Love and Wargames: A Bad Boy Hacker Romance (2 page)

Twelve-oh-one.
It’s showtime, Synergy.

I move to activate the worm and my security system alerts loudly from my phone.

Well, shit.

I spin around in my chair and roll over to my second desk to check the monitors. Someone is outside of my apartment door — make that
two
someones — and they aren’t here to sell me girl scout cookies, that’s for sure. Unless the ladies changed their uniforms to include spec-ops black and tactical vests.

One is male, mid-twenties with ash brown hair in desperate need of a trim — not that I’m one to talk about that. The other is female; petite but muscular with hair that looks like a beaten up red crayon. She stands in front of the security panel with a screwdriver in her hand, thinking she can probably brute force her way through my system. She can’t — but it’s cute that she’s trying.

I enable voice decryption and flick on the microphone. “Um… Excuse me, madam,” I say. She instantly pauses and stares straight ahead into camera. “I don’t mean to alarm you two but the police have been notified and they’re on their way to this location.”

“No, they aren’t.” She smiles at the camera.

Say cheese.

I open my facial recognition software and it goes to work, scanning every point and dimple of her little face. Now, I just have to keep her talking while it checks her against every law enforcement and identification database in the world.

“Open the door, Mr. Carson,” she says. “We just want to talk.”

“Oh, I’d love to chat with you, sweetheart,” I say. “Ditch the shadow and we’ll go have a drink. My treat.”

She glances back and rolls her eyes at the guy as he chuckles softly. “Mr. Carson, we’re looking for a friend of yours.”

My eyes shift to back to the facial recognition software. Sixty percent finished and not one damn match. “I don’t have any friends.”

“Oh, sure you do.”

“Which agency are you with?” I ask. “Let me see some credentials.”

“We’re not with any agency. Our interests are more personal.”

“You’re going to have to be more specific...”

The software halts, matching her face to one name:
Lilah Anne Hart.
Deceased. Born in Madison, Wisconsin. Died in Madison, Wisconsin. And yet… here she is.

“How’s this for specific,
Bart
…?” she says, her voice falling firmer. “Either you open this door and answer my questions right now or I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll kick your fucking teeth in.”

I raise my brow. “You talk a lot for a dead girl, Lilah.”

She flexes her jaw in anger as I speed-read her file. Her parents died when she was seven, leaving her and her two brothers in the care of their ailing grandparents. No record of a home address, which is extremely strange… They went through a lot of trouble to erase it from existence.

Why?

I look back at the monitor. “And the gentleman behind you must be
Elijah
, your also dead twin. Hello there—”

“Where is Fox Fitzpatrick?” she asks, cutting right to the damn chase.

Holy shit.

I cross-check their names against the master file — yeah,
the
master file, the one I cracked into to help Fox expose his former employer — the most deadly criminal organization on the planet.

Snake Eyes.

You saw the news that week. It was hard to miss. It all started with a dead almost-President and a kidnapped movie starlet and ended with her in the hospital and the F.B.I. announcing that an underground organization of assassins existed and
anyone
could be among them. The country has been a mess ever since. A modern day fucking witch hunt.

And now, Lilah and Elijah Hart have come knocking. I scan their files again. Elite Snake Eyes agents. He’s a medic, for the most part, and she’s…

Ah, crap.

A chill of fear crawls down my spine. I don’t feel it often anymore but it definitely makes itself known whenever Snake Eyes is involved and right now there’s two of them standing at my damn door.

“Who?” I ask, stalling.

“Fox Fitzpatrick,”
she repeats. “We know you know him. We know you were with him at the hotel in Colorado. Just tell us where he is now and I’ll leave your index fingers intact so you can keep—” she points her fingers and flexes them back and forth “—tapping away at those keys.”

I stand up and grab my messenger bag off the floor. “I assure you, you are quite mistaken,” I say, rushing to unplug my laptop and shove it inside.

Again, her lips curl on her smug, little face. “That’s all right. Our mistake. We’ll just go ask
your wife
instead. Perhaps she knows where her old army buddy is.”

I freeze. “I don’t have a wife.”

“Oh, we both know
that’s
not true.”

Fuck.

My heart tightens. I bite my tongue until I taste blood.

Lilah’s eyebrow inches upward. “Mr. Carson?” she sings.

I throw my bag over my shoulder and grab my phone, feeling completely torn in half by the fight-or-flight stand-off wrecking my sympathetic nervous system. There are two options here: I can stay and fight or I can crawl through the window and slide down the fire escape before they realize I’m gone —
hopefully
.

I should stay. It’s the heroic thing to do, right? Stand my ground. Protect what’s mine.
Once more unto the breach—

“Mr. Carson?” Her eyes get even narrower as her impatience comes to a head.

I step over to my desktop computer and activate the worm, filling my account with a quarter of a million untraceable dollars to run away with.

See? I told you I wasn’t Robin Hood.

My name is Bartholomew Eugene Carson — but you can call me Boxcar.

Everyone else does.

Chapter 2

Caleb

Los Angeles

Present Day

“Hey, sweetie — how much for the 9-iron?”

I twitch. Nothing pisses me off more than when random, strange men start firing terms of endearment at me but I can’t risk losing another sale right now.

I throw on my best customer-serving smile and crane my neck to get a better look over the counter. “Oh, that one is two-hundred and fifty.”

“Dollars?!”

“Yes, sir.”

He waddles towards the counter and his bulbous gut quivers beneath his shirt. “It’s a damn golf club.”

“It’s an antique,” I point out, still smiling.

His eyes blink as if I just spoke some foreign language. “It’s a golf club.”

I hold my breath, trying very hard not to sigh with annoyance. “It’s a
really
nice golf club, sir...”

“I’ll give you twenty for it.”

Are you fucking kidding me?

“I’m sorry, sir. Prices are final.”

He scoffs and tosses the club to the floor. “What the hell kind of pawn shop is this? I want to speak to the manager.”

I clear my throat. “You’re looking at her.”

His cackle travels through my ears and down my spine. “No, honey. I mean the
owner
—”

“Yeah. That’s
me.
”

He looks me up and down and his eyes pause just a hair too long on my cleavage.
“You?
What are you, like, four-foot-nine?”

“Five-five in heels but that’s not really relevant to the one-hundred-year-old golf club you just dropped on my damn floor.”

“Yeah,” he chuckles, “and what are you gonna do about it, huh?”

“Pick it up.”

He keeps laughing and little drops of spit hit the counter between us. “Yeah, sure,
honey
— I’ll get right on that once you’re done sucking me off like a good, little girl.”

I inhale a deep breath. Saturdays always bring in the absolute worst customers, especially the last ones of the night. There’s something about this city that attracts the most worthless scum in the world but I guess that’s one of the reasons why I strayed out here in the first place. It’s easy to get lost in the fray and blend in with the bright lights of old Hollywood Boulevard.

City of Angels, my ass.

“Pick it up,” I repeat.

He steps back, humoring me. “Okay, okay…” He waves his hands and bends over to grab the club.

I watch him closely — looking for any sudden flexes in his muscles. His fingers wrap around the thin grip, instantly going white with his tight squeeze. There’s a stiffness in his abdomen as he clenches up and he quickly inhales.

Yep. That’s what I thought.

He rises fast, spinning around to strike me with the club. I’m sure he has his reasons; an uppity woman having the audacity to
“disrespect him”
most likely reigning at the top of his list. I’ve dealt with insecure fuckwads like him in the past and I’m positive he won’t be the last of them.

I easily block the blow with one hand, wrapping my fingers around his wrist and holding it in the air. He tries to tug away but he can’t. The surprise in his eyes is absolutely delicious.

“Apologize,” I say, calm as standing water.

“What the fuck—”

I twist his hand, bending it just a touch more than its meant to, and he squeals like a little, pink piglet. The club slips from his hand and I grab it as his instincts kick in. He tries to fight back but not before I pull him down to the counter and hold him against it with the club, pushing it hard into the back of his neck like a rolling pin.

“Porky, I’m going to ask again and then I’m going to get mad,” I say. “Apologize,
please
.”

His wet breath heaves against the glass counter top, fogging it up with his stench. “All right — all right — I was just fuckin’ around. Don’t gotta be such a bitch about it—” I dig in harder and he shrieks.
“Fuck— lady! I’m sorry!”

I push into him as I let him go, bouncing back to put a bit of distance between us. “Now, get out of my shop.” I keep my grip on the club as he rises, ready to beat him with it if he drifts even an inch closer.

He straightens up and adjusts his jacket, his eyes once again falling to my chest. This time, he looks right passed my tits and notices the dog tags hanging from my neck. “Christ, lady… what are you? Army?”

“Once upon a time,” I answer.

His face shifts from annoyance to respect. “Thank you for your service—”

“Dude, get the fuck out.”

“Right.” He spins around and rushes outside without looking back.

I hop over the counter and walk across the aisle to hang the golf club back up onto the wall where he got it. A quick glance around the empty shop tells me there were no witnesses to that little spat — either that, or they all bailed the second he tried to hit me.

That’s Los Angeles for you.
I ain’t seen nothing, officer.

Oh, well. It’s almost midnight anyway. Might as well close up and count the pennies I earned today selling old, used shit to the masses.

Tomorrow is Sunday. Sunday is my favorite day of the week. It’s my day off, it’s quiet, but most of all… debt collectors take the day off, too.

Twenty-four whole hours to myself. It’s all I have to look forward to every week.

And then it’s back to this dump I call my basement.

Chapter 3

Caleb

Afghanistan

Two Years Ago

“Hey, Fawn — you stay back.”

I nod and roll my eyes, thankfully hidden behind the shaded goggles on my head. “Yes, sir.”

It’s not the first time Sergeant Rhys has told me to keep to the rear in a potentially dangerous situation and honestly, I don’t really blame him. Society is hardwired to protect women and children and I get that, but I signed up for this war just like every other man in my unit. By default, they are soldiers.

I have to prove it.