Crave (The MacKenzie Family #11) (2 page)

“Gotcha,” Cypher grinned. “You’re all mine, baby.”

“Good job, Cyph,” Gabe said. “We’re about three blocks away. Don’t take your eyes off our targets. Once the meet between Yukov and Kraus takes place those launch codes will be in the wind. You’ve got to intercept those codes.”

“I’m on it,” Cypher said, the salt of sweat stinging his eyes. “It’s showing she’s on the third floor, VIP lounge, northwest corner.”

“Umm, I hate to break it to you, Cyph,” Declan said, “but I’m staring straight at the northwest corner of the VIP lounge and the only person sitting there is Kraus.”

“Look harder.” Frustration compounded the headache brewing behind his eyes and he built more traps, trying to see where she’d slipped by him. But the report came back the same. “She’s there, Daredevil. Keep looking. She’ll be young. Very young. Late teens to early twenties.”

“I’ve got the profile memorized,” Declan said. “And I’m telling you she’s not here.”

“Fuck,” he said, slamming his fist down on top of the elevator.

“One block out and closing,” Gabe said through his earpiece.

“Uh, oh,” Warlock said. “We’ve got agency interference that just walked through the front door like she owns the place. All one hundred and ten pounds of fiery redhead.”

They all listened as Gabe swore under his breath. “What in the hell is she doing here? That woman drives me crazy.”

“That’s exactly the reason she’s here,” Declan said dryly. “You guys need to learn how to date like normal people.”

“I’m going to blister her ass for this.”

“Knowing Kill Shot, she’ll probably like that.”

All of a sudden there was a new voice speaking through the earpiece.

“You boys are a man short for a job like this,” a sultry voice said. “Kill Shot reporting for duty.”

“On who’s orders?” Gabe demanded. “This isn’t your op. You’re barely out of training. When I get my hands on you—”

“Slow down, Studmuffin. Take a breath. Last time I checked Lockwood’s orders outranked yours. He said to get my skinny ass here, so here I am. I caught up on the intel on the plane.

“Fine, and we’ll talk about what the hell you’re not wearing later.”

“If what you mean by not wearing is my underwear then you’d be correct. Leather this tight shows panty lines.”

“And thank Christ for it,” Warlock said.

Cypher winced and shook his head. He could practically hear the steam shooting from Gabe’s ears, but Gabe would bury the anger and move on. One day all that repressed emotion was going to blow like a bomb.

“Enough,” Gabe said. “Cypher got a lock on her and says she’s in the building, but she’s playing with us. Cocky little bitch. Keep your eyes and ears open.”

The elevator doors opened again and a man and woman stepped inside. Cypher could see them through the flimsy metal ceiling panels he’d been trying to avoid since he’d climbed through them several hours before to start the prep work. The man was tattooed on every available inch of visible skin and a barbell ran through his nose and both eyebrows.

Cypher could appreciate the artistry of tattoos—his shoulders and arms were covered in them—but he had to draw the line at punching holes in the face with big ass needles and writing the words DIE ASSHOLE across the forehead. Even
he
knew that couldn’t be good for job prospects.

The woman with him must have been his perfect match because her torso, neck, and face were similarly tattooed. Her attempt at modesty was to have leather suspenders strategically placed over her nipples since she wasn’t wearing a shirt.

Weirdly enough, Cypher felt right at home at clubs like this one. He’d always had more of an edge than the others. He shifted as quietly as he could, but still the elevator ceiling creaked beneath him. The couple didn’t notice as the bass thumped hard enough to rattle the walls, and his own heart was pounding along with the beat.

His ass was asleep and his laptops were strategically placed on the reinforced beams. The computers were Velcroed down, but still they jostled as the elevator came to a stop on the fourth floor. The doors opened and the couple stepped out into wall-to-wall bodies. The smell of sweat assaulted his senses along with the underlying sickly sweetness of marijuana.

“It’s a good thing I don’t get motion sickness,” he said as the elevator once again made its way to the bottom floor.

“That’s the least of your problems,” Warlock said. “This building is so far past fire code that you’d burn to death before you could get out of that metal death trap and through all the bodies in there.”

“As always, War, you’re just like fucking Santa Claus with your cheery goodness and shit.”

The elevator doors opened again and a laughing couple stood at the doors, ready to get on, but at the last second the girl wiggled out of his arms and spoke quickly in Russian, letting him know she’d meet him back at the bar after she found the restroom. The guy squeezed her ass and gave her a sloppy kiss before drunkenly making his way back toward the bar and another drink.

The girl hit the button for the third floor and then leaned back against the wall. She was a curvy little thing, fitting just right into a black leather skirt with silver studs that barely covered her ass. Leather boots came to just above her knees and a very nice display of cleavage spilled from the leather bustier. Her hair was short and white-blonde and slicked back from a face he still hadn’t gotten a look at, but he had to imagine her face must have been something spectacular to belong to that body.

It was almost too late by the time the hairs on the back of his neck stood up tall. The elevator picked up speed and they flew right past the third floor that had been her original destination. She looked up at him through the grated ceiling and gave him a grin that made his blood run cold. She couldn’t see him, but she knew he was there. Though she didn’t know his identity or who he worked for.

But he could sure as hell see her. And the face did match the body. Unfortunately, it was a face he recognized. He’d know those stunning violet eyes anywhere. They’d always unnerved him, too large and serious to belong to a child. But she sure as fuck wasn’t a child now. She’d grown into those eyes.

The floors zipped by and his pulse scrambled as they passed the fourth, then fifth floor. She’d overridden the hold he had on the elevator to stop.

“Shit, shit, shit,” he whispered even as he slammed his computers closed, hoping the information inside of them would be saved on impact.

He was going to die. An agent the government would never claim, killed in the line of duty, crushed in an elevator shaft halfway across the world.

“Cypher,” Gabe commanded. “What’s happening?” A man like Gabe Brennan didn’t panic. He was ice.

“She’s in the elevator,” he said quickly. He rolled flat and used his fist to punch through the flimsy metal ceiling panels just as the elevator jerked to a stop a few feet from the spinning turbine.

He went ass over elbow into the elevator, along with his laptops and the rest of the ceiling, but he rolled to his feet quickly in case she tried to finish him off before she saw his face. His computers were fucked, and that pissed him off all the more.

If it had been anyone else in this situation he would’ve laughed, but he wasn’t finding anything funny at the moment. If everyone came out alive and with their jobs intact they’d be damned lucky.

She leaned against the corner of the elevator, out of the way of the debris, as if she hadn’t a care in the world, a smirk on her full lips and her gaze buried into the tablet-like device in her hand as she issued it commands. A device that was still in the prototype phase and wasn’t out on the consumer market yet. He had one very similar to it. And he wondered where the
hell
she’d been hiding it because there was barely breathing room in that outfit she wore.

He took the comm unit from his ear and dropped it on the ground, crushing it beneath his heel. He’d never sacrificed the mission for anyone or anything before. But he was about to break that rule. Because he owed one man his life.

She didn’t bother looking at him, and he wondered where she’d gotten the balls to stand there like the stakes where too small to mess with. He would’ve admired her for it if he hadn’t been so furious.

“You’ve been out of play for too long, Cypher. You’re nosing your way into someone else’s game,” she said in Russian. “I expected much more from someone with your reputation, but it’s clear your day is over. You lose. I’ll see you down to the bottom floor so you can make your way out.”

She leaned forward to press the button to go back down, but he reached up and grabbed her arm. He wanted to shake some sense into, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so angry he was trembling with rage. Her head came up and her mouth opened to spew something at him, but she finally got a good look at his face. And all of the color left hers.

He didn’t give her a chance to work her magic on her device, but instead jerked it out of her hand and took her by the arm like a willful child. She
was
a willful child. What was she? Eighteen? Twenty? And when he saw the fear on her face he realized how little she knew about the kind of game she was playing.

He hit the
door open
button on the control panel and then pulled her into the cavernous sixth floor, quickly jamming the elevator door so no one else could use it.

Cold drafts of air blew from one side of the floor to the other. Some of the windows were missing and large sheets of plastic were tacked over them, rattling and flapping beneath the piercing wind. He welcomed the cold air as it blasted his overheated body.

“You’ve got about five minutes to explain to me why I should save your ass. You have got to be out of your fucking mind, Evangeline.” The angrier he got the more pronounced his low country accent. You could take the boy out of South Carolina…

She flinched at the use of her name, but straightened her shoulders and tried to jerk out of his hold. He had an even bigger urge to cover her up. She’d changed a lot since the last time he’d seen her. And he wasn’t altogether comfortable with it.

Sweat glistened across her skin even though puffs of white from the cold escaped her mouth. Her pulse fluttered in her neck and he could see the fear in her expression. But she didn’t back down. She’d always had more attitude than common sense. Because he was really, really pissed, and that defiant tilt of her chin was close to sending him right over the edge.

“I’m twenty years old. You’re not my keeper, Cal”

“You sure as shit need one, sugar. What the hell is your father going to say? You’re not only bringing yourself down, but you’re ruining the career and legacy of one of the best men I’ve ever known. So start fucking explaining yourself.” He let her go and then stood with his legs slightly spread and his arms crossed over his chest.

“Chill out. It’s just a game. You know that better than anyone. Right,
Cypher
?”

Her lips were slicked red and she smirked at him, arching an eyebrow in challenge. His body jerked in response, and his cock spiked hard as iron. That was not the look of an inexperienced woman. She had the kind of curves he loved, and damned if he could help the reaction his body had to them. But it was the combination of what she could accomplish with that brain of hers along with the body that was overloading his system. She was bad, bad, bad, and for some reason that appealed to his perverse self. He was going to be in big trouble if he didn’t get his shit together.

“To think it was you all this time,” she purred. “My biggest challenge. I’ve got to say, I thought the smell of victory would be sweeter.”

“Yeah, congratulations, Evie. You win. You’re surrounded by one of the best black ops teams in existence. I’ve got your computer,” he said, holding it up, “and we have all the data showing that you’re about to sell nuclear launch codes to one of our country’s biggest enemies. So tell me again how you beat me?”

She rolled her eyes and shrugged. “It’s not like the launch codes are real. I’m not an idiot. And despite what you think, I do know what my father does for a living. Saint Robert Lockwood. America’s top spy. Looks like he doesn’t know everything.”

Tears glistened in her eyes and he wondered what happened to the little girl who’d followed him around the first time he stepped foot in the Lockwood home as a fourteen year old boy. She’d annoyed the shit out of him. Yet he’d never told her to go away. She’d been eight years old and one of the only friends he could remember having during his childhood.

He thought of Robert like a second father, but he had no clue what the relationship was like between father and daughter. The tug of sympathy in his chest surprised him. He wasn’t a man to show empathy or dole out forgiveness either. And here he was ready to do it for a half-grown girl who deserved a better life than the one she was setting herself up for.

“You should be the last person to judge.” Anger flashed in her eyes. “You know what it takes to work your way up the hierarchy. I pull this off and I’m Queen.”

“Are you really so naïve that you think you can double cross a man like Yukov and get away with it? You think he doesn’t have his own personal army of hackers? You’ve heard of Tsar Ivan, right? He’s been off the grid as long as I have. Who do you think he’s working for?”

Cal shook his head in frustration. “You’re playing an adult’s game with the rules of a child. Yukov will hunt you down and kill you if you deliver him fake launch codes. And he will kill you painfully.”

“So what am I supposed to do? If you say someone like Tsar Ivan is working for Yukov then it looks like I’m fucked either way. Ivan might be out of the game, but I’ve studied his work. He’s been around a long time. And he’s good.”

“He’s not better than me,” Cal said. It wasn’t an empty boast.

“You’d fix this for me?” she asked, the surprise evident in her voice. “Why would you do something like that?”

“First of all because of your father. He was more of a dad to me than my own ever was.”

“Yeah, I know,” she said, rolling her eyes. “All I ever heard about growing up was you. You’re the son he never had and I’m the daughter he never wanted.”