Page 46 of Duty Compromised
That word again. “Why do you keep calling me that? My features are not classically beautiful. My eyes are slightly asymmetric. My bottom lip is a little too large to match the upper.”
He reached in and kissed me. “Still beautiful. Now let’s get to work.”
Chapter 13
Ty
I pressed myself against Charlotte’s kitchen counter, trying to stay out of the blast radius while she worked. She’d commandeered the breakfast table, transforming it into some kind of quantum command center—three monitors arranged in a semicircle, cables snaking across the surface like digital veins. Her fingers flew across the keyboard with the precision of a concert pianist performing Rachmaninoff.
If Rachmaninoff had written code that could save thousands of lives.
The morning sun slanted through her kitchen window, catching the copper threads in her auburn braid. She’d twisted it up and secured it with what looked like a spare USB cable, because of course she had. Every few minutes, she’d reach up absently to adjust it, her fingers already moving back to the keys before her hand fully left her hair.
My phone vibrated against the countertop. George’s name lit up the screen.
“Talk to me,” I said, keeping my voice low as I stepped toward the living room. Charlotte probably wouldn’t notice if a meteor crashed through the ceiling right now, but I didn’t want to risk breaking her concentration.
“Things just went from bad to clusterfuck.” George’s voice carried that particular brand of exhausted tension I recognized from my Army days—the sound of someone running on coffee and determination. Background noise filtered through—phones ringing, urgent voices, the mayhem of a federal crisis in motion. “Charlotte okay after yesterday?”
“Bruised. Shaken. But functional.” I glanced back at her. She’d started muttering at her screen, something about recursive functions and quantum entanglement. “She’s going at it strong.”
“Where are you two? The lab?”
“Working remotely today.” I kept my answer vague, not mentioning Charlotte’s house specifically. After yesterday’s coordinated attack, I wasn’t taking chances. Not even with George’s office. The FBI had already proven they had at least one mole when the Cascade Protocol got stolen. No reason to assume that was their only leak. “Figured a change of scenery might help her focus.”
George paused, and I could practically hear him connecting the dots. Smart man. “Probably wise. Keep the location need-to-know.”
“That’s the plan.”
“Good. We need that countermeasure yesterday.” Papers rustled on his end. “We’re running out of time. The Cascade Protocol auction is set for next week. Our cyber division’s been monitoring dark web chatter—whoever stole this is accepting bids from every terrorist organization and hostile state actor with a cryptocurrency wallet.”
Fuck. My gut tightened. “How bad?”
“The auction’s getting serious interest. We’ve intercepted communications from at least twelve potential buyers—all the usual suspects, plus some new players we haven’t seen before.”
“Not fucking surprised, given that the Cascade Protocol can turn a billion devices into weapons with the right frequency attack.”
He let out a sigh. “The director’s breathing down my neck. If this gets deployed before we have Charlotte’s countermeasure ready…”
I watched Charlotte through the doorway, her whole body tense with concentration as she debugged something on her center screen. She knew what was at stake.
“What’s the FBI doing about the auction?”
“Cyber division’s creating a shell terrorist organization, trying to get an invitation to bid. Complete with fake dark web presence, cryptocurrency accounts, the works. If we can trace the seller, maybe we can stop this before it spreads.” He paused. “But that’s a Hail Mary at best. Too many variables. Too many ways it could go sideways.”
“Leaving it until the auction is suicide,” I said. “If something goes wrong, if they smell FBI?—”
“They’ll accelerate the sale or go completely dark. I know.” His frustration bled through the phone. “Had a briefing with the director this morning. She made it crystal clear—if this gets out, if even one city gets hit, it’ll make 9/11 look like a firecracker. That’s why your girl finishing that countermeasure is critical. It might be our only safety net if this thing gets loose.”
Your girl. The words stuck in my head as George continued talking about contingency plans and threat assessments. Charlotte wasn’t mine. But after this morning…
Christ. This morning.
The memory hit me like a physical force—Charlotte’s body arching beneath my touch, those little gasps she’d made when I’d found exactly the right spot, the way she’d looked at me afterward with such wonder and vulnerability it had taken every ounce of self-control not to gather her up and never let go.
Turning down her sweetly logical offer of reciprocity had been torture. She’d gazed up at me with those enormous green eyes, all earnest determination to balance the equation, like pleasure was something that needed to be fairly distributed according to some mathematical formula.
The innocence of it had nearly broken me. Made me want to show her exactly how good it could be when both people were focused on giving rather than keeping score.
