His command scrapes something raw inside of me. I thought we were past that rule. I thought he’d learned to trust me. Learned to care.
I think about trying again. If I can get my fingers on his cock, I can make him change his mind. My lips, even better. If I catch him with the molten space between my thighs, he’ll never be able to resist, even with the cameras watching.
But he pulls my hand close to my chest. He covers my fingers with his own. Squeezing his thighs, he holds me close and whispers again, “Not tonight. Say it.”
I raise his hand to my lips. I smell myself on his fingertips as I kiss him. I turn my head to the side, and I give him what he commands, what he wants, what he needs more than he needs my body. “Not tonight,” I whisper. “Master.”
He rewards me by pulling me even closer. And for now, for tonight, that’s enough.
20
COLE
I’ve been awake, showered, and dressed for almost four hours, poring over the computer code that has obsessed me for the past week. I originally pitched the Money Box to Barry Lynch because I thought it would be a useful tool to keep him from monopolizing my time. But it took me less than a day to realize the con has far greater potential: It can take down Pyotr Tarasov.
My father-in-law and the bratva brigadier seem newly joined at the hip as Lynch tries to sell his remaining daughter to the Russians. I figure Lynch will sweeten the pot by throwing in my custom software within forty-eight hours of receiving my code.
Once Tarasov has it, Kate and I will get a birds-eye view of every website the Russian tries to access. We’ll see his bank accounts. His investment strategies. We’ll know the entire structure of the Baltimore bratva, along with every man he tries to intimidate and every woman he fucks.
But Tarasov adds a high level of risk to the entire con. Lynch doesn’t have the chops to spot any fake program; I could have finished four days ago if I only had to fool him. Tarasov, though, is actually an extremely skilled hacker. He proved that through all the years he ran with Kate and her Red Cap Raiders.
So I just have to be better.
That’s why I’m reviewing the output protocols for the fifth time, inspecting every line of code to guarantee nothing sends up a flare. I’d actually be through with this part of the project if I weren’t repeatedly distracted by memories of last night.
Kate tied down in front of me…
Kate straining for release without me…
Kate calling meMaster…
It’s all there, in my mind. I haven’t even begun to view the cameras’ footage. I don’t need to.
My phone rings at a quarter to seven. Uncomfortably, I shift to reach it, adjusting the crotch of my black dress pants. When I answer, Fiona Moran’s voice is as tight as the corsets she used to wear to business meetings.
“I’m not imagining these problems,” she says.
“Of course you aren’t,” I say, because the client is always right. Even when the client is a young woman managing her first business venture—Boston’s Irish mob. And when that client has already rejected three of my best employees.
“I’m missing half my accounts,” Fiona says.
She’s running a criminal enterprise worth billions of dollars. The layers of bank accounts, foreign and domestic, would be confusing to an accountant who’s spent years in the business. Fiona has been running her clan for barely a year.
“You aren’t missing your accounts,” I say, because Chase Madison wouldn’t have done that to her. Madison has an MBA from Stanford, and he’s been coding since he was five. He hasthe best paper credentials of any employee I’ve ever hired for Lone Wolf.
As I speak, I pull my keyboard close. Typing in a complicated string of numbers and letters from memory, I help myself to the back door of Fiona’s computer system. “You just misunderstood?—”
She hasn’t misunderstood.
The accounts are missing from her dashboard, but they aren’t actually gone. All of the details still exist, the complicated net of usernames and passwords, but a vital connection has been cut.
“Hold on,” I say, pulling up an activity log. I immediately see Fiona’s login attempts this morning, repeated with increasing frequency as she tried to access the suspended accounts. I work my way through the time stamps to yesterday, the day before…
There. Friday afternoon. There’s a sloppy bit of coding; it looks like Madison was trying to consolidate updates to make his own task easier.
“This will take a few minutes,” I say.
“I’ll wait.” Fiona’s voice is dry. I’d prefer for her to hang up so I can type in peace, but she’s the one who’s been inconvenienced. She gets to decide.