Complicate (Deliver 9)

“You’re safe with me.” He cupped her face and pulled her in for a deep kiss. “Always. I protect what’s mine.”

“I do, too.” She kissed him in turn, tongues entwining, deep and languorous. Then she leaned back and combed her fingers through his unruly brown hair. “Twelve years ago, my dad was involved in an operation with a CIA informant in Russia. I don’t know the details, only that it pertained to Russia’s interference campaign in U.S. elections. My dad was sent to Russia to meet with someone, to do something. I don’t know. It’s all classified. But he never came home. He was murdered in a hotel room, and the murder was recorded on a hard drive.”

His entire body tensed beneath her. She twisted on his lap and studied his expression, watching as he absorbed and processed her words.

“My dad’s colleague and loyal friend in the NSA was there,” she said. “He was the tech guy, monitoring from another room. He turned in the hard drive, but it was stolen and sold by Marie Merivale.”

“To the Romanian mafia.” He narrowed his eyes. “How did you get this intel? It’s classified.”

“My dad’s NSA friend has done a few things for me over the years. He told me about the hard drive, gave me those customized bugs, and erased my identity and Mike’s so that we wouldn’t be connected to our dad.”

“That’s why I couldn’t find anything about you. Neither of you exists.”

“I don’t know the identity of my dad’s friend and have no way to contact him. He wishes to remain anonymous and separated from all this. I imagine he’s protecting his own family and his career. I get it, and I’m grateful. Without him, I would’ve never learned the truth about how my dad died.”

“Who murdered him?”

“Vincent Barrington.”

“What?’ He stopped breathing, and his hand clamped down on her leg. “I don’t think I heard you correctly.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Vincent Barrington, the United States President-elect. That Vincent Barrington?”

“Yeah.”

With a thudding heart, Lydia stiffened on Cole’s lap, watching his expression morph from shock to confusion to steely resolve.

This was it. She’d given him the single most important secret of her life. He could choose to help her. Or he could fuck her eight ways to Sunday, steal the hard drive, and sell it to Vincent himself.

“Why?” he asked on a heavy exhale.

“Why did Vincent do it? Why was he in that Russian hotel room twelve years ago? Why did he kill my dad? I don’t have those answers, but I can confirm that he wants that hard drive as badly as I do.”

“It was Vincent who hired you to capture and torture me in Texas?”

“Yes. Fifteen months ago, he hadn’t announced his intent to run for U.S. President, but I knew it was coming. Mike and I spent a fucking decade investigating him, watching his every move. All that effort, and we could never get close enough to kill him. He has so much wealth and power. Mike was on his payroll for years as part of his security team, and even then, he couldn’t get near the man.”

“How did you get on his payroll?”

“Through Mike. He suggested using a Russian swallow and offered up my contact information.”

“You’re the daughter of an NSA agent who was murdered by Vincent Barrington. You should be in protective custody, not working for him!” A vein bulged in his forehead, his entire body rigid. “What if he learned your identity? Jesus fuck, Lydia. Do you know how fucking dangerous it was to put yourself on his radar?”

“Yes, Cole.” She pushed off his lap and paced through the kitchen, clenching her fists. “That’s why I wore all that makeup and dyed my hair and learned Russian. I concealed my identity. Doesn’t matter anyway, because he’s already sent eight people after me since my stint in Texas, and more will come. He wants me dead.”

“Fuck.” He leaned over his lap, elbows braced on his knees, and shoved a hand through his hair. “Fuck!”

“It’s a lot to take in. The President-elect put a hit on your friend, Rylee, and her neighbor. And God knows who else? But he couldn’t kill you, because he needed you to surrender the location of that hard drive. If the video goes public…”

“He won’t just be impeached. He’ll be arrested.”

“Instead of living in the White House, he would spend the rest of his life in a 6x9 cell.”

“We need that hard drive.”

“Now more than ever.” Uncertainty buzzed through her, clashing with hope. “Does that mean you’ll help me?”

“I’m committed one-hundred-percent. To this. To you.”

“Okay.” She released a ragged breath and reached for the kitchen cabinet. From within, she removed a package of Twizzlers. “He’s not the President yet. We still have time to expose him before he becomes the most powerful person in the world. This is no longer about revenge for my dad. It’s about keeping an extremely dangerous, corrupt man from taking control of the most important position in our country. He won that election with Russia’s interference campaign. Imagine what he’ll do once he takes office. He’ll rip our country apart.”