“If your agency doesn’t exist, what happens if you’re hurt or…die?” Her voice shook on the last word.
He shrugged. “Nothing. The government would act as if they never heard of me, and they’ll behave as if they didn’t send me on the mission.”
“But if you work for the Department of Justice—”
“We work for the department, but we’re not restricted by their guidelines and protocols.”
“Oh.” Shanice played with a hair on his chest. “If you weren’t doing this kind of work, what would you be doing?”
“You’re full of questions tonight, aren’t you?”
“Do you mind? I just want to know a little bit about the man I slept with.”
“Fair enough,” he said with a healthy dose of humor in his voice. “Assuming I stayed out of trouble, I’d probably start my own security firm. I like what I do, but I sometimes think about having a normal eight-to-five job—or as normal as security could be.”
“You should do what makes you happy. I hope you get a chance to do that one day, although it still sounds dangerous.”
“Not as dangerous as what I do now, trust me. And thank you, I hope I do get to open my own firm one day, too.”
She kissed his shoulder and took a big whiff of his skin. Leather and citrus. “Thank you for sharing with me.”
He held her tighter, running his rough hands over her back and sliding his fingers up into her curly hair. “You’re easy to talk to.”
She purred as his fingers massaged her scalp. “One more question, and I promise that’s it.”
He chuckled softly and let his hand rest on the middle of her back. “Go ahead.”
“I know you’re good at what you do, but do you ever get worried that you might mess up? Like back at Beatrice’s house, when you told me to duck. What if you’d missed?”
“Missed?” he repeated, as if that was a foreign word.
“Yes, miss. People miss, Cruz. What if you’d missed him, or worse—hit me.”
“No way. In a situation like that, I’m too focused. I never miss.”
“You’ve never ever missed?”
“Never, mami. Not once. You doubt me?” Amusement seeped back into his eyes.
“Noooo. Who would dare doubt the mighty Cruz?”
“Sounds like you’re being sarcastic, and I don’t like it. But for the record, only a fool would doubt me.”
“All right.” She sighed but smiled softly. “When do we go to Logan Towers tomorrow?”
“Raheem and I want to check out the building, and he’s going to pull up the floor plan. You’re coming with us because you’ll need to pick up a disguise, and we’ll need to get supplies. We’ll head over to Logan Towers near the end of the day when people are less alert and ready to go home.”
“I’ll be ready.”
“You’re one hundred percent certain you want to do this?” Cruz asked.
“One thousand percent,” she said with confidence.
“What am I going to do with you?” He gave her a crooked smile and leaned in for a kiss.
Shanice eagerly kissed him back. The searing tongue kiss consumed her with its heat and made desire pool anew between her thighs.
When he pushed her onto her back, she shoved her fingers into his soft hair, spread her legs, and pulled him close—anxious for him to take possession of her body once again.
21
Shanice walked into the Logan Towers building as if she belonged there, but she carried a swarm of butterflies in her stomach.
Cruz had wanted her to blend in with the people coming and going from the building, so she was dressed in a gunmetal-gray pantsuit, heels, and wore a brunette wig cut in a short bob. She also wore non-prescription glasses as part of her disguise.
Besides the one security guard, there were only a few people in the lobby, and he wasn’t paying attention to anyone because his eyes were focused on an iPad in his hand. Logan’s office was on the top floor, but his accounting department was three floors below, on the eleventh. The plan was for her to go to that floor and set up the diversion.
She walked into the elevator with two men. The younger one didn’t pay her any attention, too busy arguing with someone on his Bluetooth. The other person, an older gentleman, smiled and she returned the friendly greeting, hoping he didn’t notice how nervous she was.
The three of them rode up in silence, but the men exited on lower floors. Shanice breathed easier as she continued to her destination, careful to keep her head turned away from the camera in the corner, preventing them from getting a good image of her profile, just in case.
When she walked off the elevator, she moved slowly down the hall, eyes searching for the ladies’ restroom. According to the floor plan Raheem had pulled up, it should be right…there—almost at the end, situated between two closed office doors.
Shanice slipped in and checked under each stall door to make sure she was alone. Then she went into the one at the far end and locked the door. Her pulse was racing, and she took a moment to calm down, briefly closing her eyes. Before coming here she’d been pretty confident, but now that she had to carry out her part of the plan, nerves were eating her alive.
“You’ve got to do this. Cruz and Raheem are depending on you. Do it for Dennis.”
The pep talk was enough to prompt her into removing the contents in her mostly empty shoulder bag. The plan was for her to create an explosion that caused the entire building to be evacuated. Cruz had shown her how to make the makeshift bomb, and they’d had a practice run in an empty parking lot earlier. She could definitely do this, she just needed to stop shaking.
After giving herself another stern talking to, Shanice took out a napkin and a water bottle half-filled with white vinegar. Cruz had rolled up the napkin like a blunt with baking soda inside. She was about to drop it into the bottle when the bathroom door creaked open.
She stopped.
As footsteps clicked across the tile floor and ended in the stall next door, she listened intently, belly bunched into knots. There was no way the other person could possibly know what she was doing, but her heart hammered nonetheless.
The other bathroom occupant flushed the commode and then her heels snapped across the tile again. She washed her hands and then exited, and Shanice relaxed and resumed the task at hand.
She dropped the baking soda-filled napkin into the bottle and quickly screwed on the cap as the liquid fizzed and expanded inside the plastic container. She left the stall, and with a brisk walk opened the bathroom door and peered into the hall. Empty. Now for the diversion part.
Shanice lifted the bottle, flung it with all her might toward the far wall, and dashed away. A loud boom pushed through the slowly closing door and echoed in the hallway.
Shanice clutched her chest, caught off guard by the volume of the noise. The explosion was louder than the practice one she’d detonated earlier. This sounded like a real bomb.
Hurrying down the hallway, she pulled the fire alarm and resumed her brisk walk. A few people rushed out of their offices, eyes wide and questioning.
“What was that?” an older man yelled over the ringing.
“I don’t know,” Shanice answered. “Sounded like an explosion and then the fire alarm went off.”