“That’s a good look on you, Eden.” Jax’s laughing voice came from the doorway and we both spun to face him. Eden’s face was bright red and she shrank down into the coat like a turtle trying to hide in its shell.
“I—um—spilled something on my shirt,” she stammered. Jax’s grin grew to epic proportions and I quickly pushed her behind me and scowled.
“What the fuck do you want, jackass?” I snarled.
“I just came to see if you wanted to grab some lunch,” he explained, leaning casually against the doorjamb. His eyes glittering with mischief, he gestured to something behind me. “Looks like you’ve already eaten.”
Eden shrieked, and I glanced back to see her scrambling to her discarded underwear. She snatched them up and shoved them in her pocket before turning blue death-rays on me. I shrugged unapologetically. With the exception of Jax turning up, I wasn’t the least bit sorry for what had just happened.
Turning back to Jax, I clenched my fists in anger. I didn’t like him seeing her panties or her freshly fucked look. It was my fault, though. Usually, if I took her at work, I did it in my office where it stayed private and I could easily clean her up afterwards.
But when she’d waltzed into the room in her short little skirt, and after I’d been pouring over all the shit for the case for hours...fuck, I just had to have her, right then. I was sure I was going to get my ass chewed out by Eden later.
“Watch it, Jax,” I warned. He lifted his hands as though surrendering, but his grin was still firmly affixed to his face as he backed out the door.
“Behave!” I heard Natalie admonish him.
“Um, Natalie?” Eden called.
Natalie poked her head in. “Sorry about him.”
“It’s fine. No, I was wondering if you have any extra clothes in your office.”
I could tell Natalie was fighting off her own smile, but she managed to contain it. “I’ll bring a couple shirts to Isaac’s office,” she agreed before leaving.
Eden marched right past me and I figured the best way to avoid a scene and placate her was to silently follow. When we reached my office, she plopped down onto the couch and folded her arms across her chest.
I moved to the couch and dropped down beside her before dragging her into my lap. Nuzzling my nose in the crook of her neck, I placed hot little kisses there and felt her tension melt away. I sincerely hoped that she never stopped being so affected by me.
“Thanks for bringing my lunch, Sunshine,” I said with a grin.
She sighed and smacked my arm lightly, but when I looked up, her eyes were dancing with amusement.
“You’re welcome. Now, let me tell you the other reason I stopped by.” She hopped off my lap, and I reluctantly let her go so she could get whatever she was looking for. She pulled a file from her bag and then came back over and handed it to me. I ignored it and grabbed her wrist, bringing her back down and settling her on my lap. Only then did I take the proffered folder and flip it open.
“I was looking through the hotel’s computer system and I found a backdoor somebody was able to use to get in. They weren’t bad, but pretty amateur because I was able to follow their bread crumbs to another IP address.” Eden rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Agent Taylor is almost as uptight about following the rules as you are. He wants to run it up the chain and get permission for me to dig deeper.”
I debated whether to share my new information with her, but ultimately decided she’d be safer if she wasn’t stumbling around in the dark. “The detective on the case dropped off a box of papers today. Apparently, they were the contents of a lock box they found stashed somewhere in Whitney’s apartment.”
Eden perked up and I again argued with myself about how much to tell her. The reality of the situation, though, was that I could really use her help. As long as she did it at a safe distance and only Agent Taylor and I knew she was involved, I was begrudgingly willing to let her give it.
“I found accounting sheets for SO&G. These records were also provided for us straight from the corporation. There were discrepancies between the two. And, considering how easy it was to procure them from SO&G, I don’t think they’re aware of the second set. There are several circled payments, all to the same corporation. If Agent Taylor gives you the go ahead, maybe you could dig into the company, see what you find?”
You would think I’d offered her the key to Atlantis, the way Eden lit up. She beamed at me and grabbed a pad of paper and a pen. Writing furiously, she asked me questions and took notes.
When Eden and I were married, she was still on probation and the FBI made it very clear that I was responsible for her. I’d had the small office next to mine cleared out for her so that she could be with me while I was at work. She still used it from time to time, but I was even more grateful for it after she decided to worm her way onto this case.
I grabbed the files she needed and walked her to her desk. Cupping her face in my hands, I looked into her eyes seriously. “Eden, under no circumstances are you to work on this case unless you are here or at the FBI building. Any traces will come back to these two places and not to you.”
She blinked a few times and I could practically see the cogs whirling in her mind. She was trying to come up with a noncommittal committal, using a little doublespeak to get around my command.
“Don’t try to lawyer me, Sunshine. I’m better at it. I want a clear agreement. No working on the case outside this office or the FBI.”
Her nose wrinkled adorably, and her mouth compressed into a straight line. Then she blew out her breath and her shoulders slumped. “Fine.”
“Sunshine,” I warned.
“I won’t work on the case unless I’m at Harvey Croix or the FBI. Scout’s honor.” She held up a peace sign.
“Fucking adorable,” I muttered with a half-smile, then sauntered back to my office before we had a repeat of our lunch hour.
Chapter 5
Eden
Sitting in the office next to Isaac’s while hacking into SO&G’s financial records was bizarre. When he’d come into my life, I’d been lost. Everyone assumed I was the spoiled, little rich girl with too much time on her hands who’d been facing felony charges. My parents loved me and encouraged me in most things, but once they found out about my “hacktivities,” they didn’t understand why I’d taken such risks with myself. They’d wanted to keep me in my safe bubble where they could protect me, but they had no idea how far I’d already stepped outside of it.
They never realized that I’d been hacking computer systems since I was eleven years old. My middle school advanced math class was so easy it was boring, and I spent all of my time on more fascinating things than my homework, earning myself a D. I hated the idea of my dad being disappointed in me and since it was too late to earn a better grade by turning in the work I’d skipped out on all semester long, I’d done the only thing I could think of to save myself. I hacked the school computer and changed my grade. I wasn’t greedy, though. I gave myself a B, which still earned me a lecture from my dad about how he knew I could do better than that. He expected a lot from his princess.
What he didn’t expect was for me to use my skill set in a way that technically made me a criminal. After discovering how simple it had been to get into the school’s system, I’d spent countless hours on my computer at home, constantly learning and improving. I even found my way onto the darknet, where I connected with others like me and they answered any questions I had or helped me navigate roadblocks I found myself running into. I was good too. Damn good. There weren’t many systems I couldn’t hack into. Firewalls and security software weren’t a problem for me. I had an innate talent for knowing how to break passwords, and with a few keystrokes here and there, I found myself wherever I wanted to be.
I never really intended to do anything other than poke around a little bit. My intent wasn’t malicious when I hacked into a system. I was just testing my abilities, seeing what I could do. After my parents kept me from going to college at
fourteen, forcing me to stay in high school, I was bored out of my mind and had way too much time on my hands. One day, I got curious about a pharmaceutical company that was in the news because they’d settled a lawsuit after several children died while taking one of their drugs. While in their system, I stumbled across some incriminating evidence which proved that they were at fault, but through a stupid loophole in the law, they were able to get away with it. If not for that, the company would have been ruined and the court would have substantially increased the amount of money those families would have been paid.