Hacker Enclosed: A Bodyguard Billionaire Romance (White Hat Security Book 8) Read online

  HACKER ENCLOSED

  WHITE HAT SECURITY, BOOK 8

  LINZI BAXTER

  LINZI BAXTER

  CONTENTS

  1. Addie

  2. Abe

  3. Addie

  4. Abe

  5. Addie

  6. Abe

  7. Addie

  8. Abe

  9. Addie

  10. Abe

  11. Addie

  12. Abe

  13. Abe

  14. Addie

  15. Addie

  16. Abe

  17. Addie

  18. Abe

  19. Addie

  20. Abe

  21. Addie

  22. Abe

  About the Author

  COPYRIGHT

  Hacker Enclosed

  White Hat Security, Book 8

  Copyright © 2020 by Linzi Baxter

  Cover Artist: Cassy Roop, Pink Ink Designs

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without permission of the author.

  The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement (including infringement without monetary gain) is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to five years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  BLURB

  She dares not come out from behind her walls. But her heart is on the threshold…

  Addie

  I’ve got the best team in the white hat hacker business. Cruz is my eyes in the field. Lena’s my ear to the ground. Me? I’m the brains of the operation. Brains tend to stay in one place—inside.

  I can’t pinpoint when my agoraphobia took over. But I refuse to be a no-show at my twin brother’s wedding. I’ve got Xanax, my team has a plan, and my bro’s got my plus-one—Abe, his Navy SEAL buddy. He’s hot. He’s dangerous. He’s unexpectedly kind. He’s the one thing my screwed-up brain will never let me have.

  Abe

  Bodyguarding the good, the bad, and the rich and famous for Blackwood Mercenary supplies the action I crave. Babysitting my buddy’s sister during his wedding? Not the kind of action I had in mind.

  But Addie’s a special case. As brilliant as she is fragile. A handle-with-care woman who, the more I’m with, makes me forget about the bro code that clearly says hands off. But when every reason for her retreat from the world threatens, it’s up to me to keep her safe. Though my every instinct warns me I’ll never be the man she needs…

  ADDIE

  “Hey, Pipsqueak,” my brother said as I answered the phone. He’d given me the nickname when we were kids.

  I rolled my eyes. He’d been born one minute before me, but just from looking at us, no one would ever know we were twins. John was six-seven, and I was closer to five-six. He had gray eyes, and mine were closer to sky blue. Over the years, I grumbled and complained about the nickname, but deep down, I liked it. His nickname for me was one thing in my life that hadn’t changed, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to still give him crap. “I have a name.”

  “Yes, you do,” John laughed. “I don’t even need to be in the same room to know you rolled your eyes, but you have a smile on your face. Even if you were born before me, you would still be a pipsqueak to me. No matter how old you get, I will always call you by your nickname.”

  Papers rustled on the other side of the phone. Five years ago, John received a medical discharge from the Navy. Once his papers were finalized, he’d joined Blackwood Mercenary, one of the top security firms the government used to run off the books covert ops. President Tucker used Blackwood Mercenary to help take down Juan Sanchez, the CIA director. For years Juan used CIA agents for his own agenda and to line his pockets with money.

  “I know, and I will grumble about it. How is everything going in California?” After meeting his wife, John talked to his boss, Brock, about opening a second Blackwood Mercenary location in in California.

  John cleared his throat. “Annabella and I are in Fort Lauderdale for the week.”

  Annabella was an A-list movie star. She’d finished filming her most current movie a couple weeks ago. It was strange for my brother and Annabella to spend time in Florida, where Blackwood’s main headquarters was located.

  I’d noticed a weird dip in his voice. “Did your last mission go bad?”

  Every so often, I assisted on cases, and if Brock had too many other projects, I would help support some of the backload. Sometimes I wondered if Brock gave me work because he wanted to make sure I had enough money coming in. My PI firm was in the black on its own, but the cases Blackwood handed me came with a lot of extra money. Lately, I’d been busy with my own projects and turned down a few Blackwood cases. The one I was currently working on would piss off my brother. He would want the information I’d found. In the past year, I’d noticed a trend in military equipment failing in the field. I followed enough different news media to see the development and was looking into it.

  “Yes and no. Nobody got hurt, but it was close,” John sighed.

  “What happened?” I asked, still worried someone had been hurt worse. John tried to shield me from the actual world sometimes. He figured that was part of the reason for my panic attacks when I tried to leave the house. His shielding me didn’t stop me from watching the news or reading articles online though.

  My agoraphobia didn’t lead back to one incident or even stem from the fact my mother also suffered from it. Some of my thoughts were the worst-case scenarios. Plane parts might drop from the sky if I tried to leave the house. Or I’d dwell on kidnapping. The chances of getting kidnapped were slim, especially when a majority of kidnapping victims were children, not adults.

  “Will you drop it if I don’t tell you?”

  “Probably not.” There was no point in lying.

  “Matt and Eric flew to Mexico to retrieve the daughter of a high-profile politician after she traveled to Cancun for spring break. In the middle of the mission, the comms stopped functioning. They were able to get the girl to a secure location and call for backup thankfully. Brock is going to analyze the equipment.”

  I clicked the shortcut on my desktop to my PI files. “What brand?”

  The sound of a pen tapping on the desk came over the line. “Is there a reason you’re asking?”

  I knew my question would prompt my brother’s suspicion. I spent a few seconds opening an Excel document before I answered. “Nothing I’m ready to explain yet. Can you please tell me the brand?”

  “Let me check. It was some new tech,” John said. “Stark Night. I’m not sure where Brock got them. He ordered a bunch of their equipment.”

  “I don’t have enough info yet, but don’t use Stark Night’s equipment anymore.” I ran my hand through my hair and let out a sigh. “I know you want more than that. As soon as I get enough info for you, I promise to send it to you. For now, promise you guys won’t use their equipment.”

  “Okay, are there more companies we shouldn’t be using?”<
br />
  I copied the list of company names I was researching and sent them to John in an encrypted email. “I just sent you the info.”

  John let out a whistle. “Are you sure about this list?”

  I wasn’t one hundred percent, and I figured my brother was questioning Arctic Supply. “Not completely. I have a hunch, but you didn’t call to talk about the cases I might be working on. What’s on your mind, big brother?”

  John cleared his throat. “I’ll let you change the subject for now. You’re right, I didn’t call to ask what case you’re working on or about Blackwood’s latest mission. Annabella and I are getting married.”

  “About time. You’ve been engaged for a year now.”

  “It’s happening this weekend, and I want you to come to Fort Lauderdale.”

  “As in three days?” I grabbed the squishy ball from my desk.

  “Yes.”

  “And you think I should jump on a plane and come down.”

  John didn’t respond immediately. “I’m asking a lot of you, but you’re my only family, and I want you there.”

  His comment about me being his only family wasn’t exact. Our mom and dad were both alive. I’d found our mom, Blair, last year. She met with John and me one day to explain why she couldn’t live with our father and had moved to Virginia then remarried to a man she’d met online. Her new husband had the means to help her with her agoraphobia. Before leaving, she said she would contact me if she wanted to see us again. It hurt. Our father lived a few blocks away from me. He hadn’t been the best dad after Mom left. Drugs and alcohol were more important than making sure his kids were okay. In the last three years, he’d sobered up, but he and John hadn’t talked in years.

  “So, the wedding is on Saturday?” I asked. If I didn’t go, I would regret it for the rest of my life. It would also be the hardest trip of my life. The last time I left the state, I was eight years old.

  “The wedding planning wasn’t last minute, but I thought if I gave you more time, you would talk yourself out of coming.”

  “You’re right,” I grumbled and glanced at the photo of us together. We took it before he left for BUD/S. A twinge of guilt came over me—I hadn’t gone to his graduation. He’d told me it was okay, but I knew he’d wanted me there, and to this day, I wished I would’ve gone.

  “If you want, I can fly up and fly back down with you.”

  He would. It would be selfish of me to ask him to spend the days before his wedding escorting me down to Florida, and there was a high chance I wouldn’t make it. John had been the popular kid in school. Every girl wanted to date him. He’d been the star football player while I was the president of the computer club and spent most of my time in the computer lab. When John overheard anyone making fun of me, he would take care of them. He always took care of me.

  “No, I can take a flight down. Maybe if I take the red-eye, there might not be many people on the plane.”

  “So, you will come?”

  The hope in my brother’s voice was enough to seal the decision. I was going to Fort Lauderdale. The thought of going to the airport flashed through my mind, and my palms started to sweat. So many things could go wrong.

  I took a deep breath. “Yes.”

  “Don’t worry about finding a flight. Brock said we can send the Blackwood plane to come get you. It will be at the executive airport Friday at nine in the morning. Thank you, Addie. You coming means the world to Annabella and me.”

  “See you in a few days.”

  “Bye.” I swiped the end button on the phone and set it on my desk. I’d just agreed to fly from Boston to Fort Lauderdale. I hadn’t left my house for three years. Nothing like jumping into the deep end with both feet.

  My brother knew I had a hard time leaving the house, but he didn’t have a clue how bad it was. I’d lied over the past year and told him I left every so often. My team made it easy for me to run my business from the house and have everything I needed. I grabbed my phone off the desk and sent Lena a text to come to my house.

  Lena had been with me since I started AW Private Investigation. We met in a chat room back in the nineties and hit it off. We’d stayed friends while we both went to college. I worked on my computer programming degree at MIT while Lena went into the police academy and worked for the Boston PD for a few years after graduating. When I mentioned opening the investigation firm, she wanted to join me. Cruz, my other employee, worked with Lena at the Boston PD. He joined us a year after we started the firm.

  My phone vibrated. Lena sent a text back telling me she was close. Cruz would be at my house soon, as well. We had a meeting scheduled to go over a case he was working on. Cruz was working on a case for an insurance company. Six million dollars’ worth of art had burned up in a building fire. Something was off, and he was working with the fire department and the police to figure out what really happened.

  I glanced down at my phone again. Only five minutes had passed since Lena said she was coming. My heart pounded in anticipation of a panic attack that was coming on fast. Xanax would help, but I hated the way it made me so sleepy. When my heart pounded faster, I reached for the pill case and took one.

  I took out the yoga mat I kept next to my desk and placed it on the floor. Breathing exercises helped stop the anxiety attack before it got too bad. Sitting cross-legged, I took a deep breath. After a few more, my heart rate decreased, and the ringing in my ears stopped.

  Keys scraped in the door lock and the front door alarm sounded seconds later. I glanced at the TV on the wall showing the feed from the video cameras around my house. Lena was unlocking the front door. My entire staff had keys to my home and their own computer stations set up in my office. We didn’t have a primary office; we did everything at my house, and Lena and Cruz met clients at coffee shops. Not all the people who hired us were the most trustworthy, so I didn’t like clients coming to my house.

  “Hey, boss, where are you?” Lena yelled as she walked into the house.

  “In the office.” I took a couple more deep breaths before standing.

  Lena stopped at the door. Her eyes found the mat right away. She knew if it was out, I’d had an attack or come close to having one. I preferred running on the treadmill to yoga. “Thanks for coming.”

  “What happened?” she asked while sitting on the bean bag chair in the corner.

  “John’s getting married.” I said as I sat back down on the mat.

  Lena raised a brow and crossed her legs. Lena was good at her job and even better when she worked cheating-husband cases. The woman was tall and skinny but had large boobs—real boobs. Her long blond hair was in a ponytail. Her looks weren’t the only thing that helped her. She could also read people well and get them to answer her without saying a word.

  She was a well-respected detective, but she didn’t like working on a set schedule. Her mother, who was ill, lived with her. Lena needed a flexible schedule to take her mom to her doctors’ appointments.

  The alarm to the front door sounded, and I looked up at the screen. Cruz was at the door, letting himself in. I planned to wait a few seconds until he was in the office. Then I would only need to tell the story once.

  When Cruz walked into the office, he stopped for a second when he saw me still sitting on the yoga mat. He didn’t say anything until he plopped down on the second bean bag chair. “What did I miss?”

  “John’s getting married,” Lena replied, with a shrug, but her eyes hadn’t looked away from me.

  “We already know he was getting married. Are you worried about the wedding?”

  “Yes,” I said, running a hand over my face and lying down on the mat. “He’s getting married this Saturday, and I agreed to go to the wedding in Florida.”

  Cruz burst out laughing. When I glared at him, he stopped. “Wait, you're serious? You’re going to the wedding in Florida this weekend. You know you will have to fly there, right?”

  I knew flying was safer than driving, but the chance of dying on a flight was stil
l high. My fingers itched to do research and figure out the most reliable way to fly. I didn’t know if a private jet would be safer than a commercial flight.

  “The words came out, and he was so excited, but I don’t know how I’m going to get on that plane Friday.”

  “Do you want me to come with you?” Lena asked.

  I knew she would come if I said yes, but I also knew she didn’t like leaving her mom that long in the care of others. Cruz had to get the investigation done for the insurance company. It was a large account that I didn’t want to lose. “Thanks for the offer, but I need to do this, and it’s a private jet. I won’t have to go to the main airport.”

  Cruz smiled at me. “I can take you to the plane on Friday and help you get settled.”

  “Can you knock me out and then put me on the plane?” I was half-joking.

  Cruz walked over and sat next to me on the floor. “Nothing would make me happier.”

  I punched him in the shoulder, and we spent the rest of the day going over our cases.

  ABE

  “Before the Night is Over” boomed through the speakers at Club Sanctorum. I sipped a glass of scotch and watched the scenes around me.

  “When did you get back?” my longtime friend John asked as he sat in the black leather chair across from me. We were in the lounge area of the club. John and I had served together on SEAL Team Three in Coronado, California, and when he got out, he joined Blackwood Mercenary. I stayed in a couple more years before getting out then joined AA Security, another mercenary company in Fort Lauderdale. The two companies worked together when needed. There wasn’t much competition between the two companies to win contracts because half the time, they ended up working together.

  “Jayden and I got back this morning. I told you I would make it back for the big day. You sure you’re ready to tie yourself down for the rest of your life? I can sneak you out of the country.” I knew John was madly in love with Annabella. My longtime friend would do anything for his future wife, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t still give him an out.