The smell of bacon and laughter brought me out of my sleep. The last couple of days floated through my mind, with Zane at the center of all my thoughts. Zane was tantalizing and made me want things I wouldn’t ever be able to have. He deserved a woman that could give him the world.

The laughter was getting louder, and I knew it was time to get up and face everyone. I had wanted to stay up and talk with Kat, but it was hard. When we had made it onto the plane, she laid down with Antonio Jr.. He needed his sleep, and we had both been through an emotional roller coaster. The adrenaline was wearing off, and I fell asleep in my chair before the fasten seat belt sign came off.

Mia, one of the operatives that worked for Brock, woke me up when we landed. I hadn’t even woken when the plane hit the airstrip. John had been carrying Kat off the plane, and Asher had had Antonio Jr. in his arms. I should have known he would have been there. Asher was Antonio’s twin and would have done everything to protect Antonio’s wife and child.

I could hear the pitter-patter of footsteps running down the hall. We were staying in one of the apartments above Blackwood Security. The footsteps stopped outside my door, and two crystal-blue eyes peered over the side of the bed. When I rolled over, Antonio Jr. had the largest grin on his face. “Aunty, are you going to get up soon?”

I loved being called “Aunty.” I reached over and pulled him into my arms. The sound of his laughter when I tickled him sounded like angles. My door opened again, and Kat stood there with her hands on her hips. Her long red hair was wet. She was wearing a pair of jean shorts and a white T-shirt. The smile that spread across her face was pure happiness.

“I told you to let your Aunty sleep.”

“I did, Mom. I waited for a whole fifteen more minutes.”

Kat walked over and grabbed Antonio from my arms. “I meant until she woke up.”

“She's up now, Mom.”

How could I argue with his logic? “I’m up. Let me take a quick shower, and I’ll come out for breakfast.”

Kat took the little man out of the room. He was protesting the whole way, saying I didn’t need to take a shower.

The shower felt amazing and helped me wake up. When I made it out to the kitchen, the apartment was full of people. It brought tears to my eyes, realizing the support team I had behind me and the friends I had made the past few years. I caught sight of Brock out of the corner of my eye. I wanted to ask him if had talked to Zane and how the mission was going.

Brock must have been able to tell I was struggling with asking about Zane because he volunteered the information without my needing to ask.

“They made it to the safe house last night. Antonio patched Zane up. We sent out another team to assist them this morning.”

I needed to stop thinking about the man. Maybe I would if I spent today going over the data I had compiled over the years and tried to figure out what had triggered Sanchez to blow his cover.

“Brock, can I use one of the stations in your office today.” If I were working next to Brock, I would be able to hear any updates about the case and find out anything I needed.

Brock looked like he was struggling with the answer. “Don’t you want to spend the day with Kat?”

The guilt rushed over me. Putting revenge to the side is hard. I wanted to take Sanchez down. I was being selfish, wanting to work instead of spending time with Kat. At the sound of her name, Kat joined the conversation.

She propped herself up on the kitchen counter. “Antonio’s parents are coming over to spend time with Antonio Jr. I can help Sophie go through her data while they are watching him.”

Leave it to my sister to come up with a good plan. I had a feeling she also wanted to know what was happening with the mission. As it was, we would be told only what they wanted us to know. If we were in the room when transmissions came through, they wouldn’t be able to keep the information from us.

Brock didn’t answer right away. He reached for the spatula and flipped a Mickey-Mouse-shaped pancake he was working on. “Stay out of the mission. If you find something that will help, I will take it under an advisement. Otherwise, you need to stay out of the mission going on.”

Kat and I both nodded, but when I looked into her eyes, I could tell she was thinking the same thing I was. We would do whatever we had to in order to protect our men. Wow, where did that come from? I was already calling Zane my man. I had never believed in love at first sight. That was something that happened in fairy tales, not real life.

Jessica, Brock’s fiancé, walked into the kitchen. “I’m so excited to spend the day in the lair.” Jessica seemed to think she was joining us. I took a second to register the shirt she was wearing. It said, “Future Hacker In Progress.” I jumped out of the chair and gave her a hug.

“When did you tell everyone?” I couldn’t believe they were having a baby. The thought sent a jealous twinge through my gut. I hurriedly hid my emotions.

Brock pulled her into his arms and kissed the top of her head. She was glowing.

“This is how we are telling people. If they see the shirt, they figure it out. You were the first one to notice. I spent the morning downstairs, talking with Mia and the team members still around. For a bunch of operatives, they aren’t very observant.”

Brock chuckled at her. Everyone had gathered around the counter to congratulate the happy couple on their announcement.

“Have you called Patty and Sam yet?” Patty was Jessica’s twin sister and the next queen of Shialia. Since their dad had gone MIA, Patty had temporarily taken over. She would be so happy to find out her sister was pregnant.

Jessica’s face lit up with joy at the sound of her sister’s name. “Yes, we called them last night. I wanted Patty to be the first person I told, besides Brock. She is so excited. They also set a date for the wedding. It will be in May, which is close to my due date. I will be a whale for the wedding.”

“You will be beautiful because you will be carrying my baby.” Everyone oohed and ahhed at Brock’s statement.

* * *

I loved Brock’s lair. It was every hacker’s dream. He had two stations with eight monitors. At his station, he had three of his screens linked to different missions. On the center screen were Zane and Antonio. They had their heads down, studying the schematics of the building they were going to tonight.

The man could take my breath away. It should be illegal to look that sexy. It almost seemed like he could sense me watching him. His head rose, and when he saw me on the screen, a cocky grin came across his face, like he knew I was checking him out.

At Zane’s movement, Antonio looked up, and his eyes lit with joy when he saw Kat standing next to me. “How did you sleep last night, Kitty Kat?” Antonio’s deep voice boomed into the office.

A red blush came across Kat’s face. I didn’t need to know what was going on between those two. Antonio let out a chuckle.

“Fine.”

“Where’s our boy?”

I had a feeling both men would not be happy with Kat and I digging into Sanchez. Too bad. We were both out for vengeance, and it would be ours.

“He’s with your parents. Sophie and I will spend a couple hours comparing the data we compiled.”

When I saw Zane open his mouth, I held up my hand for him to stop. “Us comparing data will not affect your case. Let us do something. We’ll stay in this compound and not leave.” I was almost sure we wouldn’t leave, but that would depend on what we had found.

After breakfast, Kat and I had sat down to talk about our lives. Sanchez had taken Kat in and informed her he was her only living relative. He took care of her and sent her to military school, where she excelled in becoming a sniper. She was one of the most sought-after snipers in the world. Ice was her special ops code name. Ice was so much cooler than the normal color names the CIA gave out. Kat was also skilled in close hand-to-hand combat. Brock was in awe when he heard who she was.

Sanchez had tasked her with a mission to protect Yermushin at the charity event. She was supposed to be his bodyguard and make sure the sale went through. When everything was complete, she was to kill Yermushin.

He had promised her this was the last mission. She wanted to retire and work as a social worker. She wanted to have a safe life for her son and not go on deadly missions anymore. The older Antonio Jr. got, the harder it was to sneak off without him asking questions.

Zane pinched the bridge of his nose. I could tell he was holding back. “Go over your data together. Let me know what you find, but you have to promise to stay in Brock’s custody until we get back.”

“Sure.” Did that count since I had my fingers crossed behind my back? If we found something, I would go after the director myself. Nobody would stop me from my end game, certainly not some man I’ve known less than a week, even if that man made me wish for things I knew I couldn’t have.

Kat and I had worked on figuring out our trust. With Kat’s knowledge of the director, it didn’t take long to find the trust documents. She knew who his lawyer was and the firewall was impressive on the firm’s computers. So, instead of spending hours trying to find an open port, I spammed the company, hoping someone would give me their user name and password.

Five minutes later, someone clicked on the spam email and entered the information I needed. People needed to take a closer look at emails before clicking links. In an instant, it worked, and I was in. A couple of keystrokes later, I had the trust information pulled up and copied over so I could figure out how to cut Sanchez out of the money.

The money was funneled monthly into two accounts, one in my name and one in Kat’s name. Sanchez would drain the money out of both at the beginning of the month. Kat and I could change the information so Sanchez wouldn’t be able to get in anymore. He had set up the accounts when we were kids. Since we were adults, according to the trust, he shouldn’t have access to the trust money anymore. With a few key strokes, we cut off his cash cow.

I had to take a second look at the trust. I couldn’t believe what my eyes were seeing. Each trust had close to a hundred million dollars in it.