Sins, Lies & Spies (Black Brothers #2)(3)
Next, I inserted a thumb drive into the computer. Tapping my finger against my thigh, I waited for the information to transfer until it was at capacity. “Hurry up,” I mumbled as I glanced at the closed door across the room. When it finished, I double clicked on the folder for the thumb drive to verify the transfer, and I pulled it out, before quickly jamming another one into the USB slot.
The hardwood floor creaked behind me. The back of my neck prickled. Instinctively, I spun around, my hand flying to the gun hidden in the holster beneath my jacket.
A woman in a floor-length, gold strapless gown with a side slit to the middle of her thigh stood less than five feet from me. Her dark, nearly black hair draped over her shoulders in soft waves. Her lush lips were painted a deep red, and the lids of her chocolate eyes looked like she had sprinkled them with gold dust. Teardrop pearls dangled from her ears. She was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen. Unfortunately, she was also pointing a gun at me.
CHAPTER TWO
Trinity
Two creamy marble obelisks sat on either side of the entrance to Representative Lang’s home office like sentries. A small metal lion head knocker was affixed to the center of the door, which didn’t make sense in my opinion, but apparently, Lang liked drippy extravagance.
With a trembling hand, I clutched the tubular, bronze colored door handle and leaned my ear against the six-paneled, heavy wood door. I couldn’t hear anything over steady hum of conversation and light tinkling of the piano from the party down the hall, but I knew he was in there. I saw him disappear down the hall with a glass of champagne in his hand when I arrived at Lang’s party ten minutes ago. For the fifth time in as many minutes, I cursed my boss for causing me to arrive late. This was the first time he hadn’t accompanied me on a mission. We role-played in preparation for tonight a hundred times, but it didn’t make it any easier or less nerve-racking, especially now that I had to move to plan B.
I took one last deep breath to release my tension. It didn’t help. If nerves conducted sound, mine would’ve been roaring like an airplane engine. Screw it, I couldn’t back out now. Somehow over the past year, I’d become addicted to the rush of endorphins when I completed a mission.
I lived for it.
I got drunk on it.
Especially tonight, when I knew who I’d encounter on the other side of the door—Knox Black. He’d only been doing this for three or four years, but he and his partner were superstars. He had as close as someone in our line of work could get to a hundred percent success rate. Tonight he wouldn’t be so lucky.
With disciplined precision, I pushed the lever down and opened the door, careful not to make a sound. The inside of the room tasted thick with anticipation.
One step.
Two steps.
Three steps…and the floorboard moaned underneath my feet. Dammit! So much for the element of surprise. Knox whirled around, and my breath caught. Either it was the tuxedo or he looked a hundred times better up close than in pictures.
His powerful muscles tensed, and something savage glinted inside his frosty, navy eyes. For one brief moment, my mission disappeared, and it was only Knox Black and me. My eyes lingered for a beat on the chiseled angles of his face, but just as quickly, I snapped out of my reverie and adjusted my gaze to his hand. My heart leaped as his hand inched inside his jacket, and he reached for what could only be a gun.
I pulled back the slide of my gun, and I heard the click of the ammunition as it moved into the chamber. “Don’t even try it, Mr. Black.”
He remained perfectly still, his hand tucked inside his tuxedo jacket for a tense second. Then he barked out a bitter laugh. “I seem to be at a disadvantage. You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”
“My name is not important.”
“I beg to differ.”
He smiled, but his face was taut and colorless, except for two flags of color high on the sharp blades of his cheekbones. His relaxed posture and feigned indifference didn’t fool me. It’d only take one flicker of indecision from me, and he’d wrestle the gun out of my hand. Everything I heard about him suggested he had reflexes like quicksilver.
“I’m Trinity Jones.” I smirked. “Maybe you’ve heard of me.”
He hissed a curse under his breath, and the corners of his eyes crinkled. “Who’s your client?”
“Tsk-tsk, Mr. Black. You know better than to ask me that question. You’ve been around long enough to know I can’t reveal that information.”
I tried to concentrate on his body language, but the edgy glint in his deep-set eyes and the twitch on the side of his jaw monopolized my attention.
“What do you want?” he asked, his voice deceptively serene, almost gentle.
“Give me the thumb drive sticking out of the computer, and then I want you to walk out of the office and leave the party.”
“Ah.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and shook his head. “And to think, I heard you were a competent and hardworking agent. You’re every bit as lazy as the other hacks out there. You can’t even do your own dirty work. Instead, you waited for me do the heavy lifting. Tell me. Are you afraid of hard work? Or are your skills that inferior?”
“I’ve always believed in the work smarter, not harder philosophy,” I snapped, not hinting at my true intentions. He wanted the information, whereas I needed to destroy the thumb drives and the computer.