Tempt Me (19 page)

Crap. His entire setup was likely compromised. Had Cheyenne...no. Last night was the first time she’d been to his place, and she hadn’t touched any of his equipment—nothing that wasn’t attached to his body, at any rate. He’d personally escorted her to the door several hours ago.

But now Buddha had tipped his hand, speaking up when he could have lurked, quietly collecting information. He wanted something. Throwing back the covers, Wyatt stood, fully naked, and unhurriedly reached for the gray sweatpants Cheyenne had stripped off him last night. It was past time he found out who the hell he was dealing with.

“No need for pay-per-view with this set-up, is there?” he drawled. “Free porn. Quite the job perk.”

An expression of distaste tightened the man's face. “Mr. Cooper, there has been no progress. You may not be the right man for this job.”

He didn’t respond, waiting.

“Very good,” the man finally said. “You're not completely without skills. But perhaps it’s time to admit, just between the two of us, that your technical abilities might not be up to this task.”

“Whose are?” he said with a shrug. The safeguards that Bailey had put in place at Sebastiani Labs had shut his Dream Team down cold.

“You are barely competent technically, but—” Buddha’s eyebrow rose, lifting a roll of forehead fat “—when you employ your social engineering skills, your success rate improves significantly.” A dark-suited man handed him a sheaf of papers, which he quickly flipped through. “With some delightful side benefits, I see.” He held up a picture of Cheyenne, riding him, her long dark hair streaming down her back. “You're a very busy man.”

His stomach clutched as he assessed the camera angle. Had Buddha reversed the webcam, or had he installed cameras of his own? “Who
are
you?”

“You may call me ‘Sir.’”

“Give me a name,” he snapped.

“Mr. Cooper, you aren't in a position to ask any questions, or make any demands.” He indicated the window he was speaking from with his chubby hand. “Do you have any doubt whatsoever that I have all of the data and resources I require to incarcerate you for the rest of your natural life?”

No, he didn’t doubt it at all—but all things being equal, he’d rather take his chances with this guy than with the Council and Lukas Sebastiani.

Were
all things equal? He had no idea.

Anger grew—anger at himself. He’d gotten cocky. Buddha, or his dark-suited minions, had found his condo, infiltrated his equipment. He'd been operating so blithely, so successfully, for so long, it hadn't crossed his mind that he could be the target of the same schemes he used on others. Despite the sweat pants, he suddenly felt stark naked. Padding across the room, he pulled a thick sweatshirt off the top shelf of his closet.

“Mr. Cooper.”

“I’m getting dressed,” he said, scouring the corners of the room for surveillance equipment while he was out of the man’s sightlines. As soon as this conversation was over, he was going to rip the place apart from top to bottom.

“Mr. Cooper, there has been a troubling lack of progress thus far.”

And the guy hadn’t hung up yet, made any threats, or arrested him. Yes, he needed something. Stepping into his slippers, he took a seat at the desk, facing Buddha businessman to businessman.

“Your worm managed a miniscule degree of infiltration before it hit a brick wall. What happened?”

He wanted to know the answer to that question, too. SkoolHaus had taken the failure personally, and was tearing his code apart at this very moment. But damn it, he would
not
be lectured like a schoolboy who’d failed a test.
They’d
come to
him
. They’d approached him for a reason, even if he didn’t yet know what the reason was. Time to push a little
.
“Each failure reveals something about their infrastructure. Perhaps you could tell me what you’ve already tried.” Analyzing your failures might help me discover a feasible attack vector more quickly.”

On-screen, Buddha stopped flicking through pages with his chubby finger. His face was completely blank, but menace throbbed across the ether. If they were meeting in person, Wyatt might very well have hands around his throat right now. He swallowed as stomach acid tried to crawl out of his throat.

“I’ll take your request under consideration.”

Wyatt’s confidence surged at the concession. “Thank you. The information would be very helpful. To your earlier point about social engineering, I’m making progress. The woman in the photo? Her name is Cheyenne Winterbourne, and she’s the network architect at Sebastiani Labs.”

“Spelling?”

“What?”

“How is her name spelled?” As Wyatt rattled off the letters, Buddha turned his head to speak with one of the suits behind him.

The minion bent closer to listen, bringing his head into the frame.

Wyatt watched his lips.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Ba—” The guy turned away, scurrying to do Buddha’s bidding.

Crap.
A partial name was all he had.

“Carry on, Mr. Cooper,” Buddha said. “I'll be in touch.”

The screen went black.

Damn it.
Leaning back in his desk chair, he released a shaky breath. “Mr. Ba.” It wasn’t much, but it was something. He’d tap some contacts, put out some feelers—
after
he tore his apartment apart, eradicating any surveillance equipment he found, and installing some safeguards of his own.

––––––––

G
iven how many other options there’d been for her to choose from, she couldn’t begrudge the Council members their spicy lasagna. Chadden’s tomato basil soup had been delectable, but the creamy risotto had gone down like a dream. She hadn’t had a full stomach in ages. “Push calories,” she grumbled under her breath as she took a seat at the boardroom table next to Jack. Okay, maybe her pants
had
gotten a little loose—no need to make a big federal deal out of it—but if she made it through this meeting without her stomach stinging like a thousand paper cuts, maybe she'd ask Chadden to make her some more risotto. It might be easier on her stomach than his ultra-rich pasta.

“Quiet, please. Let’s come to order,” Willem requested from his seat near the head of the table. He waited for the chatter to subside. “Security shades engaged?”

“Engaged,” Lukas seconded. The tell-tale blur let in natural light minus the UV, and also blocked the view of anyone who might be trying to look in from the outside.

Willem dimmed the room. “Voice and data recording initiated.”

Establishing secure storage for the Council’s highly confidential records had been her first assignment as a Sebastiani Security employee.

As Willem displayed the agenda on the large screen mounted on the wall at the end of the oblong room, she verified that her mini was set to vibrate and placed it on her lap, where it would be available for some surreptitious back-channel communication. Settling into the large leather chair, she looked around the room she privately called the Holodeck. Valkyrie First Alka Schlessinger was still on sabbatical, but otherwise it looked like they had a full house. Valerian, recovering from a bout of pneumonia, was attending the meeting holographically. No doubt Wyland had recommended that he not expose himself to germs by attending the meeting in person.

She bit her lip. She’d intended to ask Wyland about Valerian’s health at their meeting earlier, but it had completely slipped her mind.

The Underworld Council's make-up was species based, with two representatives, a First and a Second, attending each meeting. Lukas had mixed things up a couple of years ago by abdicating his seat as the Incubus Second to focus exclusively on security and technology risks. Antonia had assumed Lukas's position as Second, to Rafe and Sasha’s everlasting relief.

Starting with Elliott, they circled around the table, with everyone stating their name and affiliation. “Elliott Sebastiani, representing incubi and succubi.”

Low-key and ego-free, Elliott definitely had a tendency toward understatement. “Elliott Sebastiani, Incubus First and Underworld Council President, present and presiding,” Willem stated for the record.

“Claudette Fontaine, Siren First.”

“Scarlett Fontaine, Siren Second.” Scarlett, looking a little pale, nibbled on a saltine cracker. Lukas, sitting next to her, gave a hard swallow, but the trash can he’d gotten into the habit of carrying around with him at Sebastiani Security was nowhere in sight. Krispin Woolf, the WerePack Alpha, would swoop in like a crow on carrion at the slightest sign of weakness.

“Lukas Sebastiani, Security and Technology First,” he said, thumbing a tube of antacids.

“Jack Kirkland, Security and Technology Second.”

It was her turn. “Bailey Brown, Security and Technology subject matter expert.”

Seated across the table, Krispin Woolf straightened. “Point of procedure. I request we clear the room of any attendees not explicitly sanctioned in our charter.”

“Right on schedule,” she muttered under her breath.

Jack jabbed her leg under the table.

She sat back in her chair, arms crossed. Every month, Krispin tried to get her booted from this meeting, and every month he was voted down.

“Voice vote,” Willem stated. “All those in favor of clearing the room of subject matter experts, please say Aye.”

“Aye,” Krispin said.

“Opposed?”

A chorus of ‘opposed’s’ filled the room, including that of the WerePack Beta, Krispin’s son Jacoby.

“The opposed votes carry,” Willem said.

She leaned over toward Jack again. “As a point of procedure, we should finish taking attendance before taking a vote.”

“Shh.”

She hated to admit it, but Krispin had a point. Somehow, over the last year, she’d gone from being a subject matter expert who attended fifteen minutes of the meeting and then left, to not leaving at all. She flicked a glance up to the agenda. First up was a discussion about the qualifications of yet another candidate to fill the Humanity Chair, a position left vacant by Carl Sagan's death. Lorin sometimes joked that they should just offer
her
the Humanity Chair and be done with it already. Hopefully the Council would come to a decision soon. Bailey wasn't at
all
comfortable with her opinions being taken as a proxy for all of humanity, even if Jack was at her side.

Lorin introduced herself for the record, explaining that her mother, Alka, was enjoying her sabbatical and had just taken a very interesting side trip to the Nazca lines in Peru. When she glanced up, Elliott scrutinized her from his seat at the head of the table. She leaned back in her chair, using Jack’s body to block his steely gray gaze, only to find Wyland, across the table, watching with his unimpeded sightline. 

“Jacoby Woolf, WerePack Beta.” Jacoby’s motorized scooter was positioned a chilly three feet away from his father’s chair, a visual reflection of the fractured relationship between Alpha and Beta. Last year, Jacoby had voted with the majority against his father’s highly risky proposal to accelerate research on one of Lorin’s most intriguing archaeological finds: a capsule, nearly two feet long, made of the same unknown alloy as the unusual lockbox, containing dozens of vials of organic material—material Woolf the Elder had wanted to use for an ill-conceived gene-splicing project. Though the vote had occurred months ago, there was still a rift between father and son. If the men had exchanged a single word since they’d arrived, she hadn’t seen or heard it.

“Krispin Woolf, WerePack Alpha.” He flicked a dismissive glance at Lukas, seated across the table from him. “I see from the agenda you’re proposing yet another candidate for the Humanity Chair.”

To say Krispin Woolf disliked Lukas would be an understatement. Having lost his bid for Council presidency to Elliot Sebastiani some years ago, Woolf had expanded the scope of his enmity to include the younger generation. The fact that his arrows rarely injured his targets enraged him.

“Not my candidate,” Lukas responded.

Woolf looked startled, and opened his mouth to respond.

“Let's finish taking attendance, please,” Willem interjected smoothly.

She felt sorry for Willem. Keeping this powerful, unruly crew on-task was an impossible job.

“Wyland, Vampire Second.”

“Valerian, Vampire First,” Valerian said. Always an eccentric dresser, today the elderly historian looked like Hugh Hefner hosting a party at the Playboy mansion in his heavy silk pajamas and bathrobe. She picked up her coffee cup and sipped to hide her tiny smile. When you were over nine hundred years old, you could wear what you damn well pleased.

“I'm glad you could join us, sir,” Willem said before stating his own name for the record. “Our first item today—”

“Whose candidate is it?” Woolf interrupted.

Bailey exhaled heavily. ‘Imperious’ was the WerePack Alpha’s default affect. The diplomatic Willem always had his hands full herding this particular cat.

“Whose?” Woolf repeated.

“Mine,” Claudette answered.

Okay,
that
took the wind out of Krispin’s sails.

Lukas had proposed the three previous candidates—Michio Kaku, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Brian Cox—any of whom, in her opinion, had more than the right stuff to shepherd humanity through the complex array of issues that would arise when people learned that, not only were they not alone in the universe, they’d shared their planet with so-called ‘aliens’ for thousands of years. In Krispin Woolf's opinion, each candidate had possessed a fatal flaw—being human. Though Lukas’s proposal to begin an active search to fill the Humanity Chair had been accepted by the Council long ago, Woolf continued to undermine the process. None of the candidates had been completely knocked out of the running yet—she thought Brian Cox would be an absolutely perfect choice—but the search, and the political in-fighting, continued.

She looked at Lukas, sitting with a neutral expression on his face. That faker. He knew perfectly well who this candidate was. Even before Elliott and Lukas had bonded with Claudette and Scarlett, the incubi and sirens had been strong political allies.