Chapter 1
A shit job. A shit trip. A shit deal.
But he was home. Thank God.
Tired and haggard, Rhodes Gorman walked in the front door and headed straight for his suite on the second floor. He opened the door to his bedroom, dumped his bags and collapsed fully on his bed. He didn’t bother undressing, and the thought of a shower was a lot more than he could handle right now. He closed his eyes to let the world take him away.
But instead his mind filled with the scenes and pain of the last few days. He and Harrison had gone overseas, tracking down a person with some intel. Now they were both home, but it hadn’t been an easy job and the trip back—brutal. But they’d made it, and all he needed now was a chance to sleep.
Even with his door closed, he could still hear other people in the main house, the voices filtering through his head. One male. One female. Ice used to be the only female in the group, but that was rapidly changing. In his tired mode Rhodes couldn’t understand or identify who that female was. Until she spoke again. Sienna. So she was still here. Good. Saved him a trip to haul her back again. They had unfinished business, whether she knew it or not.
“Why would you want to stay here?” asked the guy.
Who was that? Rhodes wondered.
“Because it’s different. I feel safe here, “Sienna said. “I like the people.” Her voice had shifted there—softening. “I enjoy the work.”
“Safe?”
Yeah, that word caught Rhodes’s interest too. But the change in tone at the word people was something else altogether.
“Yes, even though the compound has been attacked twice,” she said, “everybody handled it so well. It was just like military clockwork.”
“That’s because it was,” the man said.
Whoever the man was, he had influence over Sienna, and from the way she talked to him, she obviously knew him well. There was respect and familiarity in her tone … and love. Rhodes frowned. Who the hell was this guy? Jealously crept in.
“Jarrod, you can’t rule my life.”
Rhodes’s eyes flew open. Jarrod? Jarrod Bentley, Rhodes’s navy buddy was here? He’d been gone for two different four-week tours overseas. Planned to come by here each time he returned to the States. The first time he’d talked Sienna into leaving with him. But he was not fully informed. Rhodes heard she was just tying up loose ends to move here. Permanently. Figured Jarrod had come back while Rhodes was gone. Slowly he sat up, his head cocked to better hear the conversation out in the hallway.
He had met Sienna years ago, since he and Jarrod were brother SEALs. But he hadn’t recognized her when she first came to the compound. Maybe because she had been a pimply face, awkward-arms-and-legs, bony-knees-and-elbows gangly teenager back then. Not the striking beauty who’d walked into the house with Ice that day. Even though she had said she was Jarrod’s sister, he really hadn’t made the connection. Not until hours later when he’d caught sight of that long-ago teenager inside the beautiful woman.
And then he didn’t know how to bring up their earlier meeting. He’d never forgotten her. In fact, Jarrod had warned him away back then, already seeing Rhodes’s interest, but who knew she’d turn out to be such a beauty?
Between the two attacks on the compound, the op in Afghanistan—rescuing Lissa—and then a series of jobs covering for Merk while he was busy protecting his ladylove, Rhodes had been more than a little busy.
With Sienna here, there’s no way he would sleep now. Plus he didn’t want to miss out on seeing his old friend, Jarrod. Rhodes sat up, then stood, stripped and stepped into the shower.
Soaking under the hot water gave him a sense of renewal. When he was done, he quickly dressed.
Nobody was in the hallway when he walked out. At the kitchen, he stopped to see Alfred and found him pouring a cup of coffee, which he handed to Rhodes. “I didn’t know if you would choose a shower and some food or just sleep.”
“I tried sleeping. That didn’t work so well,” he joked. “I figured coffee and some grub would hit the spot.” He glanced around. “Did I hear Jarrod’s voice?”
Alfred nodded. “Jarrod is indeed here. He came back to check on his sister.”
“Rhodes?” The man’s voice came from behind him.
Rhodes spun, and sure enough there was Jarrod. The huge carrot top had been a new recruit when Rhodes had joined Levi’s SEAL unit. For some reason Jarrod and Rhodes had become great friends. He put down his cup and greeted his long-time buddy. “What the hell? I go away and come back to find you’re trying to step into my place.”
“Not quite,” Jarrod said with a smile. “Although Levi has made it very clear there’s a spot here, if I ever need it.”
“Damn, that would be great.” As Rhodes studied his friend’s face, he realized Jarrod wasn’t quite ready to make that change yet. “Being a SEAL is the best, but there comes a time … not many make it past ten years.”
“Understood.” Jarrod nodded. “It’s always in the back of my mind, just not yet.”
“Who knows? Maybe Levi will open a second compound on the West Coast. We certainly end up crossing to that side a lot to handle business. We almost have enough to keep us there full time.”
Jarrod’s eyebrows rose. “You guys are that busy?”
Rhodes nodded. “I just got back from one overseas. After I’ve had a bit of a rest and get filled back up, I’ll be bugging Levi to get me out of here again.”
“Who knew?” Jarrod shook his head.
“The world’s in bad shape right now,” Rhodes said soberly.
“What kind of work are you doing mostly? Hate to think of becoming nothing more than a glorified bodyguard.”
“Some of it’s foreign security stuff, and then there’s all the private kind for the elite. Ex-princes. Billionaires. Dot.com geeks. We do a lot of domestic work.”
“Any military stuff?” Jarrod asked.
“None that’s ever spoken about publicly.” Rhodes studied his friend. “Let’s just say we haven’t lost all ties.”
He realized that had been the right thing to say because Jarrod’s face lit up. He’d been a military man since forever, and it was really hard to walk away from that lifestyle. When one took pride in defending his country, everything else paled in comparison. But if Jarrod knew he would be able to do the same thing he was already doing, there was a chance he would join them. Rhodes motioned toward the long table in front of him and said, “Have a coffee with me and tell me what’s going on with your sister. How the hell did she end up here anyway?”
Jarrod shook his head. “I still don’t know, even after my first visit here. I thought she was safe and sound at home. Next thing I know, Levi’s texting and saying Ice brought her into the compound.”
“It’s what any of us would do,” Rhodes said quietly. “We might have helped her initially, but she stayed because she’s good at what she does. Ice and Levi wouldn’t allow anything less. And Alfred, I’m sure he’s run her ragged, testing her in ways she didn’t know.”
Jarrod grinned. “Yeah, she doesn’t quite get all that.”
“If she can do what she does and handle living here with us, then she’s got to be an angel.”
“If she is, I didn’t see it growing up.” Jarrod chuckled. “No, that’s not quite true. She was just so different. We treated her like a china doll because we didn’t know what else to do with the only sister to four brothers. We were afraid she’d break.”
Rhodes smirked. “I don’t think that treatment here will work. She wouldn’t appreciate it.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” said Sienna from the doorway, her tone exasperated and a little too loud. She sat down on the bench beside her brother, literally bumping against him and saying, “Move over.”
Jarrod gave a shout of laughter and nodded his head at Rhodes. “We might want to treat her as a china doll, but she won’t let us.”
Rhodes studied them, seeing the same closeness he’d noted a long time ago. “I met you way back when, you know?”
She shot him a shuttered look and nodded. “I remember.”
“I didn’t at first,” Rhodes said in confession. “Besides, you’ve changed a lot,” he said in an admiring tone. “You used to be this gangly teenager—all elbows, knees and freckles, with red hair going everywhere.”
Jarrod snorted. “She still is.” But he wrapped an arm around her shoulder and hugged her close. “Now, if she would stop being so damn independent and let us know when she gets into trouble, it’d make us all happy.”
“You’re always so busy,” she said quietly. “Besides it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle.”
Jarrod turned to her and, in a much harder voice, said, “Ice found you at the gas station with a backpack, sitting under a tree, lost. You had no place to go. You were out of money and had no wheels. How was that ‘handling’ the issue? The least you could have done was call. We would’ve been happy to help.”
She stared at the table but didn’t answer.
Rhodes understood. Independence was a hard battle. When life beat you down, you didn’t want anyone to know.
“At least Ice was the one who found Sienna,” Rhodes said calmly. “We’re not axe murderers. Once she got here, we were quite happy to invite her to stay.”
Other thoughts rippled in his head, but to add more was taking the chance he would just piss her off. She shot him a grateful look, and he realized he’d said the right thing. A good thing. He glanced at Jarrod and got a nod of approval from him too. Rhodes sighed. This family stuff was rough. He was an only child, and his parents had retired to Tucson, Arizona where they liked to do morning brunch beside the pool with the rest of the retirees who lived in the complex and then play Scrabble and other board games in the evening. They were happy, so he was too. He’d been a very late-in-life child for them, and his decision to join the military was one they both approved of. He didn’t see them very much, but called them often.
“Besides, Sienna has taken over the office work. And if you try to take her away from us, Stone may have something to say.”
“Stone?” Jarrod asked with a frown.
“Yes, office work was his punishment whenever he pushed his recovery too much. We’re always building new prototypes for that leg of his. Somehow he’d keep his stump more or less sored up. And that meant office work—and a lot of it.”
Jarrod gave a subtle laugh. “I keep forgetting he’s missing a leg. He’s adapted so well,” he said in admiration.
“It was a hard adjustment,” Rhodes said in a low voice. “He never let anybody know, but it wasn’t easy on him.”
Jarrod nodded. “I don’t imagine it would be.” He studied Rhodes’s face. “And you’re okay? I heard the whole unit got blown up. But when I realized you were all ambulatory and then created this company together, I figured you were fine.”
Rhodes said, “I’m fine now. Merk and I were injured but not anywhere near as badly as the other two. For us it was a couple broken bones. We were in traction for a while, lots of soft tissue damage, bruises on the liver, things like that.”
“Sounds horrible,” Sienna said.
Rhodes caught Sienna’s sympathetic look. He quickly turned away. Sympathy was the last thing he wanted. Although his gaze kept straying back toward her, he realized he deserved a special reward for keeping his hands to himself. Because dammit she was hot.
He swallowed hard and turned as Alfred walked in at the right moment, carrying a plate of roast beef, gravy, and veggies and put it down in front of Rhodes.
“Alfred, this looks delicious,” he said in relief. “I didn’t realize how hungry I was until now.”
“Just leftovers. They all had it last night.”
“Wow, they actually left me some?” But he was already busy with his knife and fork, cutting into the moist tender meat. He put the first bite in his mouth and closed his eyes as he chewed. “Oh, my God, this is so good.”
Jarrod said, his voice envious, “You guys are so lucky to have Alfred.” He turned to his sister and said, “So that’s the real reason you want to stay here.”
Sienna laughed. “Alfred is a dream. If he were thirty years younger, I’d consider going after him myself.”
Rhodes smirked. “Do you think we haven’t thought of that? I don’t twist that way, but I might consider it for a man who can cook like this. … Hmm-hmm.”
*
Something was just so damn attractive about a man who enjoyed his food. But he wasn’t eating; he savored every bite. Rhodes had come to her house a couple times with Jarrod way back when. Once, when Sienna had lived with her brother, Rhodes had spent five days at their place. She hadn’t taken her eyes off that big tough badass male. And yet he’d never once made her afraid.
In fact, the longer he’d stayed, the more she’d followed him around just to be in his presence. He oozed confidence and power. Back then, she’d felt ugly and awkward. To make it worse, she’d been fascinated by him but clueless as how to deal with it. Now, of course, she understood so much more.
They were both adults, free of relationships and living in the same place.
She couldn’t help but consider it. She again dropped her gaze to the table and played with the coffee cup in front of her. Odd to realize that, after all these years, the attraction was even stronger. She daren’t let Jarrod know because he’d fight tooth and nail to keep her away from Rhodes if that’s what she was staying for.
And Rhodes was only a small part of it, though he definitely factored into it. No way would he seek her out if she left. But while she was here, she could see if there was something to the attraction or not. She needed time to let Rhodes get past that code of honor that said friends’ little sisters were out of bounds. And Rhodes was the kind of guy who would see his good behavior as part of his honor system. Unlike a lot of men who would look upon her as prey, Rhodes would see her as untouchable, someone to protect while her brother wasn’t here.
A tiny smile played at the corner of her mouth. Or maybe it wouldn’t be an issue … if he found something he wanted badly enough.
“You okay, Sienna?”
She stopped and turned toward Jarrod. “Sorry, was lost in my thoughts for a moment there.” She stared directly into her brother’s eyes, knowing perfectly well that if she didn’t pass this test, her life could get very difficult.
He searched her gaze for a long moment, then as if satisfied, he turned back to Rhodes. “So catch me up on your ops over the last year,” he said.
Sienna sat quietly and listened to the two men share the events they’d gone through over the past twelve months. She wanted to hear as much as she could, but at the same time, she had work to do. Sienna stood up, patted her brother on the shoulder and said, “I’m not sure when you’re leaving, but I have to get back to the office.”
He reached out and caught her hand and said, “I leave in the morning.”
She bent down, kissed him on the cheek and gave him a quick hug. She stepped away and tossed back, “I’ll let you two old ladies sit here and gossip.” She smiled at Alfred as she filled up her coffee cup, then headed to the office.
She still didn’t understand everything that went on at Legendary Security, but she was starting to. Her first few days here had been hairy, but it had given her an interesting insight. Initially it had been unnerving, wondering what she had gotten herself into and with whom, but then she quickly realized how much and how well they took care of not just her but the entire place.
And how similar they all were to her brothers.
There was a certain freedom in being here. In an odd way she hadn’t been free for a long time. She’d also met a kindred spirit here—Katina, Merk’s partner, who was also an accountant. Not a programmer like Sienna was, but still Katina understood the financial world. And she’d been to hell and back herself.
In Sienna’s case it wasn’t her job that had done her in, but the people around her. She’d worked for an independent contractor looking into a series of banking irregularities inside the programming, hackers stealing within the system. Very detailed work. And a special niche career.
She found what she thought was proof and handed it over but hadn’t realized that her lover was part of the same criminal organization. When things had blown up, and the dust had settled, she’d been blamed for all kinds of things, like sleeping with the enemy. She’d lost everything, including her good name.
She’d walked away and started fresh.
Now nobody knew who she was, what she’d done, and where she’d gone. She told Jarrod some of it, but outside of it being a bad deal, there was no going back.
In fact, compared to what Lissa and Katina had been through, Sienna’s life was bland and boring. Sure, she’d lost her job and had been betrayed by her lover, and was pretty damn sure her boss had been involved in the whole deal too, but all that was mild when compared to their lives.
Back in the office she settled down at her desk, pulled out her cell and checked the time. She was surprised it was so late already. She buckled down and started on the bookkeeping.
Compared to what she used to do, this was incredibly simple. But the mindlessness of it was also a joy. She didn’t have to study lines of endless code or worry and fret over patterns she could see but not yet understand. She was fine not having to dig and follow trails and puzzles in order to ferret out the information needed. No subterfuge was here, and that alone was a relief. When her phone rang an hour later, she didn’t think anything of it. She picked it up and answered, “Hello?”
“Sienna?”
“Yes, who’s this?
“Bullard.”
She sat back with a grin. “Hey, Bullard. Normally you don’t call me directly.”
“Nope, I don’t. But this time I have a question for you.”
“What’s up?” She tossed down her pencil, leaning back in her chair. She liked Bullard, from the little bit she’d seen of him. He planned on coming back soon. She looked forward to that.
“You used to troubleshoot financial systems—banking software, accounting discrepancies—didn’t you?” His voice gentled. “I remember Levi mentioning something like that.”
She frowned. “I used to do something like that,” she said. “I don’t anymore.”
“Any reason why?”
“Yeah, it didn’t work out so well,” she said in a dry tone. “Sometimes keeping your nose clean is better than digging for dirt.”
He gave a bellowing laugh. “So true. But the business we’re in doesn’t keep our noses very clean. If I sent you some files, could you tell me where they’re from?”
“Not necessarily,” she said with a frown. “What type of files? And what do they have to do with my skills?”
“It’s a little bit confusing. A friend, part owner of an African bank in Ghana, has found some discrepancies in their accounting. He has someone in mind who could be responsible, only that employee’s son has worked with them for about a year as well, and both family members make up their IT department, doing all the upgrades and tweaks to the banking software. So he’s reticent to have those guys look at the problem in case they are involved. He sent us access to the back end and several sheets found in the old man’s desk. Only my computer specialist isn’t accessible, and we aren’t making heads or tails out of this.”
In spite of herself she was intrigued. Impulsively she said, “Feel free to email them to me, but that doesn’t mean I’ll help.”
“Done,” he said triumphantly.
She rolled her eyebrows as she realized the email sat in her inbox, staring at her. “Is this something Levi knows about?”
“He’s been giving me a hand on this case.”
She nodded. “In that case, I’ll look.”
“Can you do that while I’m on the line?” he asked hopefully.
She double-clicked on the email and then opened the attachment. Instantly the lines of code appeared. She leaned forward to study it. “Do I get any contextual reference?” she said with a laugh. “This means nothing with so little.”
“Money, drugs, and/or weapons,” he said succinctly. “We think money is siphoned from a bank here in Africa, then transferred into a US account, where it’s used for drug deals and buying weapons—to ship possibly back over here again. The trail led to Dallas.”
“Oh.” She winced.
She studied the figures, rapidly scanning the columns, her mind quickly interpreting the data. “Okay, so these are from the back end of a banking program. They are transactions, but very little information is here.”
Silence came first. “Wow. That was fast.”
“Fast but useless,” she said cheerfully. “You need more data than this, a lot more.”
“Did you check the second attachment?”
She quickly opened and scrolled down to see a PDF of spreadsheets, potentially from a ledger book. What he’d given her was just a drop of water in a missing lake of knowledge. She took a couple minutes to assimilate the information, then said, “I need so much more, preferably the program itself.”
“It’s all about the gold standard.”
She returned her attention to the code. “Right, I can see it now.” Indeed, on the last page she found one of the identifying banks, a small regional bank in Ghana. She continued to peruse that line of code. “This is old COBOL code. With a lot of updates …” Her voice petered off as she studied the subsequent lines of code. “Interesting. It’s quite an antiquated system. I’ve seen a lot similar to this, but still wince every time I find some.”
“Wow, again so fast. No wonder Levi hired you.”
“No, he doesn’t really know I can do this type of work.” She laughed. “My skills are not a highly prized skill set in the world of private security companies.”
“You’d be surprised. But for Levi’s company, he’s more interested in security on the human level. Mine on the other hand, is more interested in software security. So, any programmer who can see what and how code has been hacked, … that’s worth a lot.”
She shook her head, even though he couldn’t see it. “Nah, I’m sure your guys would’ve figured this out. I might’ve gotten it in ten minutes, but they would’ve in twenty.”
Bullard laughed. “We’ve had it for hours and had no idea what we were looking at.” He added, “If you find anything else, please give me a ring back.”
“The snippets aren’t enough if you want me to see exactly what the developer has done,” she said. “I’ll need full access.”
“Not sure that’s possible. My guy sent me several videos of code streaming. I can send that to you. What we’re really looking for is a connection to the spreadsheets and some explanation as to what they mean.” He quickly said good-bye and hung up.
She studied the sheets on the screen but really needed them as a hard copy, so she clicked on the correct icon and pulled them from the printer. She wanted to study the code, but had her own work to finish first.
She settled back to her usual job. She had tons of bookkeeping transactions to enter and then papers to file. By the time she was done, she felt like she’d accomplished something.
Levi stepped into the room as she put away folders. She glanced at him and said, “Bullard called and asked me to look at some code snippets he had for a banking scheme.”
“Good. I told him you might help.”
“I just printed the sheets off, actually.” She pointed to them on the side table. “But they are nothing that I need.”
He looked at them. “He sent them to me too.”
She finished clearing off her desk and said, “I’m putting in a shorter day because Jarrod’s here.”
Levi waved a hand at her. “I don’t care how short your day is. When the work’s done, it’s done.”
She laughed. “In this job the work is never done. There’s always something for tomorrow.” She quickly told Levi what she’d said to Bullard. She liked the way Levi’s eyebrows shot up and how he studied the pages, as if seeing what she said. He’d have to know programming for that. But with Levi, who knew the extent of his knowledge. He might understand a dozen languages—even computer ones.
“Nice.”
Bullard’s email came in just then with more attachments. She quickly opened the first and clicked on the video. Instead code streamed on her monitor. Her gaze danced across letters and numbers she was very familiar with. She opened up the other two, both shorter.
“Interesting.” Levi studied the monitors behind her. “Does the code mean anything to you?”
“Maybe,” she said, her focus intense, all three videos running at the same time.
She sat back and pursed her lips. She could see the transactions running through the code and accounts, but at the moment, it meant nothing to her. At least not yet.
“We’ll be late for Alfred’s dinner if we don’t get going.” She grabbed up the sheets and stacked them on her desk. They would take a lot longer. While the remnants of code still whispered through the back of her brain, she headed to the doorway.
“I’m right with you.” Together they walked downstairs. “Are you okay that Jarrod visits?” Levi asked. “With the two attacks here on the compound, it’s natural for all of us to call family when someone could be in trouble.”
She gave him a shuttered look. “Yet—twice—nobody considered asking me beforehand.”
He grinned. “That’s family. It often takes somebody else to point out what we should’ve done in the first place.”
She rolled her eyes at him, stepped into the dining room and sat down at the table. Jarrod came in with a bunch of the other men, taking a spot beside her. Instantly the room filled with boisterous conversation. Once Alfred carried in platters of food, the conversation slowed down. She caught Rhodes eyeing the roast pork coming his way and smiled. He looked like he planned on having the whole thing.
She glanced around the room, unable to hold in her smile. How lucky that she’d landed here. She could have ended up so many other places. But Ice had been a godsend. Sienna focused on the table and served herself some food—and froze. She slowly raised her head to stare out the window on the far side. There was just something about one of those lines of code, … and now she understood.
With her mind spinning, she realized something else. She’d seen similar entries in one of the classic textbook cases she’d been taught years ago. She pulled out her phone and quickly hit Redial on Bullard’s number.
“It’s Sienna. The program is converting currencies and rounding them up and down. I won’t know for sure unless I have access to the entire system, but at a guess, I’d say the fractional differences were moved to a third account. Fractions of a cent add up damn quick and are almost impossible to trace like this.”
The entire room froze, and maybe she shouldn’t have made the call in the dining room. She lifted her gaze and caught sight of Rhodes. He frowned at her.
But Levi leaned across the table and said in a hard voice, “Sienna, are you sure?”
Slowly, she nodded her head, hearing Bullard’s exclamation on the other end. She answered, “I’m as sure as I can be without having access to the program. But a developer would be doing this. The code is robust but antiquated. A programmer would need to know COBOL and the more modern languages. It’s been heavily upgraded and patched but still based on that system.”
“Why is that?” Rhodes asked.
“Because it’s too expensive for most institutions to change from the original, and as it is robust, it’s a great foundation block. Then, like any old infrastructure, it needs updating, debugging, and constant testing. Myriad third-party products support these issues, but again you need a good developer who understands COBOL in the first place. Or several, depending on the size of the bank, the job done originally, and the maintenance.” She glanced around the table. “Whoever is doing the tweaks on their end, chances are he’s older and looking for a way to retire. And he’s likely been doing this for a long time …” She added, “He’s not making much off the system initially but over time …”
“Oh, very nice,” Bullard said. “I’ll be in touch with the bank and get back to you.”
“Wait,” she cried. “I haven’t looked at the spreadsheets yet. I don’t understand the connection to the code.”
“Maybe there isn’t one, but we’re hoping so.” He chuckled. “After this I’m expecting great things from you.” And just as quickly he was gone.
She groaned. “Great.”
But she got no help from the others. They were too busy grinning at her.