All Chapters of Cracking His Code: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

KirillThe heavy steel door hisses open the second I punch the final digit into the keypad.Stepping through the threshold, the barrel of a suppressed pistol is leveled squarely at the center of my chest. Saint does not flinch. It takes him a fraction of a second to register my face, and the weapon drops seamlessly to his side."Status?" Saint asks, his voice clipping the air."They are all dead," I state, wiping a smear of someone else’s blood off my jaw with the back of my hand. "A specialized breach team. Heavily armed, military tactics."Saint’s jaw tightens. "The location is burned.""Yes," I confirm, stepping further into the room. The adrenaline is still singing in my veins, a toxic, heavy current that makes every shadow look like a threat. "We have to torch the building, do a full scrub of any evidence of our presence here. Get downstairs. Chana and Tariq need help pulling the physical drives from the server racks before Oba sets the thermite charges. Do not leave a single g

OliverSleep is a fragmented, elusive concept. Tossing and turning on the incredibly firm mattress in Kirill’s guest room only yielded short, anxiety-riddled bursts of unconsciousness. Every time my eyes managed to close, the percussive echo of automatic gunfire rattled through my skull, jerking me violently awake.For the last four days, privacy was entirely nonexistent. Someone was always with me in the living quarters at the warehouse. The constant surveillance was suffocating. But being all alone in this pristine room somehow feels worse.Knowing a lethal Russian assassin is sleeping just down the hall doesn’t offer the same comfort as having him physically occupying my visual field and glaring at me.I eventually give up on the idea of rest entirely, and my bare feet hit the cold floor. The chill sends a sharp jolt up my legs. Running a hand through my hair does nothing to tame the chaotic, tangled mess it’s turned into from tossing and turning, but that’s as much as I’m doing

KirillI enter the penthouse with four heavy paper bags and a rolled-up cylinder of black foam pinched under my arm.The door clicks shut behind me, and my heart rate immediately picks up. I do not want to be here. I want to be in a dark room analyzing threat vectors, surrounded by the familiar scent of gun oil and adrenaline. Instead, I am carrying organic vegetables and expensive wine into my kitchen like a butler.Oliver is sprawled across the leather sofa, reading a magazine about firearms that I left on the coffee table, his long legs draped over the armrest.At least he’s changed out of the distracting exercise outfit. He’s wearing jeans and a tight V-neck t-shirt. I wonder whether he knows they make denim that doesn’t cling to every inch of his legs.When he hears the rustle of the paper bags, he sits up. The thin cotton of his shirt slips, exposing the smooth line of his collarbone."You actually got the stuff," Oliver says, his voice a mixture of surprise and profound satis

OliverSilence in the penthouse is usually directly tied to Kirill’s brooding presence. But with the giant Russian out hunting, the quiet has taken on a completely different, distinctly aggravating texture.It’s the silence of being actively ignored.Chana has transformed the dining table into a miniature command center. Her reinforced Pelican case is cracked open, revealing a terrifyingly beautiful array of processing hardware and three thin, interlocking monitors. Lines of code scroll continuously across the dark screens, reflecting in the glossy black surface of the table.I’m sitting on my hands to keep myself from reaching out and taking over.She’s been typing for forty-five minutes straight. Her fingers fly across the mechanical keyboard with a rhythmic, clacking speed that borders on hypnotic.Sitting on the leather sofa, staring at the back of her head, the boredom is beginning to mutate into an unbearable itch.I’m starting to genuinely miss Dom. We built up a rapport from

OliverSunlight is a brutal, unwelcome intruder when it creeps across the bedrock of the guest bed.Waking up sucks.My brain doesn’t even grant me a few seconds of blissful ignorance before the memory of last night crashes into me.Keep your hands to yourself.The words echo in my mind, carrying the exact same venomous, jagged edge Kirill used when he shoved me away. My shoulders tense instinctively, remembering the bruising force of his massive fingers digging into my biceps.I roll onto my back and stare up at the sterile white ceiling, letting the hot, acidic wave of shame wash over me.Misreading a situation is something I rarely do. In my line of work, reading the subtle tells of human behavior is just as important as reading code. I thought I had Kirill figured out. I thought the heavy, suffocating tension between us was a two-way street. I thought I saw something in the Russian’s hazel eyes, a microscopic crack in his impenetrable armor when he looked at me.A heat that mir