“She could have gone a lot of places,” Ian pointed out. “She could have called the FBI. She didn’t. She came here, or more importantly, she came to you.”
“I’m likely the only person she knows with the skills required to do the job. Again, I’m sure my sister has told her all about my adventures in the private security world.” Sometimes he wondered if Angie would do that to let Maddie know he was still available. Or to remind her she’d made the right choice.
“So this is simply a guy helping out an old friend. You don’t still have feelings for her.”
He wasn’t about to lie to Ian. There was zero point. “Oh, I’m planning on using this time to see if we can finally work. I’m not going to lie to you or myself. It’s always been Maddie for me. I’ve had some girlfriends over the years, and I never could bring myself to commit to them because in the back of my head, I’ve always wanted Maddie. We were on different paths in high school, and I broke it off with her so she didn’t miss out on an enormous opportunity.”
“What was that?” Ian asked.
“She had a full-ride scholarship to Yale, and she wanted to defer so we wouldn’t have to spend a year apart. She wanted me to follow her.”
“And you’d actually slept with her by then?”
Tag was an asshole. Deke flipped him off. “We were in love, but even as a dumbass kid I knew Madeline Hill wasn’t meant to marry her high school boyfriend and stay in her small town. That’s where we were headed.”
“All right.” Ian conceded. “What’s the cover story? Is there a cover? I don’t know what the basis of the op is. Are you staying in the background?”
Even if he wanted to, that wasn’t possible now. Maddie had set the parameters before she’d even known what she was doing. “She got into Byrne’s inner circle by telling him she’s in the lifestyle. I’m going in as her Dom.”
A brow rose over Big Tag’s eyes. Way over his eyes. “I’m sorry. Byrne is interested in BDSM?”
“Apparently. Maddie used that as her in, but talking to him about it in a hypothetical way isn’t working anymore. She’s told him a whole lot of stories she made up. I’m sure she did her homework and sounded like an expert, but he’s pressing to meet her Dom.”
“And that would be you. Who I assume she never actually thought she would have to introduce,” Ian continued. “Tell me something. Did she even change your name?”
“I don’t think she’s shared much about me, but no. She told Byrne that her Dom’s name is Deke.” And wasn’t that interesting? “We can have one of the techs build a fake history for me in case he wants to dig into my background.”
“Let’s invite him right here to Sanctum, and I’ll introduce him to our ways.”
Yeah, he was sure his boss would love to get his torture on, but it wasn’t going to happen. “He wants to visit The Reef.”
“Seriously?” Tag’s head fell back. “Once again BDSM saves the world.” He brought his head back up and his eyes pinned Deke. “You know who runs The Reef now? Angelo DeMaris stepped down three years ago and they voted in a new president. It’s the first time a submissive has ever held that crown. Don’t get me wrong. Subs do a lot of the organizing and the work, but they don’t usually technically run the club.”
But Kayla Summers-Hunt wasn’t any old sub. Once she’d been a CIA operative sent on the most dangerous missions. She’d infiltrated Chinese intelligence and worked undercover for years. She was a badass who’d ended up married to one of Hollywood’s most successful leading men and living a beautiful life in Malibu when she wasn’t with her husband on a movie set. “I was hoping you could ask her for me.”
“She’s got a kid now. The last time I talked to her, she was settling in to doing the mommy thing. I don’t know how she’s going to react to bringing a potentially dangerous op into her club.” Tag pulled out his phone and slid his finger across the screen. “It’s a little early on the West Coast, but I can leave her a voice mail. You need to think about how you’re going to handle it if you can’t get Byrne into The Reef. Oh, hey, Kay. I didn’t think you would be up.”
Deke sat back. He wasn’t sure what he would do. He would have to come up with a good reason they couldn’t go since Maddie had already told the man she had a way in. They could string him along for a little while, but eventually he would want in.
“I wanted to talk to you about an op,” Tag began. “I know you’re out of the business and I need you to feel free to say no…”
There was a feminine screech, and Tag pulled the phone away from his ear. Deke could hear Kayla from where he sat.
“Oh my god! Yes! Yes! Do you need an assassin? Because it’s been so long. I love being a mom, but I miss my old job.” Kayla went on, but Tag simply shrugged his way.
“You’ve got your op.”
Deke breathed a sigh of relief. He had his chance. He wasn’t going to waste it.
Chapter Three
“So this is what a BDSM club looks like?” Maddie stared up at Sanctum like she expected it to transform into something else any minute.
Which just proved that she didn’t know as much as she thought she did. That was the trouble with geniuses. They often thought book smarts were everything. Deke meant to prove her wrong.
Deke stood back, allowing her to take it all in. He hadn’t spent time with her in over a decade, but some things didn’t change with Maddie Hill. She still studied the world around her carefully when she deigned to look up from studying books. She often missed what was going on around her because she was so focused on what truly interested her. Half the time in high school he would find her reading a book while she walked down the hallway and he would have to save her from taking a fall.
“This is what Sanctum looks like. I wasn’t around when it was founded. From what I understand, Big Tag bought the building for fairly cheap. It was once a soda bottling factory. Big Tag and the other founding members refurbished it and turned it into a club.” Sometimes Sanctum had felt like his second home. “This is the second version of Sanctum though. I never actually saw the first. By the time I was hired on and got my membership, McKay-Taggart was a huge financial success and Ian built his version of a pleasure palace.”
Her eyes widened slightly, and then she was back to staring. “They redecorated?”
“Oh, they pretty much rebuilt from the ground up. One of the guys on my CIA black ops team turned out to be a double, and he blew the club up. With people in it.” Deke did not remember that asshole with fondness.
Now Maddie turned his way. “What?”
He shrugged. “It happens. Nobody died. Well, the traitor did. Jake got shot. Ian actually made it out with his dessert intact. Sat right down on the rubble and ate it. The silver lining was it proved I wasn’t the traitor.”
It was weird to think that once he was on the other side of an MT investigation.
“Why would they think you were a traitor?” The question had an air of violence about it. Like Maddie would take on whoever had thought he was capable of turning on his country.