Page 11 of At Your Mercy
“Get to my place,” I said when he answered, voice a level I didn’t quite recognize. “Now. Apartment has been compromised.”
* * *
The knock came less than fifteen minutes later. When I opened the door, Ichabod stood there looking awake but rumpled, black hair slicked back in a hurry. Lena, his IT assistant, was at his side, wide-eyed but collected, carrying a leather case under one arm.
I raised a brow. “You brought company?”
Ichabod’s jaw flexed, a faint color touching his ears. “It’s not what you think,” he said quickly. “She lives a block from me. I needed a second set of eyes.”
I stepped aside, letting them in. Lena brushed past, her perfume clouding the air. She must’ve just recently sprayed it, asit was strong enough to clear my senses of Ro’s lingering scent. Didn’t love that.
“You could’ve called one of my men,” I said, closing the door with a heavy click.
“Your men don’t know systems the way she does.” Ichabod adjusted his coat, his tone clipped but not unkind. “Besides, it’s almost 3 a.m., I didn’t want to wake anybody up.”
I gave him a look. “And yet…” I pointedly looked towards his assistant.
Lena sat down at the dining table. “Just walk us through what happened, and I’ll be out of your hair.”
I grumbled, “Fine,” and took the seat next to her, setting down my open laptop.
I only showed them the front door recordings. I didn’t mention the gun barrel in Ro’s mouth, or how his weight had felt… nice… on top of me. That part was mine to wrestle with.
When the clip played again, Lena leaned close to the screen, rewinding the moment Ro’s hand brushed the strike plate. She tilted her head. “Well, that’s weird.”
Ichabod sent me a pleading glance just as I opened my mouth to make a snarky comment.
They had to have been fucking, or at least, he wanted it to be that way.
I’d need to have a conversation with him at another time about it. It’s not like I prohibited relationships between my employees, but he was her direct superior, and I wasn’t too comfortable with that.
As I was contemplating the implications, Lena continued speaking. “It’s almost like the door thought it had received a proper signal.”
“So, what?” I asked. “You think he cloned a fob?”
“Maybe. But even then, he shouldn’t have been able to fool your logs. Your system shows no event at that time. It’s like it had no idea the door even opened.” She frowned, biting her lip.
Ichabod crossed his arms, intently watching her work. “Which would require either inside access… or someone very, very good at this.”
I grunted, “You’re telling me the kid has tech better than what we run?”
Lena shrugged one slim shoulder. “I don’t know what he has. But I know what I’m seeing. The system thinks nothing happened. It’s not even that the event was deleted after the fact. It never existed in the first place. Which means, as far as your building’s concerned, this kid was never here.”
I leaned back against the chair, jaw tight. “So either I’ve got a mole feeding him high-level clearance… which could only come from Ich or Grey, or the boy somehow has the capability to bypass my security at any time, with practically no effort. Fucking great.”
Lena deadpanned, “Maybe he’s like a cyborg or synth.”
My eye twitched.
Ichabod laughed awkwardly, then sent me a concerned look. “And you’re sure you’re uninjured?”
I touched the faint nick at my throat, the dried line of blood. “I’m fine. He didn’t come here to kill me. At least this time.”
Ichabod’s eyes narrowed, reading between the lines. “Then the question becomes—whydidhe come here?”
Lena looked between us, lips pressing into a thin line. “And why did you let him go?”
I sighed, dragging my hand down my tired face. “It was more so that he let himself out.”
