Tempt Me
Authors: Tamara Hogan
Tags: #incubi sex demons aliens vampires nightclubs minneapolis hackers
UNDERBELLY CHRONICLES BOOK 3
C
opyright 2013 Tamara Hogan
All rights reserved
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Cover and interior design by
THE KILLION GROUP
The Underbelly Chronicles by Tamara Hogan
TASTE ME
CHASE ME
TOUCH ME
The Underworld Council
M
any thanks to Brenda Whiteside, Susan Sey, Carolyn Crane, and my blog mates at The Ruby Slippered Sisterhood for their continuing friendship, wise counsel, and always having my back. Virtual high fives to my awesome beta readers Sheronda Jeffries and Rebekah Thayer. A special thanks to Patty, for providing such a friendly place to write, and for keeping me caffeinated.
Last but definitely not least, perpetual thanks to Mark—for holding down the fort, for herding the cats, and for the gift of guilt-free time.
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T
he Underworld Council
INCUBUS – Elliott Sebastiani *
Second: Antonia Sebastiani
SIREN – Claudette Fontaine
Second: Scarlett Fontaine
WERE – Krispin Woolf
Second: Jacoby Woolf
VAMPIRE – Valerian
Second: Wyland
VALKYRIE – Alka Schlessinger
Second: Lorin Schlessinger
HUMANITY – (Vacant)
Emeritus: Carl Sagan (1934-1996)
SEC/TECH – Lukas Sebastiani
Second: Jack Kirkland
*President
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“W
ell.” Banner tapped the papers into a neat stack with obvious reluctance. “I believe everything is in order.”
Bailey glanced at the conference room door, her foot bouncing under the table. Everything had been ‘in order’ since she’d scribbled her signature on the last of the documents Banner had placed in front of her almost ten minutes ago. Before the meeting, she’d kicked off what she hoped was the final series of tests for a security enhancement, and she was anxious to see the results. Sebastiani Labs was getting hammered by malicious incursion attempts, and she had no idea why.
But it wasn’t every day that a girl was released from probation.
“A question, if you will.”
Yes, there it was—another stolen glance at the heavy security door leading to the working areas of Sebastiani Security. Banner had used every technique at his disposal to drag this meeting out, and it appeared he wasn’t quite finished yet. Jack Kirkland, the company’s managing partner, her lawyer, and her best friend, had complied with Banner’s request to hold this meeting at Bailey’s place of employment, but there was no way he was getting behind that closed door. Nope, upon Banner’s arrival, Jack had politely escorted him to The Goldfish Bowl, the no-privacy, glass-walled conference room right next to the front entrance. The meeting location had the added side benefit that Banner would be tormented looking at what he couldn’t have.
Jack could be nasty that way. Bailey heartily approved.
Under the table, Jack nudged her foot. She hadn’t responded to Banner’s question. “You can ask.” Not that she’d necessarily answer.
“Over the last decade, despite your criminal conviction, you’ve become one of the most highly-regarded computer security and penetration analysts in the business. You’ve had your choice of contracts, and named your own price. Why did you close your consultancy to work for someone else? To work...here?” Banner indicated the sterile conference room and looked out the window overlooking Washington Avenue. Across the street, Sex World was doing nice lunchtime business.
Her former clients had been happy to pay through the nose to have a notorious hacker-gone-good break into their computer systems and point out areas of weakness, but infamy wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. She hadn’t realized how valuable anonymity was until she didn’t have it anymore.
Anything you say can and will be used against you
. “I needed some downtime,” she finally said. As answers went, it was an honest one, but nowhere near the truth. The servers behind that generic steel door stored a secret that, if exposed, would rock humanity to its foundation. Protecting it took her entire arsenal of skill.
“Well. Congratulations, Ms. Brown.” Banner glanced up at the security camera mounted in the corner where wall met ceiling.
“Thank you.” It was Dr., not Ms., as the officious weenie damn well knew, but she didn’t bother to correct him. After spending over a third of her life under his supervision, after years and years of similar razor blade slights, her so-called corrections officer was minutes away from officially walking out of her life for good. Unofficially, she knew she’d be under surveillance for the rest of her natural life, but at least there’d be no more mandatory monthly meetings spent examining her online activity—the activity she allowed him to see, at any rate. None of her carefully planned test transactions had shown up on Banner’s odious report, and her work here seemed to be off his radar—for the moment, anyway. She half-listened as Jack, with his lawyerly attention to detail, arranged to have all monitoring software removed from Bailey’s personal computers—a formality, since she planned to wipe the hard drives and donate all of them to charity at her earliest opportunity—but she appreciated Jack busting Banner’s balls on her behalf.
She recognized the bulldog expression on Banner’s face. She was a mystery he hadn’t solved, a case he hadn’t really closed. Her very presence here drew too much attention to her friends, and the secret they all protected.
She was going to have to quit, for everyone’s good.
Finally, Jack rose from his seat at the head of the oblong conference room table. “Thank you, Mr. Banner.” Banner stood, and the two men shook hands one final time. They’d all been dealing with each other for over a decade, but no one had lapsed into familiarity by using first names.
Banner tucked the documents in his briefcase and carefully locked it, and Jack wasted no time escorting him out of the conference room, through the lobby, and to the front door. She followed the men. Who would see the documents she’d just signed? Where would they be filed? How high up the chain of command would they go? It would be
so
easy to find out. She’d mentally executed the hack so many times that the route was engraved on her synapses, but she’d restrained herself. It had been hacking, and a distinct lack of restraint, that had gotten her into this mess in the first place.
As Banner extended his meaty hand for her to shake, the basement door flew open. Lukas Sebastiani, wet-haired, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and bleeding from a small cut above his left eyebrow, stopped short. Chico Perez, his lieutenant and favorite sparring partner, followed closely behind.
On four legs.
Shit.
Banner’s eyes lit. “Mr. Sebastiani! I was told you had an unavoidable conflict at this time. What a stroke of luck.” He approached Lukas, extending his hand. “Andrew Banner. I’m Ms. Brown’s corrections officer.”
Lukas frowned down at him. “It’s Dr. Brown.”
Banner cleared his throat. “Yes. Quite. Very nice to meet you. And what a beautiful animal you have there. Such a glossy coat, and so, um, large. I don’t recognize the breed.”
“He’s...an unusual cross.”
Chico lifted his upper lip ever-so-slightly, exposing the tips of his gleaming white canines. Banner took a big step back.
Smart man.
“We work long hours here,” Lukas said. “Many of our employees bring their pets to work.”
Bailey fought to keep a straight face. Chico would make Lukas pay for that comment—but then again, maybe he already had. The cut above Lukas’s eyebrow looked suspiciously like a tooth nick.
She glanced pointedly at the wall clock. “I need to get back to work.”
“Always so industrious.” She had to give Banner credit; not the slightest bit of sarcasm twisted in his voice, but she knew it was there. “Good luck to you, Dr. Brown. I hope our time together has been instructive.”
It had. The time she’d spent under his surveillance had honed her already-prodigious skills to switchblade sharpness. “Are we done here?”
He nodded.
Game on. They both knew it.
Lukas finally shook Banner’s hand—Banner visibly winced—and then personally escorted him through the tempered glass doors to his car, impervious to the snow falling on his bare arms. Chico, loping at Lukas’s side, might have had something to do with how quickly Banner scurried behind the wheel of his nondescript gray four-door sedan and closed the door behind him.
“Free at last!” Jack lifted her off the ground and gave her a hug. Face to face with him, her Converse-clad feet dangled over a foot off the ground. “Congratulations!”
“Free? Right.” Her lungs felt shrink-wrapped. It was hard to speak. “I’m giving notice.”
“What? Declined.”
“Jack, surely you can see—”
“Declined,” he repeated. “That’s fear talking. I’m not setting you down until your brain kicks into gear again.”
“Damn right it’s fear talking! Christ on a cracker, Jack, he’s more curious now than ever. At least when everything was official, we knew what he was up to. Now we don’t know
who
the hell will be watching me, how, or from where.”
“We’ll deal with it.” His arms tightened, his voice softened. “Bailey, we’ll deal with it. Don’t forget where you work.”
“What if my precautions fail?” So far, her security suite was doing the job, but the digital gauntlet protecting Sebastiani Security, Sebastiani Labs and Council_Net took constant focus and attention. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept through the night. “What if someone finds a loophole I haven’t considered? What if someone penetrates? I have to protect against every possible vulnerability, every single day, but someone else only has to find one way in. Once. What if I can’t...?” With a heavy sigh, she let her forehead drop to Jack’s wide, suit-covered shoulder.
She was...so tired.
“You need a break.”
“You’re kidding, right? I’m months behind on the data archiving project, and I haven’t begun to figure out a safe way to crack the tech unit Lorin found at the Isabella dig last summer.” She lifted her head. “I still don’t know how—or even whether—it latched onto Sebastiani Labs’ network, and if it did, what kind of hole it might have created. I’m—”