It was almost five. Stryker was hangry enough to chew his arm off, and in desperate need of taking out his frustration on a punching bag.
On his way home, he called Brooks. “Update me.”
“IT inventoried the FBI pod. Eleven laptops are missing. We’ve got no power, so they’re working until we lose sunlight. They’re back in the morning. The technicians start tomorrow. Their plan is to get us back online by Monday. How’d your meeting go?”
“A clusterfuck. FBI wants to shut us down while they do a full investigation. They’ve got every right, but I pushed back.”
“No surprise there,” Brooks said.
“I told them we’d shut down any clients affected by the break-in.”
“I take it your bossing them around didn’t fly,” Brooks replied.
“I left. We’ll know more tomorrow.”
“I called Maverick Hott at ThunderStrike,” Brooks said. “He’s sending a team to guard the building until power is reinstated,” Brooks said.
“Smart thinking. Anything else?”
“A reporter called me. I told him ‘No comment’ and hung up.” The call ended and Stryker finished his drive home in a fuming silence.
After changing into a T-shirt and shorts, he went for a hard run that ended at his gym. After beating the hell out of a punching bag, he lifted. Dripping in sweat, he returned home and showered.
He had fifty-four texts, eighteen missed calls, and a hundred and forty-seven unread emails. Scanning the texts, he found Emerson’s.
“Still on for tonight?” she texted.
He texted her back. “Work ran over. How’s 8? Dinner at club while we work.”
She responded with a thumb’s up emoji and a smiley.
The tightness in his chest lifted a little. Her simple reply was the best part of his day.
11
Round Two
Emerson knew something was off the second she saw him. Stryker was waiting at the back door of The Dungeon, his hands curled into fists, his jaw muscles flexing in his cheeks. He was staring right at her, but not seeing her, the intensity in his gaze a powerful aphrodisiac. He looked sexier than hell in a black T-shirt and tight jeans, his muscles straining against the cotton fabric.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey, yourself. What’s going on?”
“Different day, different shit.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“Talk? No. But I can think of several other things I’d like to do. Starting with putting my fist through another fucking wall.”
Another wall?“I’m a good listener.”
He shook his head. “Let’s get to work. I need a distraction.”
As soon as they entered the club, the sensual beat of the music rumbled through her. If she hadn’t been there to work, she’d have pulled him onto the dance floor, held him flush against her, and gotten lost in everything Stryker. She would have asked him to tie her up or role play a scene, just the two of them. She would relish in his beautiful body and angry mind, letting him release his inner wild on her. And she would take all of him until she had drained him of his frustration, leaving only happy, relaxed Stryker.
But Emerson didn’t live in that world. Hers was reality-based, and they were working together to catch a killer.
Stryker flagged down a bartender on L1. “Two dinners, to-go.”