Page 34 of Entwined With You

“Go? Where?”

“We’re meeting Ryan at the data center.”

“You didn’t…”

She lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug. “All I said was that we had a few things to tell him.” She held his gaze. “You know we have to.”

“I’m putting in a request for a new best friend.”

“It’ll never go through. You only qualify for the dregs.”

He sighed. “All right, Mom. Let’s go meet Dad so I can confess my sins and accept my penance. But if he fires me, you’re gonna feel pretty damn stupid.”

“I’ll take my chances. And don’t worry. He already knew you were a notorious con artist with zero morals before he hired you. All you’re doing today is shoring up that opinion.”

“Remind me again why we’re friends.”

“Because I’m the only one who tells it like it is.”

“True,” he said, but he wondered if it really was. Sabrina had never pulled her punches either. And while she was now gone, Samantha was right here. And he had a feeling that she never shied away from a hard truth, either.

Chapter Nine

Z-Tech Data Processing—the company that officially employed both Brax and Cami—was located two blocks from the Santa Monica offices of Stark Security. The company provided a variety of tech-based services to a multitude of businesses all around the globe. It had over three hundred employees, most of whom were exactly what they appeared to be.

Brax and Cami were not among that group.

To the other employees, they were simply workers with a security clearance high enough to allow them to do jobs for government clients in the back rooms where information that had to be isolated could be handled.

And while they both often utilized those secure workstations for their actual jobs, more often than not they weren’t actually in the building, even though they entered through the front doors and no one saw them leave.

Instead, they were at Stark Security, having moved between the two buildings via the underground tunnel that, per city plans, was nothing but an alternative utility route.

At Stark Security, they were both known for what they were—agents who worked exclusively on deep cover assignments and who entered through a secure basement room to which only the most high-level agents had access. If they met outside the office, Cami and Brax were simply Z-Tech employees who the SSA employee had met while getting coffee, or through some other equally mundane route.

The whole thing was a pain, Brax thought, but it was necessary. And at the end of the day, the system protected him and Cami and the integrity of the SSA as a whole.

As for Z-Tech itself, if anyone got suspicious and investigated, they’d find that it was a subsidiary of a subsidiary of a subsidiary of Stark International. Just a corporation like any other. And a profitable one at that.

Today, he and Cami had made the underground walk from Z-Tech to the SSA, then taken the stairs up to the Intake Office, cut through the covert reception area, then entered the main office of the SSA through the kitchen.

Brax signaled to Mason to join them, then waved at Denny, Mason’s wife. She grinned back, her fingers never slowing on the computer keys.

“She’s chasing money,” Mason said. “An embezzlement investigation. Apparently, the asshole CEO’s done a pretty good job of hiding the dollars he’s skimming. Too bad for him, my wife is a badass on a computer.”

“That she is,” Cami said.

A few other agents waved to them, but most were so engrossed in whatever they were doing that they barely looked up. Only Trevor came over, walking with them as they approached Ryan’s office. “I was going to text you,” Trevor said, “but since you’re here. Dinner Saturday? We finally finished the remodel. Ollie wants you two at our first gathering. This one’s already said yes for him and Denny,” Trevor added, pointing to Mason.

“I’d love it,” Brax said. “But it’s going to depend on this job. Plus —”

“He’d want to bring a date,” Cami broke in.

Trevor’s brows rose. “This have anything to do with that text you got? The sister?”

“You’re a smart man, my friend.”

Trevor grinned. “Bring her along. The more the merrier. You seeing anyone?” he asked, turning to Cami.