstepped, mistaken their easiness, their closeness, for something it wasn’t and abused his privileges.

“Damn, boy. That’s a rookie mistake.” Mendez’s tone was half sympathy and half you’re-a-dumb-shit.

“Yeah, I know.” Once again, his fuckup could end up hurting Hope.

“You apologize?” the other woman on their team asked.

Ash shook his head. “Not yet.”

“Mistake after mistake.” She shook her head and tsked. “You like this girl?”

“Woman, and yes,” Ash said. Taryn was a strong, tough woman.

She rolled her eyes. “Are you seeing her again?”

“Yeah, probably.” He wanted to. And he had to—once Hope was rescued. The real question was, would Taryn let him back into her bar? Her life?

The questions came fast and furious after that. Ash felt like he was on one of those relationship shows that aired every afternoon. He gave up on trying to do his job and answered the questions mostly honestly and as quickly as he could.

“You’ve been a pretty busy boy, lately, though, haven’t you?”

Ash looked at Mendez. “What?” Something in Mendez’s tone put his back up and Ash studied the other man more closely.

“Between your new lady friend and all the time you’ve been spending with Portia Tremaine,” Mendez said with pure stir-shit-up speculation in his expression.

Ash hid his wince. This wasn’t good. He wasn’t supposed to talk about what was happening with Portia. Even though he’d warned Portia this could happen, he’d hoped no one noticed all the time he spent in her office.

“She asked me to look at something on her computer.” That was close enough to the truth, right?

“Ooh, is that what they’re calling it these days?”

“Screw you, Mendez.” Heat colored Ash’s voice. He turned back to his screen. The more he argued his innocence, the less they would believe him. Better to bow out of the conversation entirely.

The badgering and jokes continued, but he steadfastly ignored them. Finally, they found another target to tease. Fine with him. He just wanted the shift over, so he could work on a plan to get back on the Jack’s good side.

Focusing on his job, he easily took care of a half-dozen pings against the system. Rookie-level stuff he could do even when he was distracted.

Then, suddenly, unexpected characters flashed across the screen. What the fuck?

He leaned forward and squinted at the screen. He was imagining things.

Wasn’t he?

There it was again.

Fēnix. Hidden in the code.

“What the hell?” Ash mumbled under his breath.

“Hey, man, you know we’re just giving you shit, right? None of these knuckleheads have had a proper date in forever.”

“What?” Ash barely heard Mendez. His entire body was tense as he stared at the screen.

“It doesn’t mean anything, ya know?”

“Oh, right. Whatever.”

His name flickered across the screen again. Ash hissed out a breath.

“What’s going on?”

If only Ash knew. The possibility that someone knew he was here spooked him. If they knew where to find him—and knew what he’d done—things could be about to get super fucked up for him.

“I thought I saw an attack,” Ash improvised. “It was a blip, there and then gone.”

Totally true, if by blip you meant his hacker handle, which had been essentially retired since the night he was captured. He’d heard it more in the last week than in the entire time he’d been at the Tremaine Corporation.

That couldn’t be good.

“Where?” someone asked.

“Over there, in Europe.” Ash pointed in the complete opposite direction.

“I don’t see anything.” Most of them had turned back to the screen.

“Must’ve been caught by the firewalls.” Maybe if he repeated it often enough, he’d convince himself that it was just a blip instead of his hacker name.

Deep down, he knew what he’d seen. Was it a message or a trap? And why now?

He was so close to escaping his past. So close to freeing Hope from the corporation and getting out of Seattle.

Now it could all fall apart.