Whistleblower (PALADIN Book 1)

3 MONTHS LATER

I open my eyelids reluctantly as the sun peeks through the cracks of the blinds. Reaching over to the other side of the bed, I search for Eden’s soft, warm tit to squeeze, but instead, all I feel is a hairy round belly.

“Dammit, Mouse,” I grumble.

This dog ignores the fact that he’s not even allowed on the bed and finds every opportunity to tuck himself in the sheets. Eden says she doesn’t allow him on the furniture when I’m away, but seeing as Mouse likes to spoon, I’m going to call bullshit.

“Bad dog. Down,” I growl at him, pushing against his back, but he only pushes back. He’s exceptionally strong for only six months old and is not intimidated by me in the slightest. He only listens to his mother. I ask the one thing that can coax him out of my bed. “You want food?”

He leaps up in a hurry and barrels off the bed, taking the comforter with him, and leaving me exposed. “Mouse!”

I thought a protection dog would make Eden feel safe after the ordeal she went through three months ago. So, I bought her a Malinois. There’s no dog that’s more loyal, smart, and brave, not to mention Eden is already very familiar with the breed.

I was expecting obedience and poise from such a revered pedigree, but for some reason what I got was a rebellious, clumsy goof of a puppy that Eden loves with her whole heart. We were going to name the pup Minnie, in honor of her childhood dog, Mickey. I requested a female, but the minute he was delivered, he rolled on his back for belly scratches and it was clear he had different equipment than we were expecting. I wanted to return him because I felt a female was a better companion for Eden, but he strategically curled up in her arms so fast. Eden gave me the look of death, daring me to try and take him away.

Therefore, we settled on Mouse.

Dragging myself out of bed, I find Eden’s note on the kitchen island tucked under a traveler’s mug of coffee. I blink away my irritation. It’s been months since the whole ordeal in California, but Eden gone in the morning with just a note left behind, is still triggering for me…

PALADIN stuff was delivered.

I’ll be at the compound all day if you want to help. Don’t feed Mouse. He’s already eaten twice this morning.

I love you.

Mouse nudges me, wagging his tail in anticipation.

“Sorry, man, spoke too soon,” I say and bend down to pat his head. His tongue lolls out of his mouth as he cocks his head to the side. “Your mom told on you, you’ll have to wait for dinner.” Pulling his tongue back into his mouth, he looks at me with what can only be interpreted as a dog pout.

I take a big gulp of the coffee that is still warm. Eden must’ve left not too long ago. The last thing I want to do is spend today at the PALADIN compound. Vesper and I just got back last night. Interestingly enough, now that we’re no longer working for the FBI, our workload has tripled. Vesper told me on the way home yesterday that it’s time to recruit.

We have an empty compound…

It’s time to fill it.

Looking at Mouse’s sad eyes, I offer his next favorite activity, second only to eating. “Want to go for a ride?”

Entering the compound with Mouse trailing me, I see that I’m late. Lance and Cricket are holding paintbrushes, dripping black paint over their ridiculous denim overalls. They are standing too close, and I’m really starting to doubt the siblingship that I, for so long, thought they shared. Not to mention, I’m almost certain I caught them kissing at the compound a few months ago, but after finding my girlfriend in perilous danger, the thought slipped my mind for a few weeks. When I finally asked if they were fucking, of course they denied it. But would anyone be surprised if killers were also liars?

“Why doesn’t it smell in here?” They are painting underground where there are no windows. It should reek of fumes.

“Because your girl is a genius,” Lance says, pointing to each corner of the main entry where tall ventilators are positioned. They are quiet but clearly powerful. “Want to do the honors?” Lance nods at the FBI emblem that was painted on the back wall.

I let out a short laugh. “All yours.”

Lance eagerly drags his black paintbrush across the blue and gold seal. “That’s better, much better.”

“Hey, Mousey,” Cricket coos and Mouse trots eagerly to her side, sitting patiently while she rubs his giant ears. “Down,” she commands and he lays immediately. “Show me your tummy, love.” He rolls on his back, his four paws in the air. Mouse wriggles with glee as Cricket gives him belly scratches.

“Does he listen to you?” I ask Lance, with a scowl on my face. Mouse spends most of his time at the PALADIN compound. There’s a dog bed in almost every office for him.

“Fuck no. I’m pretty sure he flipped me off with his tail the other day. Vesper can get him to do tricks though.”

All right, it’s official. My dog is pussy whipped.

“Eden’s in her office,” Cricket says to me. “She’s buried under a mountain of boxes.”

“Stay he—” I say to Mouse, then change my mind halfway through. “Cricket, tell Mouse to stay here.”

She laughs as I make my way down the hallway, headed to the office with the door that’s always open. I knock on the door frame, grabbing her attention first. No one blames her, but Eden’s still a little skittish these days. I’ve learned to announce myself before I enter a room.

“Hey, baby,” I say.

She whips around, her long hair fanning out before falling across her shoulders. “Hi, you. What’re you doing here so early? You should’ve slept in. You got home so late.”

I take a moment to admire her. I snuck in so late last night that she was already in bed, so it’s like I’m seeing her for the first time this morning. After nearly five months of knowing Eden, she still makes me catch my breath. She finally looks like herself again. Her face was bruised for weeks after what happened with Ravi. Luckily it was just hairline fractures in her cheek, so she didn’t need surgery. Her ribs were bruised, but not broken. Her busted lip healed quickly. And she smiled through her entire recovery because my girl is resilient as all hell—a fucking warrior.

Crossing the room, I wrap my arms around her and pull her small frame between my legs, as I lean against her new white, wooden desk. “I missed you, Precious.”

“This was a longer trip.”

“Five days.”

“Where’d you go?”

I grimace. “Italy.”

“Aw, come on!” she whines, pushing against my shoulder. “Not fair. I would’ve gone.”

“There wasn’t much leisure time.”

It was two full days traveling, almost two days waiting in an abandoned cathedral, twenty minutes gunning down a herd of Italian mobsters, and another day dumping bodies. I don’t think Eden would’ve enjoyed that vacation at all.

“Well, one day,” she says with a shrug.

“Next week,” I say determinedly.

“What?”

“Let’s go next week. Just you and me. We’ll get real Italian Margherita pizza and find that gelato shop your dad loved. What do you think?”

“Really?” Her smile is so big her teeth show. “You can just drop everything and go? What about work?”

I laugh. “I think I’m due for some vacation time. Or have you written that policy yet?”

She snorts. “For the last time, I’m not HR! My official title with PALADIN is organizational operations manager,” she says with a fake, fancy accent and a sarcastic roll of her wrist.

“What does that mean?”

She pops her shoulders cutely. “It means… I don’t know. Vesper just told me to purge this place of all things FBI, so that’s my current plight. Look,” she says pointing to the stacks of boxes in her office. “That’s new merch and new desks that need to be built. We’ve got new furniture being delivered. We’re converting some of the empty rooms into more offices. Vesper is trying to build a small army.”

“Did she tell you how she’s paying for this?” I wrap my hands around Eden’s hips, letting them wander across her backside.

“The FBI still has a generous budget for us. Let’s just say my silence was very expensive.”

Those found guilty were punished severely, and in my opinion, it still isn’t enough. Eden’s testimony buried Ravi, and Pierre Corky’s testimony sealed her fate. In exchange for Eden’s silence in the media, they promised full exoneration for Empress. In addition, the FBI let PALADIN keep the compound along with our independence while still funding our activities as long as Vesper stays at the helm.

A few months ago, I would’ve been thrilled to be relieved of Jeffrey Callen. Now, I’m glad he’s one of us. Officially abandoning the badge, Callen is second in command at PALADIN. I say that to be polite, but I still don’t listen to a goddamn thing he tells me to do.

They also promised the most severe punishment for Director Ravshervesky. She was stripped of her title, awards, and money, and was thrown into solitary confinement in a maximum-security prison. I don’t know which one, and it’s probably best that way. I close my eyes and still see Eden beaten and bruised and it’s enough to provoke the monster. If I ever cross paths with her again, only one of us will survive the encounter, I can promise that.

“So?” I ask. “Italy?”

She nods enthusiastically. “I just have to find someone to watch Mouse.”

“Look how far we’ve come, baby. We officially have baggage now,” I say, laughing.

Vesper never liked us to have pets. Now I have a dog. We’re not supposed to get married. When the time is right, Dr. Eden Abbott will become my wife. We can’t have kids, but from everything the doctor has told me, my sterility might not be as permanent as I thought. If Eden wants children, we’ll find a way to open that door.

It’s time for new rules. A new PALADIN. A new way to live.

“Well, if we’re going on vacation next week, I need to get this mess in order in a hurry then.” Wiggling out of my arms, she collects a box cutter from her desk. She begins opening the brown packages one by one.

“Eden?”

“Yes?” She spins around and matches my stare.

“I know you like to work, but it doesn’t have to be here. The dust has settled and you can have your old life back. If you want to work in San Francisco, we can move. Vesper can deal if I don’t report to the compound every day.”

Eden makes her way back over to me and grabs my hands, weaving her delicate fingers in mind. “She needs me.”

“What?”

“Vesper…she says she needs me. I want to be here, Linc, because somehow I matter here. I think I can do more good with PALADIN than I’ve done at any job before. I want to stay.” She squeezes my hand.

I look around the room filled with office supplies. “So, Vesper needs you to be her little errand girl, huh?”

Eden laughs. “No. She says… Never mind.” She tries to pull away but I yank her back.

“Vesper says what?”

“That I’m her canary. That I’ll keep PALADIN from losing its way. She trusts my conscience more than her own. She doesn’t need me to hold a gun. Vesper needs…my heart.”

That makes two of us, then. I press my lips against Eden’s forehead and breathe her in. “Okay, baby. How can I help?”

“Umm,” she mumbles absentmindedly, “I just need to start unpacking everything to see what we have.” She hands me the box cutter. “Here. You open them, I’ll do inventory.” She grabs a pen and clipboard off of her desk.

“What is all this?” I move towards a small box on top of her desk to start.

“Just office stuff.”

“What is ‘office stuff’ exactly?” I cut through the thick tape of the flat square box and see a small silver case of some sort.

“Um,” Eden says over her shoulder, distracted, as she mentally counts the contents of a box, “mugs…t-shirts…pens…mouse pads…that sort of thing. Vesper is working on having a more face-forward division of PALADIN. I think we’re calling it a private investigation agency as a cover. Ha!”

“Mugs? Mouse pads?” I ask with a big teasing smile that she can’t see behind her back.

“Yes—”

“So not butt plugs and lube?” I try to hold in my cackle as I pop the lid on the flat silver case and find three butt plugs of different sizes with little gemstones on the base. The freebie gift from her order is apparently a small bottle of scented lubricant.

Eden freezes and lets out a loud, deep exhale before she spins around to face me. She looks mildly horrified. “Did you get that off my desk?”

“Yes.”

“That was a personal package. I meant for you to open those,” she says pointing with her pen to a large stack of heavy-looking boxes. Her cheeks are growing even redder and more flushed if that’s possible.

“Well, I didn’t,” I say, unable to hold in my laughter. “You’re caught red-handed, Bambi.”

Covering her eyes, she ducks her head. “I just thought if we wanted to try that again, it’d be better to work our way up.”

Our sex life has been tame over the past few months. Eden was healing, so we didn’t fuck. We had careful, tender sex which was just as gratifying for me. But now that my girl is fully healed and feeling more like herself, I see that familiar flicker in her eyes.

I pick up the smallest plug with the light pink gemstone at the end and examine it. It’s really not that much bigger than a finger. “I thought all your requests were just an expression of your anxiety, but now that the Empress mess is behind you…”

She smiles wide, her cheeks bunching into perfect spheres. “Secret’s out. It had nothing to do with Empress, babe. It’s you Linc—you’re my kink.”

“Seems a little cheap. You’re my heart, and I’m just your kink?” I swivel the plug in my hand as she cocks her head to the side and blows me a kiss.

“You’re my heart, too.”

I shoot her a sexy smile. “Good girl. Glad to hear it.” I shut her office door, then lock it. After yanking on the cord to close her office blinds, I spin around and raise my eyebrows at Eden who is biting on her bottom lip.

“Did I wake up the monster?” she asks teasingly.

“Hush,” I growl. “Strip. Now.” Tossing the clipboard aside, she peels off her blue jeans that hug her like a glove. I wait until she pulls off her t-shirt to give her the next command. “Bend over and put your hands on the desk.”

When she’s in the right position, I hunch over her, tracing her clit over her cotton panties. She shudders in delight, right before I lightly smack her panty-covered ass.

“Oh, come on, Linc,” she grumbles. “Harder.”

Whirling her around, I hook my finger under her chin and tilt it upward until she meets my eyes. “Do you feel safe?” She nods. “Do you promise to tell me if you’re hurt or unhappy?” She nods again. “Do you know I love you?”

She kisses me tenderly. “Yes. I love you too.”

Turning her back around, I force her head down so her cheek rests on the desk and her ass is poking out. I swat her again, this time much harder and she groans in delight.

“Yes,” she mewls. “Like that.”

I hope Lance and Cricket have left the building because there’s no way this is going to be quiet. The things I’m going to do to her…for her, Eden’s going to be screaming at the top of her lungs.

“Eden?” I ask, yanking her panties to the side. I pop the plug in my mouth, getting it as wet as possible.

“Yes?” She wiggles her hips in anticipation.

“What’s the safe word?”