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Chapter 1
From the other side of the street, the little shop looked pristine and unassuming. Mila watched the door as she chugged the rest of the black coffee in her to-go cup—a disturbing addiction her father had warned her about. Before graduating from the academy, she’d been a paragon of health and fitness. Now, five years later, that naïve, idealistic rookie was a distant memory, replaced with a jaded, caffeine-addicted bitch. And at just twenty-seven, she’d found her first silver hair that morning.
She set her coffee down in the cup holder and pushed back her hair. The jeans and T-shirt felt unfamiliar, but were necessary to keep her cover. She was far more at home in business attire, which felt like part of her shield.
Sighing, she opened the door and climbed out of the car, taking her messenger bag with her. Her badge and gun were stashed in her purse. Today she wasn’t Detective Palmer. She was Mila Tanner—and completely clueless about technology.
A faint chime sounded when she opened the shop door, but a scrawny kid already sat behind the counter. Between the baseball cap pulled low over his face and the way he was hunched over his phone, she couldn’t get a good look at him. His shirt had the store logo on it, but she doubted he was the owner.
Like most computer repair shops she’d seen, the place was cluttered, but tidy, and held an assortment of cords, gadgets, and accessories. The sign behind the counter said she was in the right place, but there was no way this kid was Atlas Larson, who was supposedly about six foot four and two hundred and fifty pounds of muscle.
When she cleared her throat, the kid startled then looked up at her.
“Oh. Hi.” Sheepishly, he tucked his phone into his pocket and stood up from the stool he’d been perched on. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
His baby face matched the awkwardness of his body. A teenager.
“What’s up?” He smiled then stopped himself and grimaced. “Wait. Let me try that again.” His shoulders straightened and he took a more professional tone. “Welcome to Larson Computer Solutions. I’m Austin. How can I help you?”
She held up her messenger bag. “My laptop froze.”
“Did you try turning it off and on again?”
With a glare, she gritted through clenched teeth, “Yes.”
“Did you try plugging it in?”
“Is there a manager I could talk to?”
Austin unfolded himself from the stool then patted the counter. “I’ll take a look. It’s probably something easy to fix.”
The bored condescension was already getting on her nerves. She felt like spewing a few tech words just to throw him off balance, but she resisted. She had to stick to the part.
“Okay,” she managed to say, then withdrew the computer from the bag and placed it on the counter. “It’s fully charged. It starts up fine but then the screen either goes blank suddenly or it freezes in the middle of what it’s doing.”
“Probably got a virus.”
“I have antivirus software.” It was an old laptop that had broken down years ago and had been dropped several times. Hopefully, it’d stump the kid long enough for her to meet Larson. It’d be a pretty big waste of her afternoon if the kid managed to fix it in only a few minutes.
He opened the laptop and pressed the power button. “Antivirus doesn’t protect against everything. I’ll run some diagnostics and see what’s going on.”
“How long will that take?”
“Depends.” He shrugged. “Could be half an hour, could be a few days. You can leave your number and I’ll—”
“I’ll wait,” she blurted.
His brows rose.
“Like you said, it might be an easy fix.”
Two days ago an anonymous tip had come in about the increase of high-end car theft. The precinct knew there was a ring working somewhere in the city, but there hadn’t been a lead since someone had died last year—a man called Marcel who’d had a shady history with the law. After that, reports on stolen cars had diminished for a while but in the last two months, there’d been a steady increase. Anonymous tips were usually made by ex-lovers looking for revenge but when she’d looked into the Larson brothers’ backgrounds, there were definitely some red flags. The fact that they moved every year or two was suspicious. Of course, there were always other reasons. If she could get a conversation going, she could push for information and a reasonable explanation. Being a detective was a lot about intuition. Once she got a good read on the guy, she’d dig for proof to back it up.
A door behind the desk opened, and a large figure filled the entire doorway. She craned her neck to see his face.
Her initial impression was height and muscle and danger. His expression was friendly, but it was hard to tell if it stayed that way long. This had to be Atlas Larson, and he was a huge motherfucker. Sure, she’d read the brief description they had on file, but none of that prepared her for a man who was built like he beat the shit out of people for a living, and dragged women off by the hair as a hobby. This bastard had criminal written all over him. It wasn’t proof, of course, but it was a good start.
Mila wasn’t intimidated by much, but this guy made her want to reach for her gun, just to reassure herself it was there. Years of keeping pace with the guys on the police force had hardened her, but it took a few seconds to compose herself. There were no reports saying these guys were violent, but even though she was good at hand to hand, she didn’t think she’d get far with this Neanderthal.
“What have I told you about the baseball cap?” he asked Austin as he walked behind the counter. Before the kid could move, Larson had flicked the hat off his head.
Austin scrambled to catch it, then tossed it under the counter. “Sorry.”
“Mm-hmm.” He arched a brow at his employee, but his mouth quirked at the corner, with fond familiarity. Family maybe? “Is Austin figuring things out for you?”
“Yeah,” Mila said, trying to sound more casual than she felt. Then again, he had to be used to women getting flustered around him. “It’s an old laptop, so I don’t know if he’ll be able to save it for me.”
Atlas looked over the kid’s shoulder, and then at Mila. “If we can’t fix it, we can probably retrieve the information off of it, Ms. . . . ?”
“Oh, uh. Mila. It’s Mila Tanner.” She could feel her cheeks heating and she wished she could plant a fist in what looked to be his very hard torso. Okay, so her feeling flustered wasn’t his fault, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to blame him.
“Mila,” he repeated. A lazy grin spread across his face, and it made her shiver. A man this built shouldn’t be hot too. By all rights he should have looked as if someone had taken a shovel repeatedly to his face. Instead he was all stubborn jaw, strong cheekbones, and hard blue eyes. And damn it, he was blond.
The man needed to be licked. A lot. But not by her. She was a cop, and not at all attracted to possible criminals.
But wow . . . yeah.
