Dante’s door swung open, and that was the first time I saw her. A small little thing with eyes that popped with gold and green flecks, burning bright with emotion and swimming with anger. Dark waves of hair fell wildly around her face, and she didn’t brush them aside to stare me down. She didn’t fidget in her black boots and baggy ripped jeans, nor did she try to straighten the wrinkles in her brightly tie-dyed, oversized T-shirt with N’SYNC across it as she popped some gum and followed it up with, “I’m good at taking hits, Mr. Armanelli, but I won’t relapse.” She shrugged and brushed past me to give my cousin a hug. Then she turned my way, determination in her stance. “Addicts are what the Albanians are looking for. I’m already in their crowd. I’m already vetted. I don’t need you to believe in me. I only need you to do your job—which is protecting our data security. Right, Dante?”
“Right.” He sighed and grabbed his coat off his chair. “Say what you need to each other now. I’m going out to make a call. By the time I get back, let’s all be on the same page.”
My cousin didn’t give me any time to argue. He beelined it out of there and left me with the girl I knew wasn’t ready for the job. “You’re making a mistake being here,” I told her. “This environment needs stability and people with drive.”
“Oh, good. Because I have both.” She popped her hip out and placed her hand on it. It drew my attention to her body, so small but filled with curves she’d hidden under the oversized clothes. She even looked a mess.
“Look—Ms. Hardy, right?” She nodded as I confirmed her last name. “I can get you a good job outside of undercover work at a great company—”
“I want this one. Dante says it’s for me.”
“It’s not for an addict.”
Something changed in her demeanor. As if I’d hit her across the face by calling her that. She stepped back in what looked like literal pain. Maybe she’d thought I wouldn’t say it. Maybe nobody around her did.
I wasn’t going to sugarcoat it, though. She had to listen and understand so that she would quit.
“You’ll be surrounded by drugs, you realize that, right? You’ll be tempted all the time. People will be OD’ing around you, getting themselves killed around you, and you’ll have to take it in stride without falling into that world. It’s a pressure cooker that you don’t want to be in.”
She took a deep breath, and her plump lips parted as she did. Jesus, the men would accept her into that lion’s den with open arms, I realized, just from the way she looked.
All the more reason for her to get out now.
Yet she squared her shoulders and lowered her eyebrows in determination. “I will be tempted all the time. And I’ll prove over and over again that I’m not going back. What better person to be on the team than one who’s already seen an OD, who’s already witnessed death, and is still standing here alive. I’m an addict, but I have a lot of reasons to never become one again.”
Determination looked beautiful on that girl. And as Dante walked back into the room, I saw her hate for me in her eyes.
I wouldn’t deny that hate looked good on her too.
Izzy was a force.
And she was one I didn’t want to reckon with.
9
Izzy
I’d been working through IT problems and through the holes of JUNIPER the whole week, trying my best to ignore the man who caused my body to heat up with desire. I was exhausted. And Cade lurking around the office, putting everyone on edge had been even more draining.
No one dressed casually anymore, and everyone sat like they had rods up their asses, typing away with purpose even if they had nothing to do—which was absolutely not the case for me. I’d had numerous calls from various companies umbrellaed under Stonewood Enterprises. Troubleshooting IT issues was the worst position in the office because Stonewood Enterprises was a parent company for hundreds of others, and some of them didn’t have their own IT teams, so we took the calls.
Just that morning, I’d helped a Mr. Rogers turn on his computer. I’m not joking. He’d headed into his office after months off and called to tell us he didn’t know why it wasn’t functioning. I’d actually told Lucas that I felt like my ears were bleeding after that call. He’d patted my shoulder.
Add to that, I had Cade standing over me, announcing we all had to go together to a remote location. Now he had the audacity to question whether or not my duties were too difficult for me. Why did everything he say have to be an insult?
“Well, it’s not exactly easy, Mr. Armanelli.”
Lucas cleared his throat, and I knew he was gearing up to speak on my behalf.
“I beg to differ. How many calls have you handled this morning?”
My eyes bulged. Lucas even slid the candy canes toward me like I should take another before responding to the asshat in front of us. Candy canes calmed us. It was a bad habit I’d started when I got cravings, and I passed it onto him. Instead of nicotine or a bump of cocaine, he had a candy cane. That’d begun during wintertime last year. Now we both had a problem eating them throughout the year.
We’d been sharing a table in our office space. Most of us had utilized the communal tables near the back because we wanted to lounge together and chitchat while we worked. But since Cade had been around this week, most everyone had migrated back to their desks. The floor wasn’t separated by cubicles, but when posted up behind your laptop, it could still feel pretty solitary.
I needed my team—especially when dealing with the terrible IT calls—and Lucas ventured over to the empty tables with me, even if there was some unspoken perception that we might get in trouble.
“Are you getting any work done?” Cade continued, and his eyes flicked between us and narrowed.
“I’ve taken more than enough IT calls, Mr. Armanelli.” I shouldn’t have sneered it. I knew it was wrong. In my defense, it’d been a long week. My boss had fucked me in his office, I’d been recently dumped by a guy who kept calling me, and I’d been given a new position. I was tired. Containing my attitude wasn’t on my list of to-dos, and my reflexes to stop it were quite slow.
“You have a problem with IT?” Cade asked quietly. And of course the room was silent. Most of my coworkers had even stopped typing.
“It’s just . . .”
“Just what?” He crossed his arms and waited.
No one was going to jump in and help me on this one. “I’m sorry. It’s fine. I’m a little stressed.”
“With IT work? Because I guarantee you the election security is going to be much more taxing.”
I swear I heard Juda snicker. I started to pick at my nails, trying to curb my irritation. Everyone knew IT was shit. Cade himself knew that. Unless, maybe he’d never had to do IT work.
“Have you ever taken an IT call?”
“What?” He appeared perplexed. “Why does that matter?”
“I’m just wondering, since you find it so easy, have you ever done it?”
His eyes narrowed, and then he zeroed in on my nail picking. He tapped his shoe in rhythm with it as he smirked. “I’m sure it’s not hard.”