Page 52 of Tempting Tessa

“Help me bring down the CIA, of course.”

Tessa returned her feet to the floor and stood, snagging a glass paperweight and toying with it. Jessie would now be on her way to the server room with the USB Tommy had given her.

Tessa needed to buy her time. Keeping her stepfather’s attention on her and feeding his ego might encourage him to divulge more than he intended.

“I admire your ambition,” she said, shoving the stack of papers aside and finding a prize for her efforts. Carefully, with her body shielding her movements, she slipped the letter opener into her pocket before sitting on the edge of the desk. She continued to play with the glass paperweight. Nothing more than a magician’s trick to keep Harris distracted. “But ambition without precision is risky. Your plan has too many moving parts and too big of a scale. Without a solid foundation, it will fall apart.”

He bristled. “Risk is the price of progress.”

“Do you want my professional opinion or not? If all you want is someone to lick your shoes, bring Jessie back. I’m here to pick apart your plans and help you rebuild something more reliable. More satisfying.”

He stepped closer, looming over her and jerking the paperweight from her hand. The monster behind the slick suit and the overconfident ego slid to the surface. “Satisfying how?”

She’d guessed right—vengeance was still the bottom line. “Don’t you want to ensure your legacy is unassailable? To create something so flawless that no one could ever challenge it?”

The monster grinned. “Such as?”

“Are you willing to listen and do what I say?”

“I want everyone to know who I am, and I want to bring down the world so it grovels at my feet.”

“Then don’t waste my talents. I’m here. I care nothing about the Agency, so let me handle them. We need to put you to work on something bigger.”

He grabbed her chin and held her face in place as he studied her. The promise of violence was in his eyes. The feel of his cold fingers on her skin made her gut clench. Her earlier meal threatened to come back up. She held her breath, running through her options to maim him should he strike.

His grin turned pleased. That’s what he wanted—to put her in fear of him again.

With that smug smile, he released her and opened one of his desk drawers. When she saw what he withdrew, her blood ran cold. A knife.

But all he did was use it to cut through the zip tie, freeing her wrists. Tossing the knife down, he walked to a door at the far end of the room. He didn’t look back.

She followed, her pulse erratic.

And found herself inside Harris Brewer’s inner sanctum.

Time for phase two.

Unbeknownst to him, the rest of the team was inside the facility. By now, Meg and Dec should have infiltrated as maintenance workers, their uniforms and forged IDs allowing them access to critical areas. Tommy would be in the control room, monitoring the building’s systems and preparing to override them at a moment’s notice when Jessie gave him the signal. Spence was stationed nearby, ready to activate the Trojan horse Jessie was planting via the USB.

Every move was coordinated. Every contingency was accounted for. This is what Tessa did: design operations that prepared for every variable, every possibility.

Harris didn’t offer her a seat, and she didn’t take one. For the next few minutes, she continued to play on his ego and let him gloat about his supposed invincibility, asking a few questions here and there to keep him talking. As he did so, she offered suggestions for tweaking the plans he had in place to create something bigger and better.

And then, just when she thought she had him convinced of her sincerity, he chuckled. “Clever. You always were clever.”

He rose from his chair, moving to a small cabinet, where he retrieved something she couldn’t see. Returning to her, she realized too late that it was a pair of metal handcuffs. He locked one around her wrist and the other to the chair arm before she could protest.

She yanked against the restraint. “What are you doing?”

His fist came at her jaw before she could duck. She went sprawling to the ground, taking the chair over with her. Stars danced in front of her eyes, pain radiating up into her skull.

He stood over her, and she tried to scoot away before he could kick her the way he always had her mother once he got her down on the floor. Too late, he stomped a booted foot into her kidney.

She cried out, more from shock than pain, but shifted to grab his ankle. He lost his balance, tumbling into the edge of the desk. She forced herself to her feet, lunging at him.

The chair made it awkward, and he batted her away. She fell over the piece of furniture, landing on the floor, but as he came at her, she used her momentum to jerk the chair up and jammed the end of a leg into his stomach.

He bellowed, anger driving him to rush her again. She blocked him with the chair back. He snatched it from her grasp, wrenching her arm hard and slamming the edge of it down on her.

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