Sins, Lies & Spies (Black Brothers #2)(5)

“Don’t worry about it, Knox.” Lang slapped his hand on Knox’s shoulder as we passed him. “No harm was done. Don’t forget to talk to your brother for me.”

The minute we reached the foyer of Lang’s home, he dropped his arm, and his eyes hardened, a fake smile ticking up the corners of his lips. “It was nice doing business with you, Jones. Maybe we’ll run into each other again sometime.”

Just like that, he was gone, the front door banging closed behind him. Shaken, I stared at the tiered crystal chandelier overhead for at least thirty seconds without moving, disappointment rolling in the pit of my stomach. I sucked in a gust of air, fighting the overwhelming urge to go after him and beg him to continue where we left off. All at once, the full impact of the last few minutes hit me like a punch to the gut. Knox left with my gun and the memory stick.

“Asshole,” I muttered.





CHAPTER THREE




Knox



“How’d it go?” Jack swiveled around in his chair when I opened the door to our office, his eyebrows raised expectantly. Like every other day, he looked perpetually rumpled.

Jack and I started a private military company specializing in intelligence-gathering the day we finished our tour of duty. While we both loved working as Naval Intelligence officers, neither of us liked the constraints placed on us in the public sector. We thought we could do more as private contractors. Business was slow for the first year, and I’d accepted a part-time computer security gig with my brother at Black Investments to pay our bills. Fortunately, for the last three or four years, we had more work than we could comfortably handle. In fact, we regularly turned away jobs. I’d have more time if I stopped working for Archer, but it kept us in regular contact after he moved to L.A.

“I got what we needed and replaced the USB cord, but it wasn’t as seamless as I would’ve liked.” I slipped off my tuxedo jacket and slung it over the back of my black leather chair.

Jack leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “What the hell happened? You do know what’s at risk here, right?”

“Relax, Jack,” I said, settling into the desk chair and opening my laptop. I tossed the thumb drives on the desk. Instead of having a traditional office, Jack and I opted to set up shop in a large industrial studio apartment that functioned as a war room of sorts. This way we didn’t waste time going back and forth and sending emails filled with information better communicated without a digital record. “Like I said, we got what we wanted.”

“Then why did you come back here tonight instead of going home?” Jack asked.

“Because I knew your pathetic ass would still be here.” Jack crashed on the pullout sofa seven out of ten nights. At first, I admired his dedication, but now I saw it for what it was—an avoidance technique. He married his girlfriend of three months in Las Vegas the day before he had to report for duty. Since he got out of the service, they spent more time fighting than anything else. I didn’t understand why he refused to call it quits. They didn’t have kids, and they didn’t have many joint assets. Every time I brought up the topic, he shut me down faster than a virgin on prom night, so I stopped asking about her and the marriage years ago. I followed his lead and pretended as though she didn’t exist.

“So what happened tonight?”

I stretched out my legs in front of me and crossed my ankles. “Trinity Jones popped into Lang’s office just as I finished transferring the information to the last thumb drive.”

Jack leaned back and ruffled his fingers through his brown hair. “Tell me you’re kidding.”

I blew out a long breath. “If only that were true.”

He crossed his ankle over the opposite knee, and tipped his head toward the ceiling, all while tapping his pen against the edge of the table. “Fuuuck.” He slapped his hand against the armrest of his chair. “Miles Knightly trained her. She. Works. With. Him.”

I groaned. “Fucking hell.”

To put it mildly, Miles and I didn’t see eye to eye. We bumped heads more than once since Jack and I started freelancing. He was a world-class * who lacked morals. Granted, in this line of work morals were pliable and lines were blurred, but unlike Miles, I only accepted cases on the right side of the law or what I perceived to be the right side of the law. In this current matter, he was on the wrong side. I just needed the evidence to back up my suspicions.

I rubbed my hand along the side of my face. “Miles has been one step ahead of us this whole investigation. He knows our next move before we do, and I’m damn sick of it.”

“Yeah, but you walked away with the thumb drives, not her. If our luck holds, we’ll have everything we need to uncover all the parties involved in this blackmail scheme by the end of the week.”

“Let’s hope so.” I drummed my fingers on my thigh. “I’ll question Trinity and see if I can get any information out of her.”

“Hm.” Jack’s eyebrows jumped up his forehead. “That’s interesting.”

My eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He shrugged, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “I’ve seen Trinity Jones a time or two.”

“So what?”

His smile widened. “Well, she’s not exactly hard on the eyes.”