TREX HQ

Bailey drummed her fingers on the desk in the hotel room, taking her time tapping each nail on the hard surface. It shouldn’t be this hard. Three tests. One, two, three. Having Ryan pass the first test had given her hope. He didn’t ask questions. He simply followed the instructions like a good soldier.

It was how fast he blew through the second test that gave her pause. He was more advanced than she’d given him credit for. The third test wouldn’t even be a challenge for him. She’d worked too hard combing through student profiles and exam results, picking out the best of the best, to make it easy to get into the internship program.

Would every potential recruit beat her tests so fast? Would every one of them make her feel like she’d somehow failed in designing them? She didn’t know how to recognize a spoofed IP until she’d joined TREX and her sister had shown her what to look for. Charis McKoy—strike that, she’d been Charis Snyder for two years now—was the smartest person Bailey knew.

She opened her laptop and clicked on TREX’s secure com link app. If anyone knew how to make the third test a challenge for someone as smart as Harold Bartholomew Francis Ryan, it was Charis.

Charis’ pretty eyes lit up when she smiled into the web cam. “Hey, Bails.”

“Hey.” Bailey didn’t feel much like smiling.

Charis lost hers. “What’s wrong?”

“This is a lot harder than I thought it would be.” She didn’t bother sugarcoating it. She never did when it came to her big sister. It would have been a waste of time anyway. Charis would have picked up on in right away.

“How many prospective recruits do you have so far?”

“Two.”

“Tell me about them.” She sat down and looked like she had something in her hand. A pen and paper, no doubt. “Start with the one giving you the most trouble.”

Bailey pulled up their files. “That would be Harold Ryan. He’s smart, Charis. Really smart.”

“You got all that after two tests?”

“You talked to your husband.” It didn’t surprise her. After unshared intel led to a trap that nearly killed them both on a find, those two shared everything.

“David gave me the Cliff Notes version. He also said something about Jackson Banks kissing you in front of Jason. Is there something you want to tell me, little sis? How’s your twin feel about that? Are you into the lifestyle like Kaylee?”

“No.” She was curious, but not enough to ask Jason to share her with another man. He’d made it no secret he shared women with his brother—until Jeremy found Breanne. Now they were each a solo act. Jackson, on the other hand, not only shared his women, he also had a solid reputation as a bona fide Dom throughout the agency. TREX had used him on more than one occasion to infiltrate a BDSM club on a find. He and Kaylee paired up from time to time—in every sense of the term. “He was just making a point.”

“With his lips, apparently.”

“It was a really good point.” And wasn’t that bad of a kiss. A kiss she couldn’t forget, which ended up sending Jason into a jealous rage that even had David a little worried for Jackson. “I didn’t call you to talk about my disaster of a love life. I need your help on this third test for Ryan.”

“David told me about the first two,” she said, shaking her head. “They were way too easy. Bails, you’ve got to make it worth their while or they’re going to stop trying.”

“I thought I had.”

She rolled her eyes, destroying Bailey a little more. She hated to disappoint her big sister. “You’re a gamer, right?”

“I’m a LARPer,” she corrected. Live Action Role Playing was the only fun she had anymore.

“My point is, things don’t come easily in games. You have to break through several levels to get to the boss. It’s no different than hacking. It’s no fun if it’s too easy. Treat it like a hack. Make the third test unhackable, like TREX’s system.”

“Oh, you mean the system that got hacked a year ago?”

“We didn’t get hacked,” Charis corrected sternly. “A tech inadvertently uploaded a virus that brought down our firewall. And that’s not my point. This guy is a gamer. A computer engineer. Stop giving him things he already knows.”

“I don’t know what else to give him.” She hated to admit it. She was a computer engineer, too. What she knew, he knew tenfold.

Instead of Charis judging her, she hummed in the back of her throat and smiled. That sound only meant one thing. She already knew how to get the upper hand. “I do. Do you have a jock on your list?”

Bailey nodded and pulled up the file. “A senior by the name of Jake Swanson. He’s a cadet with the Bainbridge Island Fire Department.”

“Perfect. Swap their final tests.”

No way could she have heard her right. Ryan wouldn’t be able to do the field work, and no way would Swanson be able to crack code. “Did you say swap them?”

“Yes. Jason came up with the jock’s three tests, right? Since Jason is a field agent, his tests are going to be what a field agent needs to beat. Same with you. You’re an intel agent. Your tests are designed to assess the strengths of another intel agent. Swap them. Don’t pigeonhole them. Just because this Harold Ryan is ridiculously good at computers doesn’t mean he won’t kick ass in the field.”

“We need strong intel agents,” Bailey practically cried. The stronger the intel, the safer the field agent.

Charis softened her expression. “Sweetie, she’s fine. You’ve got to stop trying to put this protective bubble around your twin. She’s tougher than any of our brothers. Smarter, too. She’s running circles around the other agents in the SOLAS program.”

TREX’s Special Operations for Land, Air, and Sea program took over a year to complete. If Kaylee was already beating out the competition, she’d be a spec ops agent in no time. Bailey’s anxiety inched higher. She hated to think of her sister out there on finds so dangerous only TREX’s spec ops units were equipped to handle them.

The hotel door lock buzzed. Shit. She forgot Jason had a card and didn’t want Charis to see him in her room. It would get back to David, who’d find a way to punish Jason for once again making Bailey cry. “I have to go.”

“Honey, I’m home,” Jason sang. He caught Charis’ image on the laptop and grinned. “Hey, beautiful.”

“Jason,” she greeted with a warm smile. At least she didn’t share the same feelings for the man as her husband. While David hated Jason, Charis didn’t. She did, however, have a keen eye and sharp senses as she bounced her attention between Bailey and Jason. “I didn’t know you two were sharing a room.”

He placed his hands on Bailey’s shoulders as he leaned toward the web cam. She wished she didn’t love his touch so much. It would make it so much easier to stop this on-again/off-again thing they had going. “It’s a recent development.”

“David told me you two broke up again.”

“Don’t believe everything you hear.” He grabbed the lid. “We made up.”

“We did?” Bailey turned her chair to glance into his eyes.

“We’re about to.” He inched closer.

“By all means, don’t let me stop you.” Charis killed the feed.

She stood to face him. “What was that?”

“Isn’t this what you want? Someone who doesn’t give you a choice? Someone who makes all your decisions for you? Because that’s exactly who you’ll get with Jackson Banks. He doesn’t let his women have a voice. He orders them around like he owns them.” He pulled Bailey to him and held her close, burying his face in her hair. “Bails, baby, that’s not you. You have your own mind. You have a beautiful mind. Don’t let him take that.” He tightened his hold. “Don’t let him take you from me.”

She wrapped her arms around him. When she realized he was trembling, she broke and curled into him. As tough as he was on the outside, he was nothing more than a giant kid, scared of the same things all kids were scared of—being forgotten. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“You aren’t?” He studied her, fear clouding his gaze. He wasn’t a man of words like Jackson. He didn’t bark commands or try to win people over with smooth talk. Jason Bowman was a man of action. He didn’t tell her his feelings. He showed them. “But what about all that stuff Jackson said?”

“Those were just words.” She smiled up at him, lost in his eyes.

“I’m not any good with words.”

“I know,” she purred and leaned toward him. “You’re more a man of action. It’s one of the many things I love about you.”

“In that case…” He slanted his lips over hers, capturing the rest of her thoughts in his kiss.