He popped it open and removed two thin plastic rods that could pass as part of the casing in any reputable scan.
As they approached the twenty-fifth floor, he screwed them together and stepped up to the elevator controls, inserting the tool into the small hole at the bottom of the brass panel. With a quick push, the latch released. From there, he popped open the plate and set to work.
Wes could sense the moment that her interest piqued, could tell that she was leaning to the side in an attempt to see around him. Even pissed at him, Vivienne’s curiosity had always gotten the better of her. He shifted his shoulders to block her view—and the security camera’s—so neither could see what he was doing. Wes disabled the coax cable for the camera first, then bypassed the alarm. They’d just passed the thirtieth floor.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s my line,” he countered, his fingers on the wires as he watched the floor count tick upward. Then he unplugged the twisted-pair cable—blue and white—just as the thirty-sixth floor lit up, and the elevator juddered to an early halt. The chandelier swayed above them, tinkling in the silence as he shoved the pieces of his phone back into his pocket and turned to face his quarry.
“Why’d you get me out?”
She owed him that answer, and they weren’t going anywhere until he got it.
“This couldn’t have waited until we got to my apartment?”
No way was he giving her full home-court advantage. Hell, he never should have gotten into her vehicle in the first place. In his desperation to get as far from FCI Terminal Island as possible, he’d failed to play this obscene scenario out to its obviously doomed conclusion.
Sloppy.
And if there was one thing he prided himself on, it was not being sloppy.
“I’m more comfortable in small spaces these days.”
If Wes didn’t know better, he’d have thought she flinched at the bleakness of the jibe, but before he could be sure, her expression deadened. She shook her head. Disappointed in him.
Well, welcome to the fucking club. He’d let someone get the drop on him, and he’d ended up in handcuffs for that oversight. Now he was out for himself, and the rules no longer applied.
“I’m so glad you enjoyed your time in the slammer, because if you keep this up, you’ll be going straight back.” She lifted her fingers to her temple, as though a sudden headache had struck.
“My God, Wes. You’ve been out for less than an hour, and you’ve already hacked an elevator!” Viv’s helpless laugh held a note of desperation as she gestured at the missing control panel. “And here I thought maybe, just maybe, you’d care that you’re the target of a federal investigation. That for once in your damn life, you wouldn’t flout the rules just to prove that you could.”
That’s what she thought this was about? A jab at authority?
“I’m sorry. Am I not being rescued right? I’d hate to deviate from your script. I know how much you hate it when your plans go slightly awry.”
“What I hate is your single-minded devotion to making sure everything ends up awry, whether it’s my plan or not!” Her brown eyes were sharp with accusation. “Do you have any idea how serious this is? Max Whitfield is a very powerful man. Never mind that Liam Kearney has joined forces with him to end you. They think you screwed them both over. This is personal to them. They can ensure your whole life falls apart. Do you get that?”
“My whole life has already fallen apart!” The words snapped in the tight confines of the elevator car with a heat he couldn’t contain. Fury sparked in his blood, lightning in search of a conduit.
He wasn’t afraid of Whitfield and Kearney. He didn’t give a shit about the FBI. His life’s work was about to be taken from him, the company he’d built out of nothing and sacrificed everything—everyone—for. And he’d be damned if he’d stand by and watch it all go to hell.
“And how is being in jail for the rest of your natural life going to help that?”
“I’m not going to sit around and let this happen!” And if she didn’t understand that about him, then she’d never really known him. The realization that maybe she hadn’t lent a dangerous edge to his voice. “If I don’t fight this, I will have nothing left. Do you understand that? Nothing to show for all the years I poured into building Soteria Security from the ground up.” He didn’t want to look at her in that moment, but he couldn’t look away. “I gave up everything.”
The word was layered in the bitterness that always coated the resurrected memories of her, of them, he’d worked so hard to bury.
“Oh please. As if anything in your life has ever meant more to you than work.”
His body vibrated with the fight, and he stepped closer, exploiting his height advantage.
“I’m not asking for your permission, Vivienne, and you’d do best to stay out of my way. Someone fucked me over, and I will make them pay.”
He was riled up now, chest heaving, every breath fueling the fire, the anger, inside him. But Vivienne didn’t heed the warning. Instead, she fed the flame.
In the span of a heartbeat, Wes’s shoulders hit the elevator wall, and before his brain had fully registered that she was clutching a fistful of his shirt, her purse hit the ground and she surged onto her toes, crushing her mouth to his in a bruising, rage-fueled kiss.
Yes. The word blazed through his blood. Through his body.
Wes dragged her close as he reversed their positions, shoving her back against the carved wood. He opened his mouth over hers, angling for more, more of her tongue in his mouth, more of the heat coursing through his veins, more of the way she consumed him.
He’d been expecting fight.
Prepared for flight.
And then she’d gone and blown
