How Spy I Am (21 page)

That wasn’t
comforting.

Maybe I should tell
Stemp.

I sighed and spooned
in some more cereal. If I told Stemp, I’d never see Robert alive
again. Never find out the truth.

I stared into the
distance for a few moments. Which was more important, national
security or my personal life? That should have been an easy
choice.

Tap. Slide.

But there was no
evidence to indicate Robert was doing anything other than saving
his own butt. If he’d actually been one of the bad guys, he could
have abducted me and sold me to the highest bidder at any time in
the past three years.

I swallowed a couple
more mouthfuls of softening cereal, wondering again what Irina had
been doing for the Russians.

Tap. Slide.

Sirius had been trying
to recruit me for years. For the first time since I’d discovered
that fact, I had time to wonder exactly why. Stemp had been as
surprised as anybody when he found out I could decrypt files and
sneak around invisibly in networks, so it couldn’t have been that.
They must have had another purpose in mind.

I made a mental note.
Find out what the hell Sirius had wanted me for in the first place.
Maybe that would answer the Irina question.

And… oh!

I jerked upright in my
chair, a spoonful poised in midair as another thought hit me. When
I’d breached Sirius’s network the first time, Smith hadn’t known
how I was getting in. He’d been angry and scared. And he hadn’t
recognized the network key. I had discovered that myself and
reported it. So he must be innocent.

Kind of.

Maybe.

Unless he’d been
faking the whole thing. If he was a spy, he’d be just as good an
actor as Kane.

I groaned and dropped
the spoon back into the unappetizingly soggy cereal. It clanked
against the bowl, chipping the edge and splashing milk onto the
table.

“Fine! That’s just
fucking fine!”

I poked in the sludgy
mixture for a few seconds, searching for the fragment of glass
before giving up in disgust. I grabbed the bowl and dumped its
contents down the garbage disposal, barely salvaging the spoon as
my exhausted mind switched to worrying over Kane.

How the hell was I
supposed to work with him when I had to deal with the emotional
fallout of our night together, as well as hide all evidence of my
suddenly-not-so-dead husband?

Christ, and I’d
thought my life was a soap opera before.

The next morning,
Stemp pounced on me in the lobby at Sirius Dynamics. “My office,”
he said, and strode away.

Shit, now what? Could
he have somehow found out about my conversation with Smith? I
trudged up the stairs to tap on his door again, heart thumping.

He nodded me into a
chair. “Ms. Widdenback,” he said. I could have sworn there was
sarcasm in his tone, but his face betrayed nothing, as usual.

I sighed. “Yes?”

“I see you’ve been
working to reinforce your cover. I didn’t expect you to adopt it
so… enthusiastically. The driving demerits were a surprise after
your formerly squeaky-clean driving record. And the bar brawl was
definitely a nice touch.”

With heroic restraint,
I didn’t tell him to stick it up his ass. Instead, I returned his
scrutiny in silence accompanied by my best attempt at a poker
face.

He contemplated me a
moment longer. “Keep in mind that, while I have the power to make a
broad range of criminal charges vanish, I can’t prevent you from
being arrested in the first place if you give the police reason to
do so.”

“I’m aware of that,” I
said evenly.

“Do you think it was…
wise… to rack up quite so many demerits on your license?”

“Guess the cop wasn’t
a porn fan,” I said shortly.

Was that a twitch of
humour around his mouth? Nah. Couldn’t be.

“A slight
miscalculation on your part?” His voice was level as always, but I
could have sworn he was holding back a laugh.

I kept my tone
expressionless. “Apparently.”

“Would you like some
of the demerits to go away?”

Sheer surprise made me
smile at him. Surprise gave way to shock when he actually returned
a brief smile, transforming him momentarily into a pleasantly
ordinary-looking man.

“Um…” I hesitated,
distracted, before deciding. “No, that’s okay. I’ll try to keep my
nose clean from here on in.”

“Very well.” His
impassive facade descended again. “If you find yourself in an…
unfortunate situation with the authorities as a result of your
cover identity, call me immediately.” He leaned forward to pass me
a card. “Any time of the day or night, these numbers will reach me.
Memorize them. Don’t hesitate to use them.”

I tucked the card into
my waist pouch. “Thank you,” I said with sincere gratitude.

“You’re welcome. Are
you feeling better today?”

“Yes, thank you.” I
tried to hide my suspicion. Why was he being so nice all of a
sudden?

“Good. Dismissed.”

I nodded and stood
quickly before either of us could do something to irritate the
other.

Rattled, I emerged
from Stemp’s office and wandered a few paces down the hall. If he’d
been his usual annoying self, I’d have gotten right up in his face
and demanded to know why Sirius had been manipulating me since
childhood, but his ‘nice guy’ persona had thrown me off
balance.

Hell, he’d probably
refuse to tell me anyway. And it might not be a good idea to draw
his attention with questions.

I rolled stiff
shoulders and straightened out of my tired slouch. Kane was the
obvious choice. He’d told me about Sirius’s attempts to recruit me,
so he probably knew why, too.

Which meant I’d have
to talk to him…

I tamped down a shiver
at the thought of facing those frosty grey eyes.

Dammit, why had I
given in to lust? If I’d just kept my legs together, everything
would’ve been fine. Damn-fool idiot.

I looked up in time to
see Smith entering my office down the hall, and I quickly released
my clenched fist, attempting a neutral expression.

His eyes widened, and
I gave him a small headshake. No, I hadn’t been telling tales. I
raised my eyebrows at him, receiving a headshake in return. Guess
he hadn’t talked to Robert, either. Shit.

When I stepped into my
office, everyone was in their usual seats. Honey’s gaze had been
glued to Kane’s broad back again, a faint wrinkle between her
brows, and she tore her eyes away from him to offer me an absent
‘Good morning’, still frowning.

“Good morning; good
morning,” I greeted her and Spider. “Good mor… ning…” I hoped the
hitch in my voice at the sight of Kane’s face hadn’t been too
noticeable.

He returned a curt
nod, massaging his forehead as if it hurt. His eyes were shadowed,
the lines on his face carved deep by fatigue or pain, I couldn’t
tell which.

“Are you okay?” I
exclaimed without thinking.

“Fine.” His grunt
skated on the borderline of civility, and he didn’t meet my eyes.
Suddenly his head jerked up. “What do
you
want?” His
normally velvet baritone was a harsh rasp, and he shot a hostile
bloodshot glare in my direction.

Sheer dismay stifled
my response long enough to realize he wasn’t talking to me at all.
I turned to see Sam Kraus hovering in the doorway behind me.

“Uh…” Sam shifted
nervously from foot to foot. “I need Aydan down in my lab for-”

“No.” Kane’s flat tone
was like the click of the firing pin an instant before the
explosion.

Sam flinched, his
ruddy complexion draining into pallor. “Uh… but I need…”

Kane stood slowly, his
eyes hard as arctic ice.

I knew how deadly he
truly was, but for the first time I realized the full extent of his
intimidation factor. He seemed to keep getting bigger as he rose,
his already massive shoulders widening, his six-foot-four height
making the room shrink around him.

I sidled a couple of
steps out of his path, ignoring Sam’s openly pleading glance. No
fucking way I was getting in the middle of this, whatever it
was.

“You won’t put her
through that again.” Kane’s growl sent a shiver down my spine.

Sam blanched even
further, his gaze darting around the room. Everyone’s attention was
riveted on Kane, Spider’s mouth a dark ‘O’ in his face. Smith eyed
Kane speculatively, and now that I knew Smith’s background, I
recognized a seasoned agent’s seemingly casual assessment, seeing
without appearing to look.

My hand crept toward
my waist holster. If Smith made a move on Kane…

“It’s okay.”

Honey’s melodic voice
made everyone twitch except Kane, who was still holding Sam with
his basilisk stare. She came around in front of Kane and laid a
hand on his chest, seemingly unfazed by his menacing
immobility.

At the touch of her
hand, he transferred his attention to her, his face softening.

“It’s okay,” she
repeated. “Spider and I figured out a way to send the data from my
portable unit down to your system in real-time, Sam.”

“Oh…” Sam drew a deep
breath and backed into the hallway. “Thank you… I’ll just go down
and monitor from there…” He turned tail and scurried out of
sight.

“John.” Honey gazed up
into his face, her hand still resting on his chest. “I need you to
escort me from the secured area with my case.”

He nodded and strode
forward, unceremoniously breaking her contact to vanish down the
hallway without a backward glance. Honey trailed him slowly,
leaving Spider and me to gape at each other.

“What…?” we both began
simultaneously.

“I don’t know.” I
frowned puzzlement at Spider. I had half-expected this kind of
reaction from Kane yesterday, but he’d been his usual composed
self. He’d been civil at Blue Eddy’s last night, too, so whatever
had gotten under his skin had happened after that.

I blew out a shaky
breath. At least I hadn’t been the one to piss him off.

“He’s hung over.”
Smith’s tone was dryly amused.

“But he never…” I shut
up.

I’d never seen him
drink more than a bit of scotch or an occasional beer. I couldn’t
imagine him getting drunk enough to cause the kind of
disintegration I’d just seen. But now that I thought about it, he
did look like a man nursing a truly hellish hangover.

I sat in anxious
silence until they returned, Kane’s scowl towering behind Jack’s
beauty like a cumulonimbus cloud on a sunny day. She didn’t spare
him a glance as she laid her case on the sofa beside me.

“We just want to
monitor you while you breach some firewalls,” she explained while
she hooked the electrodes up to my forehead.

“Anything in
particular I’m supposed to do?”

“Yes…” Spider’s voice
was hesitant, and he shot an uneasy look at Kane before returning
his attention to me. “Stemp wants you to check Fuzzy Bunny’s sites
again today. The chatter about you should be dying down by now. If
it looks as though they’ve swallowed our cover story, he wants to
get serious about shutting down some more of Fuzzy Bunny’s
operations. Particularly the espionage and arms deals.”

Hope made me sit up a
little straighter. “So we’re finally going to be able to take a
chunk out of them? Jeez, I thought we’d never get there.”

Spider smiled, his
normally innocent face showing predator’s teeth. “Yes.
Finally.”

Even Kane looked a
little less irritable. God, he must be really hurting if he
couldn’t even summon up a smidgeon of his usual passion for
crime-fighting.

“All righty then.” I
shot a glance at Jack for confirmation. At her nod of approval, I
gave Spider a wolfish grin of my own. “This might take a while.
Everybody get comfortable.”

Holding the network
key in my hand, I stepped into virtual reality more eagerly than I
had in a long time. Finally, an end to passively sneaking around.
Time to go bunny-hunting.

When Kane’s avatar
popped into existence beside me a second later, I took an
involuntary step back. Suppressed violence smoked from every pore
of his larger-than-life avatar’s bulging muscles.

The previous day’s
body armour was nowhere to be seen. Instead, he wore a tight black
muscle shirt that emphasized his breathtaking upper body. He was
unarmed except for a wicked-looking knife strapped to his thigh,
and his camo-patterned cargo pants hugged his crotch in a vivid
reminder that made my stomach melt into a puddle of liquid
heat.

I turned away to hurry
down the virtual corridor on trembling legs. God, if we weren’t
being monitored by the rest of the team… I yanked my mind away from
the thought of incendiary makeup sex. Not an option, dammit.

“Where are you going?”
His raw-edged voice paralyzed me with a shivery-hot memory of
nipping teeth, setting every nerve ending ablaze.

“Ah…” I cleared my
throat to smooth out my croak. “I’m going to start from the file
room. I’m most familiar with it, so it’s easiest for me to go back
to it when I’ve been in the network tunnels for a long time.”

I glanced back in time
to see his nod and kept moving.

Don’t think about it.
Just don’t think about it.

Inside the file room,
I materialized two chairs and sat down. Kane sank into the other
with a long breath that bespoke the misery of a pounding headache.
When I hesitantly reached for his hand, he took it without looking
at me, rubbing his forehead with his free hand.

I faded into
invisibility and hovered for a moment, watching him. He rolled his
shoulders, the lines on his face stark with pain.

Sympathy pierced my
heart. I laid a hand on his powerful shoulder and leaned close to
whisper so the others couldn’t hear. “John, it’s a sim. You don’t
have to feel pain here. Just imagine it away.”

His muscles turned to
iron under my hand. “Don’t. Touch. Me.”