Page 4 of Only the Wicked (The Sinful State #1)

Chapter Three

Sydney

“I’m in.”

The winding road climbs higher up the peak through the trees, passing homes and mailboxes jutting out an arm’s length from the asphalt.

“Good work.” The deep male voice on the other end of the line belongs to the man who recruited me from the CIA. He introduced himself as Hudson, and I still don’t know for certain if that’s his first or last name.

Given recent events, I’d been an easy recruit. Four of my assets: dead. Top brass determined in all likelihood I had been exposed, and my career as an overseas operative ended. The fact a friend asked me to take a call from Hudson, the director of her newly formed entity, served as the linchpin.

KOAN, which stands for Kaleidoscope Observation Analysis Network, is officially an investigative entity.

The kind of work the FBI should be doing but can’t—or won’t—when powerful people are involved.

KOAN references a paradoxical question with no clear answer, the purpose to transcend logical reasoning and encourage intuitive insight.

Caroline pitched it to me as “asking the questions that have no right answers but need to be asked anyway.” After watching my assets die because someone higher up the food chain decided their lives were expendable, that philosophy resonated.

“What’s your plan?” Hudson asks, his question confirming I’m taking lead.

“We’re going to dinner. I’m going to head back to the rental to meet with Quinn.” She’s the team’s tech and equipment resource. “Then to the hotel.”

When we acquired Rhodes MacMillan’s itinerary two days ago, I checked into his hotel. If the hiking interlude didn’t pan out, I would’ve tried again with an impromptu run in at the hotel.

“What’s your read? Do you need backup?”

“My read after initial contact is that the initial profile assessment is accurate. He doesn’t strike me as overtly dangerous.

He had no security. Drove himself. Classic white collar.

” It’s the deals he may be striking that are dangerous.

But he’s too connected for any government agency to investigate.

Rumors abound, and investigations were started, but halted by the DOJ.

This is why my friend founded KOAN, an organization that conducts under the radar investigations—work that might be halted the moment they cross the desk of a vested influential power player.

“Touch base after you meet with Quinn.” The line goes dead.

Yes, sir.

In my rear, I clock an SUV two back. I make a quick right.

The two cars behind me pass.

Wait for it.

I whip back out onto the road.

The higher I go in altitude, automotive traffic declines.

I pass an older white male watering flowers with a water hose and wave. He doesn’t appear to notice.

Near the peak, I pull into a concrete parking area with a drive that loops down to the garage.

From the street, the house appears to be a one-story wood and stone structure.

But it’s deceptive. Built into the side of the cliff, the living areas are below street level, and the back of the house offers stunning views across a panoramic mountain scape.

I shift my Jeep into park and hop out onto a cracked paver, wincing when pain shoots up my right knee into my thigh.

The injury, while minor, is real. Hudson, on this first assignment, is proving he trusts his recruits—and it’s a refreshing change from the micromanager I landed in the behavior and analysis division in the CIA.

After venting to Caroline, who also hated serving under the same prick and first fled the CIA to a privately held group on the West Coast, she shared her latest venture.

With the encouragement of her husband, a billionaire with more than he can spend in his lifetime, she founded KOAN, because tackling corruption is something she’s passionate about.

During her pitch on why I should join the team, Caroline asked me the age-old question, “What do you have to lose?” She probably expected me to list off the usual things—career stability, pension, health insurance.

Instead, I thought about Dimitri’s last message, sent just hours before they found his body in that Parisian alley.

Perhaps she meant for the question to be rhetorical, and for me, it absolutely was—and the answer: Nothing.

The CIA had already taken everything that mattered.

If this team doesn’t work out, Caroline says she can find something for me within the West Coast outfit she initially joined—not as an analyst, which I hate, but doing something in the field.

I probably could’ve pushed her right then for an introduction, but no project coming out of the Arrow Tactical team will help me uncover the leaks that led to the death of the assets I recruited.

Maria, a mother of two young daughters, who’d been doing nothing more than feeding us itineraries—her death hit me the hardest, but I’ll never forget any of their names.

As a member of the intelligence community, it’s natural to distrust. Those I mistrust the most?

Those who believe themselves to be above the law and reproach.

Like whoever sold out my assets. Like whoever decided stolen secrets were worth more than lives.

If Rhodes MacMillan is part of that network, I'll make sure justice is served.

Our target, Rhodes Macmillan, created ARGUS, reputed to be the best AI surveillance product on the market.

Rumors abound about what he can access, and more than that, what he can derive from those databases and which countries he’s serving.

If there’s a secret society of the powerful, he’s undoubtedly a man such a society would recruit.

The government won’t ever investigate MacMillan or ARGUS as he’s got ties on every floor of the Department of Justice, and it’s fair to assume he owns most senators and a chunk of Congress.

ARGUS isn’t his first company. His first was a boring financial payment system that made him billions, and he and those original partners are now some of the most influential people in the world.

Of course, with success and influence comes attention.

That fact is why my plan held a high probability of failure.

Rhodes MacMillan is a wary creature. He has to be.

Anyone around him might be tempted to make a quick buck selling a story to the highest bidder.

He bought stock in a company? Sold stock?

Prefers a specific hotel chain? Ate lunch with a CEO?

Any little detail of his life can be sold.

His most benign conversation will be of interest to the right people.

Yes, the plan was risky, but I played it to perfection, and he doesn’t suspect anything. My approach had to feel like more time together was his idea, and I nailed the approach.

“Is that art or real?” Quinn stands in the front door of the rental, watching me as I pick and choose what I want to carry inside from the duffel bags stowed in the back. “That looks like a busted knee.”

Quinn has her long, curly, blonde hair pulled back so it’s half up, half down, and she’s wearing a long, loose skirt that skims the tops of her bare feet.

In her light brown cardigan and white tank, if I met her on the street I’d expect her to be an English teacher or a grad student, but that’s where looks can be deceiving.

“Blood’s real. Limp isn’t.” I flex my knee, testing the scrape. “Though it stings more than I expected.”

“Wait a second. You purposefully fell?”

I shrug. “Do what you gotta to do.”

“What would you’ve done if you’d really hurt yourself?”

She’s appalled, but makeup to fake an injury would’ve been a poor choice. I step past her through the wide front entrance. Inside, there’s a small foyer, a step down to a living area with a bedroom off to the side, and a spiral staircase to the second floor below.

The second floor opens up to the main floor, which is also accessible by a lower garage level.

Six bedroom suites are on the lowest floor.

It’s a beautiful home but the furniture is dinged and faded, and from what I understand, came with the property.

Or maybe it’s rented. Either way, someone clearly believed brown shag carpet was a design choice rather than a cry for help.

I had no role in selecting this place. No, while Hudson and Quinn coordinated this effort, I studied Rhodes.

I scraped every article, social post, and even yearbooks from high school, Stanford, as well as the one from the one year at Harvard Business School before he dropped out.

I learned he likes solo sports and loves rock climbing, so much so he has a twenty-foot wall in his penthouse that was featured in an interior design magazine.

While Rhodes doesn’t post any images, and his Bluesky posts and Threads read like an employee from his PR department wrote them, he had a girlfriend who tagged him daily.

And from what I could gather, they broke up two years ago, and given his ex wasn’t one to delete history, it appears they parted ways directly after an engagement party he chose not to attend. Ouch.

People reveal more in what they don’t post than what they do.

Rhodes’ digital silence speaks volumes—either extreme privacy or something to hide.

His ex-girlfriend’s posts, however, painted a picture of a man who prioritized work over relationships.

Useful intelligence. I also learned his private plane scheduled a flight plan to Franklin with no return trip.

I read an interview with him for Climbing magazine where he mentioned he’d climbed most of the notable places in California and Washington State, and when asked what’s next for him, he answered visiting places he read about in his home state, back when he was a kid and not yet into climbing.