Page 60 of Midnight’s Captive (Stroke of Midnight #2)

Taryn stepped into the glass and metal first floor of Tremaine Corporation headquarters. The jaw-dropping architecture was stunning and only years of schooling her expression kept her from gawking.

Shoving the awe aside, Taryn strode through the public entrance, fighting not to rush. Nearly twelve hours had passed since Ash had returned to this building and she had no idea what was happening to him.

Heads turned at her approach and she hid a smile. Damn straight. She looked fierce as fuck.

Her black leather pants were custom made and fit like a glove. Matching black, knee-high heeled boots slicked over her calves. Like the boots she wore the night she rescued Giselle, they were sky-high but were made for moving fast and kicking ass.

She wore a custom-tailored jacket—black leather, of course—over a black shirt made of real silk. The combination of leather and silk landed her at the crossroad of high-end corporate and street. Exactly where she wanted to be.

The don’t-fuck-with-me vibe the outfit radiated was a bonus. From the glances she was getting, the clothes were doing their job. The woman behind the front desk swallowed visibly as Taryn approached. That made her smile.

The security guard near the desk stepped closer.

She made them nervous.

Good.

“Ca-can I help you?” the receptionist stuttered.

“I have an appointment with Ms. Tremaine.” Her tone was polite. She’d start there and only pull out the attitude if it was warranted.

“Um...” The receptionist swallowed again. “Your name?”

“The Jack.”

The receptionist had dropped her gaze to her screen. Now it jerked back up to Taryn’s. Her eyes were wide and slightly terrified.

Good. She knew the Jack’s reputation.

“Your last name?” she stuttered.

Taryn smiled again, this time with genuine amusement. The other woman was trying to stay on course despite the unexpected. Taryn appreciated that. It was a valuable skill.

“Just the Jack,” Taryn said.

“I don’t think...” The receptionist’s voice trailed off as her fingers flew over the screen. “Oh, you do.”

Thank you, Killian. He’d stepped in to help run the company when Phillip Tremaine had disappeared. He’d used that access to get her onto Portia’s calendar this morning, and she’d cleared his debt.

The woman looked from the security guards to Taryn and back. “Please escort the Jack to see Ms. Tremaine.” Her voice remained steady.

That had to be why they put her in such an outward facing position. She’d been thrown by Taryn’s appearance but managed to keep it together.

“Thank you,” Taryn said with a smile.

Security stepped closer then directed Taryn through a metal detector.

Of course, she set the damn thing off.

They stepped back and pulled out their weapons.

Shit. She’d wondered if this was going to be an issue.

Taryn raised her hands. “I have a cybernetic arm.” She kept her voice calm while she wiggled the fingers of her right hand. “See?”

“Take off your jacket.”

She moved slowly, every cell in her body aware of the weapons trained on her. She pulled the jacket off her right arm first and made a show of demonstrating it was metal. She reached over and slowly tugged the jacket off her left arm.

Security snatched it out of her hands and subjected it to yet another scan.

When it came through clear, one guard—her visitor from last night, Taryn was surprised to see—holstered her weapon and stepped close. She waved a wand over Taryn’s arm and the rest of her while her comrades kept their weapons out.

Taryn wasn’t sure what they scanned for, but the results came up green.

“You’re clear,” the guard said.

Security slowly put their weapons away, although a few rested their hands on them. Not her fault that they didn’t realize the real danger of her arm was in pure strength. Taryn didn’t expect to use it. She probably wouldn’t leave this building if she did.

“Let her through,” the receptionist said. The security guards obeyed and ushered her into a black-doored elevator.

“Thank you.” Taryn slipped her jacket back on.

One of the guards rode up with her. He kept slipping sideways glances at her, but she ignored him and focused on the task at hand.

The elevator doors opened to a grand view and a stylish but cold office. Her breath caught. Even as a little girl with a family, she’d known that there was no way she would make it into the hallowed halls of one of the corporations. Living on the streets, those odds had been even slimmer.

And yet here she was.

Taryn might not be running the place—something she didn’t want, anyway—but she’d made it into the corporate offices. She was as close to an equal as anyone not corporate born probably ever got. It may be small, but she ran her own empire too.

The admin looked up with a curious expression. “Yes?”

“Ms. Tremaine’s appointment is here,” Taryn’s escort said.

“Of course. Please take a seat. She’ll be with you momentarily.” This one didn’t look nearly as concerned as the woman at the entrance. Maybe they’d called to warn her. Maybe she just didn’t care.

Taryn sank into a soft chair along the wall.

She didn’t have to wait long. The big glass doors swung open. At the same time, the admin said, “You may go in.”

Taryn stood smoothly and nodded her thanks to the receptionist. She pivoted to enter the room.

This time she didn’t have an escort.

Portia Tremaine’s office was immense. Stunning views of the city dominated the room. It was an office created to intimidate. One that allowed its owner to survey her kingdom.

Taryn was impressed, but not intimidated. Not by the office. Not by the view. And not by the cool blonde who sat behind a giant desk.

Without waiting for an invitation, Taryn took the seat opposite Portia and her big desk. The visitor’s chair was lower than the desk to unsettle the supplicant.

Taryn bit back a smile. She was pleasantly surprised that she could identify all the tricks that a corporate CEO used. The old Jack could burn in hell, but he’d schooled her well in intimidation tactics.

Ignoring the other desk in the room, the one she assumed Ash had used, she settled into her chair. Arms stretched along the back and one leg crossed over the other, she was the picture of comfort.

“You’re a long way from your little bar.” Portia spoke without looking up from her computer.

Taryn inclined her head, acknowledging Portia’s recognition. She also noted the dig but refused to show it. Portia had obviously never crossed the threshold if she thought Razor Jack’s was so easily dismissed. “You should visit some time.”

“And you’ll buy me a drink?” There was a hard-edged sweetness in Portia’s voice.

Taryn laughed. “There’s no profit in that.”

Portia finally looked at her. A genuine smile cracked her lips, just barely, before her pinched look returned. “Profit, hm? Aside from your name...” Portia paused. “Your title? My calendar doesn’t have any additional information. That’s not the way my admin schedules my time.”

One corner of Taryn’s mouth tipped up. “She didn’t make the appointment.”

“Oh.” After a moment, she said, “I hadn’t realized that the Jack was a woman.” Portia’s tone was neutral.

Taryn shrugged. “Does it matter?”

Portia pondered the question for a moment. “No. Your reputation is... strong.”

Taryn wondered what descriptors Portia had discarded in that slight pause.

“Thank you. As is yours.”

“What brings you to my office?” Portia steepled her hands. “If you’re looking for some kind of payment for helping my sis—for helping Dizzie, you’ll have to talk to her.”

Portia dropped her gaze to her computer, obviously dismissing Taryn. “If that’s all, I need to get to work.”

Damn, she’d definitely earned her reputation as the Ice Queen. Taryn had to respect that.

Except there’d been that little slip when she almost called Dizzie her sister. Between that and the fact that Ash liked her for some reason, Portia Tremaine might have a heart.

“Good to know, but that’s not what this appointment is about.”

That drew Portia’s attention back to Taryn. She enjoyed the look of surprise on the CEO’s face.

“If it’s not about Dizzie, then why are you here?” There was a hint of curiosity under her bored tone.

“I’m here to negotiate for the release of Ash Cutter.” Taryn crossed her legs in the opposite direction and watched Portia.

Portia’s nostrils flared. “You’re wasting your time. Release isn’t an option.”

“Of course it is,” Taryn countered. “Everything has its price. We just have to find it.”

“You don’t understand. The man killed my husband. He’ll never see daylight again.”

Taryn had been afraid that Portia would be intransigent. She wouldn’t denigrate the woman’s grief—Taryn would feel the same way if she lost Ash. “I understand and I’m very sorry for your loss,” she said sincerely. “But you and I both know that Ash wasn’t responsible for that bomb and your husband’s death.” She paused. “He worked with Leopold Brunswick. He was used by Brunswick, the same way Dizzie was.”

Rage flashed in Portia’s eyes.

Dammit, bringing up Dizzie had been a misstep. She tried another tack. “Leopold Brunswick was the mastermind of the New Amsterdam bombing. He used at least two members of the Tremaine Corporation to do his dirty work. Can you honestly say there aren’t more?”

Portia’s lips tightened, the only sign that Taryn’s question had hit the mark. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Wouldn’t it be nice to have at least one person you trusted? Someone who can help you root out Brunswick’s supporters? Solve other problems?”

“And that’s supposed to be you?”

“Oh no,” Taryn said with a laugh. “That’s Ash.”

Portia leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s ridiculous. I could never trust that man.”

Taryn knew she had to tread very lightly here. “But you can, Ms. Tremaine. What sort of man turns himself in, even when he knows it could be a death sentence?” She was still so pissed at him for that.

“That doesn’t mean I can trust him. He made a laughingstock of me, pretending to work for me.”

“Didn’t he give you actionable intelligence about some of your father’s projects?”

A thoughtful look crossed Portia’s face. “You’re very well informed.”

Taryn smiled. “I am.”

“For a bartender, you’re showing up in the middle of Tremaine business with a concerning frequency.”

Taryn rolled with the subject change. Negotiations were delicate.

She shrugged. “I run a good bar.” Prior to the bombing, Taryn’s policy had been to stay off the corporate radar. Now here she was, voluntarily in the heart of the Tremaine Corporation.

“Right. What would I find if I sent Tremaine Security to check it out?”

Oh, goodie. Threats. “A dozen beers on tap, more by the bottle. A decent selection of booze and wine.” Taryn paused, like she’d had a sudden thought. “And a bunch of regulars who don’t take kindly to threats against their favorite place.”

She looked at Portia and continued. “Walk in the front door like any other customer, you’ll get a drink. Stick your nose where it doesn’t belong? You’ll run into trouble.”

“You really think the people in your bar will give a damn?” Portia sneered.

Last week, Taryn wouldn’t have thought so. But after the confrontation with Giselle’s former pimp and her conversation with Jed, she realized that yes, she could count on her patrons.

“Yeah, they would. They’re my people. Loyal. But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

Portia flinched like Taryn had struck her. “I reward loyalty,” she ground out. “I would have rewarded Ash if he’d done his damn job.”

“Really?” Taryn asked. “He’d have gotten his freedom? Or would you have continued to hold Hope over his head?”

Dammit. She was probably ruining any chance of negotiating Ash’s freedom, but Portia had pissed her off. “As far as I can tell, he did his job. He found the hacker you were looking for and turned himself in. He also stopped a hack this weekend. Remotely.”

“He let them in,” Portia said through clenched teeth.

Taryn nodded, acknowledging her point. “Yes, he did. But he could have let Caspar all the way in the system. Instead, he got him far enough in for your security measures to capture him.”

Portia sucked in a breath.

“Go ahead, check with your people. I’ll wait.” Taryn trusted that Ash had provided sufficient details to sell this story. He’d willingly let Caspar in, but he’d fought hard to keep him just at surface level and out of the important stuff.

Portia’s fingers flew over her keyboard. A few seconds later her phone rang. “Portia Tremaine.” She nodded. “What caused it?”

Taryn couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation, but Portia’s side was pissed. Taryn would hate to get on her bad side.

Then again, she was probably already there.

“And who stopped the attack? Why wasn’t I informed?”

Watching her, Taryn understood why Portia had taken over the business when her father disappeared.

She didn’t slam the phone down or make any other kind of move that would indicate that she was angry, but her entire body radiated tension. “My people have confirmed the attempted hack. Both how far they got in and where they were stopped.”

“Did they stop it?” Taryn knew the answer, but she wanted to know how Portia’s team had responded.

“No.”

Taryn didn’t think she was going to say anything else. Then Portia said, “They said there seemed to be another presence—besides the intruder—but they could never get a visual.”

“Are you willing to negotiate now?”

Portia sneered. “You want me to negotiate for Ash’s freedom when he abandoned his post and let a hacker into the system? Don’t be ridiculous.”

Taryn settled into her chair. Now they were getting to the fun part. “He only left because your people—the ones at your supposedly secure hospital—allowed his sister to be kidnapped. Plus, he stopped that incursion.”

Portia pinched her lips. “After he caused it.”

Taryn would never be able to prove it, but she’d swear that Portia was having fun too. “All that matters is that it was stopped and Hope is safe,” Taryn countered. “Now he wants to be free from Tremaine Corporation to spend time with her.”

“Whether he stopped Caspar or not, he still plotted to kill my husband.”

Taryn held onto her temper by a thread. “No, he didn’t. He uncovered a bunch of corrupt programs run by your piece-of-shit father.”

Portia’s mouth fell open. “He really was a piece of shit.”

Now it was Taryn’s turn to be surprised.

“Say I do this,” Portia said. “Say I let him go. What’s in it for me?”

Now they were talking. “What do you want?” Taryn countered. Her goal was Ash’s freedom and a promise to leave him and Hope alone. She had to believe that Ash would trust her to make a fair deal.

“I want to know all my father’s dirty secrets. I want to clean house of anyone else who worked with Leopold Brunswick.” Her tone promised a reckoning.

Taryn almost felt bad for anyone who got in this woman’s way when that day came. Almost. “Let’s get started, then.”