Maya Banks - Shades of Gray

Cole was in the kitchen pulling stuff out of the fridge, so she opted to set up her computer on the bar and settled on one of the stools.

After plugging in to begin the charge, she opened it and searched for his wireless connection.

“Hey, do you have a password to get on?” she asked.

To her surprise, his cheeks darkened with color, and instead of telling her the password, he walked around to her laptop and swiftly typed it in.

She stared at him in curiosity. “Don’t trust me?”

“Nah, just figured it was easier if I typed it,” he hedged.

“So how am I supposed to connect if you aren’t just right here?” she asked innocently.

“Since I don’t plan not to be right here with you, it isn’t an issue.”

“Oh come on, Cole. You’ve got me curious. I could swear you blushed when I asked for the password. What is it, some kind of X-rated guy thing? Like bigboobs or something like that?”

Cole sighed. “The password is Pjshot, okay? Happy?”

Her eyes widened and she stifled her laughter. “P.J.’s hot? That’s the password? How long have you had this network?”

“Three years, okay? Now can we change the subject?”

He was so cute in his embarrassment and it made her want to squeeze him.

“So you were checking me out that long ago, huh?”

He sighed. “I was checking you out from the day you joined our team.”

“That’s so cute,” she said with a grin.

“Cute?” he grumbled. “God, I feel like some kind of horny teenager who just got busted making out on the couch by his mother.”

Still grinning, she logged on to her email and began scanning the subject headers.

When she got to one buried below a dozen others, she froze and her heart sped up, beating painfully against her chest. With shaking fingers she clicked on the message.

She had to read it several times because adrenaline was making her jumpy and she had a hard time processing the message.

B in town. Something big going down. Several of the girls were hired. Can’t say more in email. I’ll talk in person if it’s just you.

The email was from one of the call girls P.J. had befriended in her quest to track down the four men who’d been present when she was raped. Katia—P.J. didn’t know her real name—had been an invaluable source of information, but she was also extremely paranoid and spooky. With good reason. Brumley wouldn’t hesitate to shut anyone down he perceived as a threat.

She quickly checked the date the email had been sent and breathed her relief when she saw it was sent the previous evening. So it hadn’t languished for days while P.J. had been out of touch.

With shaking hands, she shut the laptop, her mind in vicious turmoil.

It had been so easy to forget her objective when she was a world away with people who cared about her. The last days with Cole had enabled her to shove Brumley into the back of her mind. She’d relaxed her guard, had been able to pretend she was flirting and forging a relationship.

Last night should have told her that there was no way she could move forward with her life until she’d taken care of her past. But even after her panic attack, she’d still refused to focus on the task at hand.

She had to get to Vienna and talk to Katia. What if Nelson had been wrong about Jakarta? What if he’d outright lied, purposely sending P.J. on a wild-goose chase? He could have been protecting his boss with his last breath.

What if they could take Brumley down before the deal in Jakarta?

Her mind was filled with a thousand what-ifs.

“Hey, what’s wrong? You’re pale,” Cole said, concern an edge in his voice.

“We need to talk,” she said more sharply than she intended.

Cole dropped what he was doing and walked around to take the bar stool beside her, turning so he faced her.

“What’s up?”

He was all business now, his expression serious, and he was focused solely on her.

She let out her breath, hoping like hell she wasn’t making a mistake confiding in Cole. But she trusted him. It was time to see just how their relationship was going to work.

“Okay, you know I was gone for six months and I managed to take out three of Brumley’s men. You were there when I took out Nelson.”

Cole nodded.

“What I never told you was how I was able to get so close. How I got my intel and knew where to find them each time.”

Cole nodded. “Yeah, I wondered since you weren’t using the team for support.”

“The night of the party, when Donovan and I went in, I saw several very high-class girls hooking up outside the gate with single men going into the party. Donovan explained that they were very expensive working girls. A date for the night plus whatever went on behind closed doors when it was all said and done.”

Cole nodded again.

“Well it occurred to me that these girls were probably in the know. They know when the parties go down. They know who the players are. And that if I got close to one of them, I could tap a valuable source of information.”

Cole frowned. “Okay.”

“I could only find one willing to talk to me. She calls herself Katia. The rest were obviously afraid and unwilling to risk talking to me. I can’t say I blame them. They’re pretty much nameless, faceless women no one cares about. No family to be concerned if they disappear. They’d probably not even cause a ripple if they suddenly went missing.

“Anyway, Katia was willing to talk to me, but she was extremely cautious. Always met in secret. She was adamant that I was the only person she would talk to, and if I didn’t show alone, she wouldn’t open her mouth. So I paid her for info. She’d tell me when a party was planned or even when she’d heard about a deal going down. Apparently a lot of the guys these girls pick up have loose lips after sex and they like to brag about how powerful they are.”

“So she told you how to get to the first three men,” Cole said grimly.

“Yeah. She never gave me a bad lead, so I figure she’s entertaining some people pretty high up in Brumley’s organization, if not Brumley himself.”

“Okay, so what does that have to do with now?” Cole asked impatiently.

“I got an email from her,” P.J. said, her fingers still shaking despite her best effort not to let the email rattle her. “She says something big’s going down in Vienna with Brumley. She wouldn’t say more. She wants to talk to me in person.”

Cole reared back, automatically shaking his head. “Oh hell no. Fuck no, P.J. Not going to happen.”

P.J. put her hand up, pissed because it was still shaking. The last thing she needed was for Cole to think she was afraid, because she’d never get him on board then.

“Think about it, Cole. I’m not going after Brumley alone. I just need to see Katia and find out what she knows. It’s possible Nelson completely misled me when he told me about the deal going down in Jakarta. Think about it. His dying breath and he sends me in the opposite direction to where Brumley will really be. The ultimate fuck-you. I need to get to Vienna and talk to Katia so we know where this deal is going down. If we’re off in bumfuck Jakarta while he’s doing a deal in Vienna, he’s home free. We may never find the fucker again.”

“If you think I’m letting you go off to Vienna by yourself, you’re out of your goddamn mind.”

He looked angry now. His entire body was tense and his eyes blazed with purpose.

She put a hand on his arm and gently squeezed. “I wasn’t planning to go alone, Cole. I was hoping you’d go with me.”

COLE’S agitation level was off the charts. He stared back at P.J. realizing she was utterly serious. His gut was screaming because all he wanted to do was keep her safe under wraps, in his sights, at his home, where he knew damn well she was safe.

The last few days had been . . . idyllic. They hadn’t even touched on the subject of Brumley or Jakarta or any of it. He’d secretly hoped that with enough time, he’d be able to convince her to let KGI go after Brumley and leave her out of it entirely.

It was an unrealistic hope at best, but he’d fooled himself into thinking it was a possibility.

“P.J., this is stupid. You honestly want to go off without the team on a fact-finding mission? You’re hurt. Or do you not remember taking a bullet to your leg? You can barely walk. The last thing you need is to be running all over Vienna.”

P.J.’s lips thinned and she had that stubborn pit bull look that she got when she was pissed—and determined.

“I won’t be running all over Vienna,” she said tightly. “And there’s no point getting the entire team involved when this may amount to nothing. There is also the fact that if we go in as a team, we aren’t going to go unnoticed. And thirdly, there is no way Katia is going to talk if I show up with a bunch of testosterone hanging over my shoulder.”

Cole frowned, but she continued on.

“You’re making more of this than needs to be made. It’s a simple trip to Vienna. In and out. We could be back in three days. I go see Katia. Find out what information she can give us. If something’s going down soon, we call up Steele and get the team in place. If nothing’s going down, we simply return and wait for Jakarta. I can’t afford not to jump on this lead, Cole. You knew from the start that I wasn’t going to rest until I nailed that bastard, not only for what he did to me, but for what he’s done to all those babies,” she said fiercely. “If you won’t go, then I’ll damn well go myself.”

Fuck a duck.

He knew he was overreacting and he knew he just wanted to keep her wrapped in bubble wrap so nothing could ever touch her again. He also knew that it was a stupid idea because she’d never allow it. Just like he knew in the back of his mind, no matter how much he’d like her not to go to Jakarta, that she’d be there with or without her team’s approval, and she wasn’t going to sit back and let her team take on a mission she’d sworn to carry out.