Code Name - Hacker (Jameson Force Security 4)

“Does anyone think that’s acceptable?” Bebe repeats, addressing the men in the room. When no one responds, she spins on me. “This is your fault. The minute the man asked you to kill me, you should have let us know. You should have arrested that slime bag for wanting to murder me. That’s enough to bring him down. You should have taken him off the streets, so I don’t have to lose my life again.”

Kynan strides to the door and opens it. “Everyone but Griffin needs to get out.”

No one moves a muscle.

“Out,” he orders, motioning around the room before his gaze settles on Bebe. “I need to talk to him privately for a moment.”

Bebe glares at Kynan, then pins those venomous eyes on me for a long moment. Finally, she huffs and stomps out of the room with the rest of the men following her. Kynan glances at me. “I’ll be right back.”

Then he leaves, too, shutting the door behind him.

With a sigh, I pull one of the high-backed leather chairs away from the conference table and settle into it. My elbows go to the armrests and I lean my head back, briefly closing my eyes.

This has turned into such a clusterfuck. My two years of hard work is circling the drain, and I need to plug it fast. Worst of all, I’ve not only scared Bebe terribly, but I’ve hurt her. I let the personal stuff go too far in my quest to learn as much as I could, yet in hindsight, I don’t regret a single intimate moment with her.

Or her son for that matter.

Another time and another place, Bebe and Aaron would have fit nicely into my life. I like her a lot. Too fucking much, actually, but I can’t let her be the priority right now. Taking Bogachev and his crime syndicate down is the most important thing to me.

The one thing Bebe is absolutely right about though, is I owed her the truth a lot sooner than this morning. At the least, I owed it to her last night after she came on my hand with my name tearing free of her throat.

Fuck… that was sexy and fuck me to hell, I want it again, but I can’t.

The conference room door opens, my eyelids pop up to see Kynan slide in.

I sit up straighter in my chair. He walks over and takes the chair next to me, turning it so we’re facing each other. He leans back, propping an ankle over the opposite knee as he holds his cell phone loosely in his hand.

“I want to know everything about your mission against Bogachev because this has not only put Bebe in danger, but her family as well.”

I shake my head. “I can’t tell you. It’s classified—”

Kynan holds his phone out. I glance at it, then back to him. “Your boss is on the line. You’ll want to talk to him.”

There’s no stopping the blink of surprise or the way my jaw drops. I take the phone from him, put it to my ear, and tentatively ask, “Max?”

My boss, Max Valentine, runs the cyber division of the FBI. His voice is fatigued, and it’s obvious he’s not happy about this. “Share everything with him.”

“But why?” I ask, my gaze moving over to a smirking Kynan.

“Because we’ve been stalled, and we could use their help,” he says with a heavy sigh. “Because Bebe Grimshaw is one of the world’s best hackers. Because we may need her testimony at some point on the nuclear-code scheme to bolster our case against Bogachev, and we need her on good terms with us.”

This all makes sense. Yet… I don’t want Bebe involved in this. Bogachev is incredibly dangerous, and I don’t want to put her at further risk. Still, it’s not my place to say these things, and I can guarantee Bebe doesn’t care for my opinion on this.

“Understood,” I grit out.

“You have the full authority of the government to get whatever inside information you can on Bogachev by utilizing any means necessary that Jameson can help you with. I’ll put through the necessary documentation on it.”

“I’ll handle it,” I assure him, not knowing what Jameson can actually do to help me. I still have to go back to New York to try to figure out a way to break into Bogachev’s system to download the incriminating data to prove our case. Right now, the only things I have are the hundreds of criminal activities I’ve overheard him talk about. My testimony alone won’t be enough.

I disconnect the call, then hand Kynan his phone.

“I need to know exactly what type of danger Bebe is in right now,” Kynan says as he steeples his fingers under his chin. “Will Anatoly trust you when you tell him you killed her?”

It’s a good question, and I give it to him straight. “I’m in deep with him, but Anatoly doesn’t trust anyone. However, I think if I give him photos and some documentation, he’ll accept my word on it. He’s far too busy to doubt me unless he has reason to believe I’m lying. Right now, I don’t know why he’d doubt me. I’ve never given him a reason to do so. All that being said, he’s unpredictable. Some say he’s batshit crazy. The one thing I know for sure is he’s incredibly dangerous. While he’s a twenty-first-century guy making his dirty money off cybercrime, his background is Russian mafia. He didn’t think twice about ordering Bebe’s death.”