Outside Sinful Delights, litter danced down the street, blown around by the breeze coming off the ocean. The dockside neighborhood surrounding the club looked different during the day, although no less unsavory. Charlie kept her eyes open, her attention alert as she scanned the block.
Maybe she should’ve parked a little closer.
Charlie shrugged the thought off. Get to the club, do her thing, and get back to the hotel. It didn’t matter that she’d sent her cross-reference program to Logan and the former Marine had promised keep tabs on it. The second any possible link blinked to life, Charlie wanted to be able to act right then and there.
Surprisingly even to herself, her tension started to dissipate. Part of that had to do with Vince’s new tactic to redirect her brain waves onto something that didn’t involve Miami and abductions. He’d taken matters into his own hands.
And his mouth.
And every inch of his body.
He’d been extremely thorough, making good on his promise to erase everything from her mind except the two of them. A week ago, she wouldn’t have thought it possible. A week ago, there’d been no way in hell she’d get involved with any co-worker, much less Vince. And here she was, the morning after an all-night round of mind-numbing sex, and her mind kept drifting, wondering when it was going to happen again.
And when it would end.
She’d been the one who’d originally wanted to give it a hard stop date, but Vince slowly brought her around to his way of thinking—letting it fizzle its way out. With an occasional reminder about keeping their head on the job, it would be fine.
What worried her was that she wasn’t so convinced it was going to fizzle out. Vince Franklin was in a league of his own. A rare breed. Possibly the only man on earth with the ability to make her question all her life’s goals without forcing her to do so.
He was as alpha as the next man, a difficult, stubborn, bossy pain in the arse. But he got her. He understood her need to be strong, to attack things head-on without flinching. He got that there were things she needed to do on her own.
He understood her—at least, everything she’d been willing to show him. Maybe it was time to share more…to let him deeper into the world of Charlie Sparks.
The thought about sharing what had happened that night twelve years ago scared her to death—which is why she needed to tell him. If she explained her past, she’d finally know if he was a man who could stick around in her future in the way she needed—in a way that let her fight her own battles, without trying to fight them for her.
But for now she needed to focus on Sinful Delights.
A minute after she rapped on the front door, the guard opened up and gestured her inside. “Boss is waiting for you.”
Charlie headed toward Tina’s office. Her cousin’s phone conversation reached her ears before she even got to the door. She looked up as Charlie entered the room and nodded for her to take a seat.
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Anthony, but like I told your friend, I’ve made my decision, and it’s not one I’ve made lightly. I need to consider what’s best for my club, and I believe this is it.” Tina paused, listening to her father’s security head. “I appreciate the concern. Really, I do, but I have everything under control.”
Tina hung up the phone and, with a long sigh, tossed the receiver onto her desk.
“That went well, I take it?” Charlie sat her computer on the second desk. “Anthony didn’t like being told you put his friend out of a job?”
“To put it mildly.” Tina rolled her eyes. “It took about five seconds from when I notified his friend I’d no longer be needing his services to when my phone lit up. I don’t get it. They’re a big firm—international. The business of my small-time club isn’t enough to put toothbrushes in their employees’ Christmas stockings.”
Tina came over to the desk while Charlie booted up the laptop. “So you’re going to be able to lock everything down, right?”
“If by ‘lock everything down,’ you mean make it impenetrable for someone on the outside to hack their way back in? Then yes. I am. But you’re going to have to do your part by not allowing half-assed security technicians to put their grubby little hands on it. Ever.”
“I definitely learned my lesson there,” Tina grumbled, looking like she did.
“Good. But you need to realize any damage that’s already been done—or information taken—is forever taken. I can’t erase the months of access they’ve already had to your system. And I hate to be the Harbinger of Bad News, but you’re going to have to tell your clients there’s a possibility their information’s been compromised.”
Tina winced. “I’ve already begun talking to my PR person and company lawyer about ways to soften the blow.”
“Maybe offer a free rope-tying class,” Charlie suggested snarkily, earning a scowl from her cousin. “What? You’re saying you wouldn’t have any takers?”
“For your information, Miss Smart Aleck, Master Tekei already teaches a shibari class for beginners. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. If you’re interested, I could sign you up for the next session.”
Charlie let out a string of laughing snorts. “I’ll have to pass on that, but thanks.”
Tina sat next to Charlie, casually studying the computer screen as if she were interested. “So after you do your techie stuff, what’s preventing whoever hacked into the mainframe from doing it again?”
“First, this time I’m the one laying down your secure network. No one’s going to get into it who I don’t want there.”
Tina lifted a sculpted eyebrow. “Awfully cocky, aren’t you?”
Charlie shrugged. “It’s the truth. And they’re definitely going to try to gain access again. They just won’t be able to get anywhere, because we’ll be prepared.” Charlie didn’t dwell on the use of the plural term, and neither did Tina. “I’m going to embed a virus that’s only activated if someone attempts to hack into your system. And don’t worry,” she added, seeing Tina’s deepening frown, “it’s not the kind of virus that’s going to affect your computers. Once an unauthorized party tries gaining access to your system, the virus activates and, in layman’s terms, becomes a leech. It’ll leave me a trail to follow, and we can find out who’s responsible.”
“For the hacking,” Tina clarified.
“And the abductions.” Charlie made sure her cousin knew she was serious. “We can’t overlook the fact that not only are these hackers bypassing the chance at millions of dollars, but they’re attacking on every night there’s a physical abduction.”
And that little bit of information had been confirmed an hour ago when Charlie had cross-checked the list of security downtimes to their missing persons. Whoever was responsible for the hacking would lead them to the human-traffickers. And while Logan checked on Anthony’s firm, Charlie was taking the more hands-on approach.
“I don’t get it. What does someone get out of stealing young women from my club?” Tina, truly disturbed, bit her lower lip, as she’d done when they’d been kids.
“Other than being evil? Who knows why anyone does what they do. Their mums never hugged them. They never got a present beneath the Christmas tree. I don’t really care what their bloody reason is. It’s wrong, and I can’t wait to bring them the hell down.” Charlie’s words sounded more like a growl toward the end, and Tina’s surprise didn’t go unnoticed.
Charlie busied herself in pulling together everything she needed to lay the groundwork for Sinful’s new security system. About ten minutes in, Tina fidgeted in her seat.
“I saw the hospital band after you left.” Said out of the blue, Tina’s softly mumbled words shocked Charlie’s fingers still.
She turned. Her heart skipped a beat and stumbled over itself to get back into rhythm—a fast one. “Excuse me?”
Tina shifted in her seat again, wringing her hands in her lap as she avoided eye contact. “The night you left Miami? After you swung by the house and picked up your things, I went back to your room. God only knows why. And I saw the patient band from Miami General in the trash—admitted from the night before.”
Charlie didn’t know what to say. Her throat dried, and she tried clearing it, wincing. “Where are you going with this, Tina?”
“Truthfully, I don’t know. I guess I was so determined to think the worst about you, about how easily you could up and leave…but then I saw the story about the rescue in the newspaper, about the six teenage girls they’d found in freight holds, hours away from being shipped to God only knows where. They never released the names because most of them were minors, but…”
Charlie finally looked her cousin in the eye. They’d never been close. Charlie had always been envious that her cousin still had someone to call family, and Tina had never liked Charlie for invading her home territory. But there was something in her cousin’s eye she couldn’t remember seeing before…
Sorrow.
“I’m sure there are more reasons why you left, but I wanted to say that even though I don’t know why you’re here, I know why you are.” Tina paused, scrunching her nose. “Does that make sense? I mean, I know you’re not a bartender…and I think I know why you came back to Miami.”
“Tina,” Charlie warned.
“Oh, don’t worry.” Tina waved her hand. “I’m not saying anything, especially to Daddy. I figured you should hear from someone that you’re doing a good thing. Those missing girls would thank you if they could.”
Charlie was taken by surprise at the compliment, even having to fight through an unexpected rush of emotion. “Thanks, Ti. That means a lot, but I’m not doing this to get a thank you.”
“I know. That means you should get one, all the same.” Tina looked as uncomfortable as Charlie felt. Clearing her throat and nodding toward the computer, she nudged them away from a scarily family-feeling moment. “So why do you think they picked my club?”
“Piss anyone off lately?” Charlie half-teased. Her fingers, knowing exactly what to do, flew over her keyboard. She could do this kind of work with her eyes closed. “If I’m honest with you, are you going to be angry?”
“Probably, but if it’s something I need to know, tell me.”
“I think they hoped to link the disappearances to Arturo.”
Tina did a double take. “Daddy? But Sinful Delights is all mine.”
“But was it from the start-up? It used to be Illusions.”
Tina seemed to contemplate her words as she fidgeted in her seat. “He sold it to me.”
“Was that publicized among his business associates?”
Tina’s discomfort escalated. “No. I’m not exactly proud of this, but my marketing team suggested keeping Daddy’s name linked to the club for promotional purposes. It’s all mine, but to anyone looking from the outside, it looks like—”
“Like he’s an investor,” Charlie finished. “Or at the very least, a silent partner.”
Tina’s pallor turned a bit green. “If you hadn’t come, there’s no telling how long it would’ve taken me to realize what’s been happening, or if I ever would’ve realized it at all.”
Charlie understood her horror. “Well, we did, and now we can do something about it.”
In order to patch the network, Charlie needed to rip it down and build it back up with the new firewall in place. After an hour of silence, Tina’s continued pacing started giving her a complex.
“Don’t let me stop you from doing sex club things,” Charlie said. “I’ll find you when I’m done.”
“Sex club things? What is it that you think I do during the course of a day?”
“Honestly, I really don’t want to know.”
Tina rolled her eyes. “Fine. I’ll be back in a little bit.”
Her cousin stood, throwing a reluctant look over her shoulder before disappearing into the club.
Finally. Peace.
Charlie cracked her neck and kept going, finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Somewhere after testing the new system for the second time, Charlie’s cell lit up with a voice mail. Double-tasking, she finished cleaning up her code and entered in the Alpha message password.
“All right, Franklin. I’m about to be the bearer of fucking shitty tidings,” Logan’s voice drawled. “First, about our girl…you were right to think there’s a hell of a lot more to her exit from Miami than she’s made known. And after digging, I can get why. She was a victim, man.”
Charlie couldn’t move—her fingers. Her chest. Her heart. Everything came to an abrupt stop.
“It was bad, Vince. Really. Fucking. Bad. No wonder there was no talking her out of going down to Miami.” Logan blew out a heavy sigh. “And for shitty info, part two…I’ve been keeping watch on that program of Charlie’s. We got a link to the latest four disappearances—which includes the one from the other night. Brock Torres. I emailed you both everything I found in case you want some non-light reading. Each of the girls was somehow related to someone Torres had a run-in with during his time in the Army. We’re talking a commanding officer who’d reported him for insubordination. The judge who dishonorably discharged him. The lawyer who repped him. And the other night’s abduction, Marie Perry, was the niece of a former lieutenant who’d testified against him. I don’t know about you, but coincidences give me the hives. Watch your ass—and Charlie’s.”
Charlie listened to dead air after Logan’s message ended. It took a moment to digest everything she’d heard, interpret its meaning, and realize she’d somehow managed to pick up Vince’s phone instead of her own.
Instead of taking her at her word, Vince had Logan look into her past.
Not look, but dig—and deep—and she knew it, because she’d been the one who’d buried it all. He’d made a big deal about trust among partners, but he didn’t trust her to know her own head. And he’d gone one step further and broken her trust in him.
Charlie finished with the new security setup and by the time she was packing up her things, she’d developed a good steam.
Vince’s cell rang in her hand. Logan. She answered, “Sorry, cowboy, but Navy hasn’t gotten your message yet. I’ll be sure to tell him it’s information not to be missed.”
Logan muttered a soft curse. “Charlie. Wait. Fuck. It’s not what you think.”
“No? Because it sounds like my teammate went behind my back with concerns he couldn’t be bothered sharing with me. And not only did he reach out for accomplices, but he gave them instructions to keep quiet about it. Stop me if the truth veers off the path at any point.” She waited a second. “No? Yeah, I didn’t bloody think so.”
She pressed End, and nearly plowed into Tina on her way down the hall.
“Is it done?” Tina asked.
Tears welled, but Charlie held them at bay. Barely. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried, and she wasn’t about to break her streak now, regardless of how much her chest bloody ached.
“It’s done.” Charlie pushed back a fresh wave of incoming emotions. “Your system shouldn’t crash again.”
Tina reached out to touch her arm, but pulled back at the last second. “Are you okay?”
“I will be,” Charlie lied, stalking toward the exit. “Just remember what I said. Don’t let anyone near your security system again.”
This time, fresh air did squat to make breathing easier, and each step she took, the weight increased. She’d been delusional to think the guys would see her as anything but the techie behind their brawn, much less their equal. And even though it stung, she could’ve handled it from Logan or Rafe, or even Stone.
But Vince?
Being mauled by a circus animal would’ve hurt less than thinking he didn’t have faith in her abilities. Thinking about his lack of trust, breathing became an issue, and those damn tears welled up again.
At some point in time, what Vince thought, what he believed, had begun to matter to her…and it mattered because she cared. About him. About them.
He didn’t trust her to know her own mind?
Fine.
Then she was going to prove to him that she did.