Just a Bit Shameless (Straight Guys 8)

That wasn’t true. Dominic hadn’t found him because Sam had been careful, not because—not because—

Sam shoved the thought away, hating the way it made his throat and chest ache. He had a job to do. He couldn’t afford being distracted by stupid thoughts. Because they were stupid.

They were so stupid that they had been haunting him for months.

Maybe Dominic had been glad to get rid of him. Maybe it had been a relief for Dominic to come home and see him gone. Maybe Dominic hadn’t even bothered to look for him.

Realizing that it wasn’t the computer’s screen that was getting blurry, Sam blinked furiously. When that didn’t work, he wiped the wetness off his eyes. Wetness, not tears. He wasn’t crying.

Get it together, dammit, he told himself and focused on the computer.

It required a password, of course.

It was a good thing he’d come prepared. Sam pulled a flash drive out of his pocket and plugged it in.

Strictly speaking, Sam had stolen the government’s property when he’d copied the hacking program from MI6’s ultrabook to his cloud storage, but Sam didn’t feel particularly guilty about it. It had been useful, and he liked useful things. He hadn’t really thought he would ever need it; he’d copied it just in case.

It was a good thing he had.

Sam grinned when the password screen disappeared and Windows booted up normally.

As he had expected and hoped, the computer was isolated from any networks. It had been one of the first things his MI6 trainer drummed into the trainees’ heads: no computer was completely protected as long as it was connected to the Internet. If one had something to hide, one had to cut off one’s computer from any networks.

It looked like Roman Demidov had something to hide.

Smiling a little, Sam started copying anything that seemed remotely promising.

Later, Sam would blame the glare of the screen and his elation at the successful break-in for his lack of attention on the door.

Later, he would blame himself for getting too greedy and wanting to copy as many documents as possible.

But hindsight was twenty-twenty.

“Well, well, well. What do we have here?”

Chapter 31

The voice made him freeze.

Slowly, Sam lifted his head and flinched at the sight of the tall man leaning casually against the door, a gun in his hand. Fuck.

The man switched the lights on.

When Sam’s eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness, he found himself looking into the pale blue eyes of Roman Demidov.

Sam swallowed, breaking into a cold sweat. There was something about this man that made him feel scared. Sam wondered if jumping from the third floor would be less painful than whatever Demidov would do to him.

He glanced at the window behind him—

“Don’t even think about it,” Demidov said, walking closer. The Russian wasn’t even pointing the gun at him, but he held it with easy confidence that reminded Sam of the way Dominic handled guns, so he didn’t doubt that this man could point the gun at him in a fraction of a second if Sam gave him a reason to.

Sweeping his gaze over Roman Demidov’s tall, powerful body, Sam thought miserably that the Russian wouldn’t even need a gun to kill him. He had a similar build to Dominic. He looked a bit like Dominic, actually—if Dominic had creepy blue eyes and paler skin.

Can you fucking stop thinking about Dominic when there’s a Russian crime boss a few feet away? Sam snapped at himself, dismayed by the predictable direction of his thoughts.

“Who are you?” Roman Demidov said, his relaxed posture contradicting the piercing, attentive look in his eyes. “Or rather, who sent you?”

“No one,” Sam said. “I meant no harm.”

Demidov actually laughed. It sounded… disturbingly normal. Why did villains sound so normal? First Brylsko, now Demidov. At this point, some evil cackling would be refreshing.

“You broke into my house in the middle of the night and hacked into my computer just for the fun of it?” Roman said mildly. “Am I supposed to believe it, kid?”

“I consider this a job application,” Sam said, looking as sincere and eager as he could manage. You must be able to look someone in the eye and sell the most outrageous lie.

Sam drew strength from that memory and continued, “I’m in Billy Redknap’s gang, sir. I’ve heard through the grapevine that you’re hiring, so…” He hung his head in feigned embarrassment. “I wanted to impress you. I’ve heard that you don’t hire just anyone.” Sam actually had no idea whether Demidov was hiring or not. It was just a hunch. Demidov had moved to London very recently, so logically, he must have been hiring, right?

He waited, holding his breath and praying that Demidov bought it.

The door opened again. “Roman, what’s taking so long—”

Sam nearly groaned. Just his luck. Luke Whitford had the worst timing in the world.

“Luke, wait for me downstairs,” Demidov said, but Luke cut him off.