Page 106 of Beyond the Rules

“Understood.” Zar clicked off the call and met Nina’s curious stare. “Sorry to interrupt, love, but I promised you and it’s time.” His gaze shifted to Aiden and I. “Gear up, guys. Dimayev isgoingdown.”

* * *

Aiden

The split screen on the far wall of the bunker showed several angles of Dimayev’s mansion. Green and gray images filtered through a number of body cameras attached to night vision goggles. Nina sat at her desk, chewing on her fist, waiting for the moment that would end her nightmare. Tanner stood behind her, soothing her with a hand to the shoulder. Zar and I flanked Tanner, taking in theaction.

Honestly, if it was up to me, we’d be back at the club, or upstairs maybe, replicating what we’d been doing when the call came in. My intro to kink had been an epic win-win, and our quad had proven that our team could handle group sex no problem. Hell, we were good at it. The way Nina had shared herself with us?Transcendental.

Yeah, this was Tanner’s territory, deep, corny stuff, but what the hell. It was God’s honest truth. Our foundation? It had been poured. And it wassolid.

I forced myself to set aside the erotic images burned into my retina and focused on the screen. It also showed live images of the Ulysses team, watching the takedown from their respective locations. From the Chesapeake Bay, Noah Blake was point tonight, acting as our main contact with the takedown team. Josh Lane and Theon Riker were monitoring the mission from Phoenix Prime’s headquarters inBoston.

The lines between Nina’s brows deepened as she struggled to make sense of the live pictures and the coded reports coming in through the audio. The takedown team was ready and the house surrounded, but they weren’t on themoveyet.

Zar tapped on his coms. “Control, this is Rogue. What’s thehold,over?”

“Rogue, this is Mariner,” Noah’s voice came over the speaker. “The surveillance bot malfunctioned. We need an inside view. We’re waiting for areplacement.Over.”

Zar tapped off his coms and swore under his breath. “Every minute they delay is a clusterfuck waiting tohappen.”

Nina spun in her chair and met Zar’s gaze. “You need an inside view? I cangiveit.”

Zar’s eyes narrowed onNina. “How?”

“I can hack his newsmartTV.”

“Wait,” I said, frowning. “How the hell do you know he’s got a newsmartTV?”

“Remember last week when you asked me to hack into his credit card accounts?” She shrugged. “I took a look at his latest purchases. He likes his cutting edgetechnology.”

“She’s right,” Tanner said. “It’s in Dimayev’s profile. He can’t resist the newest,latest.”

I hadn’t looked at the receipts in detail. But Nina had. And now she had a way into Dimayev’shouse.

Zar didn’t hesitate. “Goforit.”

Nina’s fingers moved at top velocity over her keyboard. She brought up Dimayev’s credit card receipts, followed the receipt to the appliance store website, and got the product specs. I could’ve lent her an assist, but she didn’t need it. Three more minutes and she’d hacked into Dimayev’s new TV’s operating system and installed a rogue app she picked out of her utility files to activate and control the TV’scamera.

The speed in which she worked was simply astonishing. In no time, she was livestreaming images from Dimayev’s bedroom, a wide angle picture of his ass, pumping as he got his money’s worth from his evening companion. I sat down next to Nina and, connecting to the takedown team, streamed thelivefeed.

“Brilliant.” Zar planted a kiss at the top of Nina’s head and tapped on his coms. “Control, this is Rogue. Are you watching? Dimayev appears otherwiseengaged.”

“The mission is a go,” Noah’s voice came crisp over the speakers. “They’re cleartogo.”

We watched Dimayev’s arrest live. Nina gasped when the team entered his bedroom and he reached over to his night table. But the team was good and Dimayev didn’t get close to the Beretta they found in his drawer. Instead, we watched him shuffling in cuffs out of his room under the supervision of the FBI agents in charge, his limp cock dangling betweenhislegs.

“Who the fuck gave me away?” he demanded, arrogant to theveryend.

“Lots of people on your tail,” the FBI agent in charge said. “But word is a single, ferocious hacker brought you and your entire cell down. And now, you’re out for thecount.”

Tanner broke out the champagne. Ulysses was a kickass team, but it wasn’t every day we got to take out a headliner like Calamity. Blake and Riker joined us via virtual uplink. Even Josh Lane popped on briefly to congratulate everyone on a mission perfectlyexecuted.

“About that job I offered you,” he said to Nina, before he signed off. “I won’t take no for ananswer.”

Nina’s smile lit up her face. Her eyes were as light and bubbly as the champagne in her flute. The world felt cleaner with Dimayev in custody, a much better place when Nina smiled like that. I couldn’t wait for the bed-based celebration. I wanted to ask her to stay, right now, while we were ahead. But before I could, the coms came on line, and Noah’s face reappeared on hisscreen.

“Mariner here,” he said. “I need clearance from your designation to cancel the protection teams on Susie Mae, Wang Ho and Mrs. Leon. Do youconfirm?”

---