Mission: Impossible to Deny (The Impossible Mission Romantic Suspense Series Book 7) Read online

  Mission: Impossible to Deny

  The Impossible Mission Series • Book 7

  Jacki Delecki

  Doe Bay Publishing

  About the Book

  This hard-edged CIA agent is going to get her man…

  All CIA agent Darcy Wilson needs is one chance, one lead to take down a big time criminal. That will be enough to get her out of hot water with her boss. If she can prove who’s behind Ransomware, a malware threatening two US embassies’ database, Darcy will once again have her orderly life and career back on track. Her gut tells her the culprit is cyber millionaire Reeves Hewitt. He has the brains, the money, and the connections to pull off this crime–plus he’s a software developer, with mad hacking skills. But all evidence points elsewhere. Despite Reeves seeming innocence, Darcy doesn’t like Reeves–because she likes him. Hating him would be a lot easier if she wasn’t so attracted to him.

  Just not in the way she imagined.

  Reeves Hewitt might have started out life as a computer geek, but he’s upped his game since his sister’s life was threatened. Now his work with Jenkins Security has him training like an operative, able to protect those he cares about. Unfortunately, he’s got a thorn in his side–an over-achieving CIA agent who is determined to pin a government security breach on him because of a video game he developed in college. Traveling to California with Darcy so he can prove his innocence isn’t something he has time for, but at least he’ll get the chance to use his tactical training. And somehow he has to ignore the heated desire between them. But when Darcy’s almost killed helping Reeves, he has to face the truth of his feelings.

  Running out of time, the hacker is one step ahead of them and has them both in his sights.

  Can they uncover his identity before it’s too late?

  Copyright © 2021 by Jacki Delecki

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise, without expressed written permission from the publisher.

  Trademark disclaimer: The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of various products referenced in her work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Doe Bay Publishing, Seattle, Washington

  ISBN: 978-1-7355679-3-8

  Cover Design by The Killion Group

  Digital Formatting by Author E.M.S.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Epilogue

  A Note to my Readers

  Sneak Peek: Undercover Danger

  Excerpt from Mission: Impossible to Protect

  Excerpt from A Secret Code

  Also by Jacki Delecki

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Reeves Hewitt raced toward the light shining through the thick overhang. Butterfly blade in hand, he thrashed a path, desperate to escape the Colombian jungle.

  He halted as the gorge suddenly materialized before him. His teammate, XChoco, barreled into him, throwing him forward. His heart thumped against his chest as he calculated the odds of crossing the wooden bridge swinging in the downdraft over a rushing tributary of the Amazon. Nature had carved an eight-hundred-foot cavern, creating a wind tunnel in the dense jungle. The bridge was held together with planks and rope and looked as if it hadn’t been crossed since the Conquistadors plundered Colombia five centuries before.

  Die by an eight-hundred-foot fall or be captured, tortured, and then killed by their pursuers? XChoco shoved him to get going. She wanted to make tracks from the bad guys as much as he did.

  Muffled shouts in Spanish moved closer. He and XChoco had started on a mission to find a hidden quipu treasure the Inca’s system of knots and strings used to record detailed data, information, and history.

  They had been chased off their path by a pissed off mama jaguar, only to race smack into the middle of a drug runners camp. While being hounded by gun-toting druggers, he had made a wrong turn, taking them farther into the jungle and away from Leticia, the closest town in this part of the Colombian Rainforest.

  He had to get XChoco across the bridge before the baddies caught up. His hands shook with the rush of adrenaline. The ropes might not tear, or the rotten wood might hold her weight if she could make it across in a hail of fire.

  He signaled with his butterfly to cross quickly before the drug smugglers appeared. She would be an easy mark, swinging in the middle of the bridge. The sharp blade gleaming in the sunlight was his only protection against an enemy armed with AK-47s. How fair were those odds? He could stop a few to give her time to cross the hundred-foot span.

  Midway across the bridge, XChoco twisted and signaled him to join her. She stopped and pulled out an M-4 from her backpack, then dropped to one knee on a skinny piece of wood and set up to give him a chance of surviving. How had he gotten lucky enough to have a smart-thinking and armed partner? He had chosen a knife in preparation, and she had chosen the Marine Corp’s newest assault rifle. You had to love a partner who knew her guns.

  He ran. His foot missed a plank, and he tripped. His heart and stomach plummeted as he swayed in the wind. The rat-tat of the AK-47 concussion reverberated over his head and against the canyon walls.

  He was halfway when XChoco left her position to climb the cliff’s steep incline. She fell to her stomach and positioned herself above the bridge to take the vantage point to cover him.

  He sprinted to the end. One rifle against ten didn’t add up to a happy outcome for either of them. With his blade, he worked frantically to saw through the rope. His chances of not being picked off—improbable. He was a sitting target, but XChoco wasn’t. He had to sacrifice himself if one of them could make it out alive—no choice, really.

  How humiliating it would be to have lost both his and XChoco’s lives.

  His ear drums were about to burst from XChoco’s blast above him. She was ripping through the magazine as if there were no tomorrow.

  A bastard aiming for XChoco hit the rock behind Reeves, sending dust down on his head and briefly blinding him. Reeves didn’t stop. With one last thwack, the rope tore apart, and the bridge swung wide before dropping with the weight of their pursuers. Now that they were halfway across, they teetered in a slow dance before falling into the long abyss. Their high-pitched screams as they hit the water resounded throughout the canyon.

  He and XChoco had prevailed. Fueled with the rush of adrenaline coursing through him, he wanted to at least high-five his partner.

  The lights flashed, and a “#1” zoomed across the video screen. He and XChoco, his anonymous partner, had won the game. Their f
ifth win for the night.

  He wished he could have watched the emotions play across his brash and ballsy partner’s face during the game. But she didn’t have a face cam, and she had altered her voice to Darth Vader’s bass. He could hack into her system and find her IP address, but it would take a lot of effort. And since she was savvy, she most likely had hidden her identity. Her address had jumped all over servers before landing in a pirate site in Macau or some other untraceable place. And there was the little problem that it was illegal to track her … and what would he do with the information? Call her for a meet-up? Talk about creepy stalker stuff.

  But he couldn’t help how he felt. They had a connection—how she had anticipated his moves and protected him. They had moved perfectly in sync. The way his life had been going lately, it would be his luck that XChoco was an eleven-year-old boy. But “X” usually meant a female, and his guess was that “Choco” represented a love of chocolate.

  Charlie would be laughing his ass right now if he knew how pathetic it was that Reeves, one of the game developers of Snakes Ahead, was hoping to get laid by an anonymous gamer because of her quick thinking and her choice of weapons. How sick was that? Reeves would have to agree with his dead friend.

  Reeves glanced at his screen. 9:00 p.m. He had been playing for over three hours. He probably should head home. He hadn’t wanted to spend much time in the condo. The space felt empty, and the silence taunted him.

  He shut down his system when he heard the sound of women’s laughter in the high-level security space. Very few had clearance to enter Jenkins Security.

  “Sherlock Holmes much?”

  Shit, shit, shit. Danni Knorr. He had been good at dodging her until now.

  “I wouldn’t say it took much brain power.”

  Yep, Sophie Dean, Danni’s bestie too. All he needed was Jordan Dean, Sophie’s older sister, to make the holy trinity of interfering women. Thank God, his sister Emily, a professional cellist, was touring on the East Coast.

  He stood and prepared himself for the onslaught of female cross-examination.

  Danni, as always, was striking in high heels, a tiny skirt, and long, blonde-white hair swaying around her shoulders. The Scandinavian beauty towered over the shorter but no less gorgeous Sophie Dean, who was also dressed for clubbing. The two women loved their dance time. He often had been dragged along with the ladies before they decided that the Jenkins brothers were more interesting.

  “God, he looks worse than I expected.” Danni marched to him, getting nice and close to his face.

  And then she shoved hard against his chest, almost knocking him off his feet. The woman had been working out. “You big jerk. I’m going to kick your ass, and then Sophie …” Danni turned toward Sophie, whose pitiful look was worse than a shove and much more painful.

  “What are you planning to do to this big lump of stupid testosterone, Soph?”

  “I only have SEAL brotherhood threats from Finn, and all of them sounded pretty awful since they involved Reeves’s manly parts.”

  Danni snorted, then wrapped him in her arms, pulling him close. “Why didn’t you tell me? Any of us?”

  A lump of emotion stuck in his throat, turning his voice rough. “Not much to tell.”

  “OMG. Spare me from stupid men.” She stepped back and inspected his face. “Not much to tell? Lily was cheating, and you didn’t mention it to any of us.”

  “I spoke with Emily, and you haven’t told her either. Why?” Sophie’s bewildered voice made him feel like a piece of … Just because he had listened to their heartbreaks didn’t mean he wanted to share his.

  “What did you expect? That I’d meet for a glass of bubbly and ‘process’ my feelings?”

  Danni’s scrutiny was what he had been avoiding. A ferocious and loving woman, she didn’t hesitate to get right into any of her friend’s business. Thank God Lars was responsible for the woman now.

  “You must be really hurting to be such a fricking jerk.”

  He wasn’t in pain, more like regret. He and Lily had started fizzling out at least a year ago. He was more ashamed that he hadn’t been paying enough attention to suspect she had another bedmate. How could someone with his IQ be that dense and that trusting? He had assumed that Lily was like his sister and his women friends, who were honest and loyal. Obviously not Lily. Who got their jollies on playing two men? Why couldn’t she have broken up with him instead of hiding the truth?

  He looked at both women who were like sisters to him. He didn’t want them to worry about him.

  “Hey, sorry.” He shrugged, knowing he failed to fool these women. “How did Finn and Lars let you out of their sight dressed like you’re ready to ‘partay?’”

  “Nice deflection, Reeves.” Sophie laughed. “As if Finn has anything to say about the way I dress.”

  “We’re taking you out for a glass of bubbly to get the truth. And if you don’t share, we’ll sic our men on you.”

  Reeves smiled for the first time in a long while. He’d take his chances with the ladies. Finn was an ex-Navy SEAL—and one of his bosses—while Lars, Finn’s younger brother, was still a Recon Marine. They didn’t process feelings. They expressed themselves physically. Very physically. Reeves had been witness to many brawls between the Jenkins brothers.

  “I can’t wait.”

  Danni and Sophie wouldn’t give up. And he was very tired of his own company. And besides, he hadn’t eaten dinner. And how would the women react if he told them he was fantasizing about a gamer he had never met? They’d probably call a shrink.

  Still, he gave one last look at his Razer Death Adder Elite mouse next to his Corsair K70 RGB colorful keyboard. What would XChoco think if she ever saw his kingdom?

  Chapter Two

  Darby Wilson jerked the headset off and stood. “Did we get him?”

  After three hours of non-stop gaming, she was relieved to move. The intensity of play frazzled her brain. Reeves Hewitt was a skilled gamer and an excellent partner—anticipating and reacting with situational awareness. She walked to the long bank of computers, where the CIA’s finest cybercrime analyst shook her head in disbelief. Molly, her blonde hair caught up in a ponytail and giving her the look of a twelve-year-old, shook her head so hard that her tail bobbed.

  “Everything is encrypted, then encrypted some more. He wrote his own security program, and it’s fantastic.”

  “I thought if I stayed on long enough, you’d be able to creep into his system.”

  “Nope. His firewalls are nothing like anything I’ve ever seen. I tried every angle I could. The guy’s a genius.”

  “We know Reeves Hewitt is a genius …” Molly’s admiration irked Darcy. “A genius criminal.”

  “He has no record of anything illegal except for the hidden off-shore banking account. And technically, it’s not illegal.”

  Darcy hated Molly’s voice of reason.

  “He’s smart enough never to leave a trail if he hacked into a system, right?”

  “Sure.” Molly bobbed her head.

  “Add in the little fact that he designed the video game currently being used to extract money from the United States.”

  Reeves Hewitt and his Stanford friend were on Darcy’s suspect list because the CIA had tracked the assault on the various US embassies to the video game Snakes Ahead that the duo had designed while graduate students at Stanford. The game, a takeoff on Indiana Jones, had been used to plant ransomware into the computer systems in the American embassies in Burundi and Malawi. That was the working theory, at least. One of the designers, Charles Poll, had died in a fatal car accident, but Hewitt and his other buddy, Theodore Thompson, were her number one and two suspects. Hewitt held the top slot because of his position in Richard Dean’s software company with DOD contracts to exploit easily.

  Darcy was focusing on the game developers while the cybercrime unit was trying to find links between the gamers and any anti-American or anti-government posts. The suspects didn’t have any direct criminal ties. H
ewitt had even passed multiple security checks with the government and with Dean. But it couldn’t be a coincidence that a backdoor program in their game was getting access to government secrets.

  The hackers demanded millions of dollars not to release embassy files, which they held in “ransom.” The files contained the names of employees and confidential informants, along with the CIA’s most sensitive information on Russia’s plan to influence the weaker governments in East Africa. The embarrassment of the American government being hacked and held hostage was bad enough on the world stage, but gaining US intelligence and their strategic positioning in East Africa was a political nightmare.

  Darcy’s team suspected that, despite rigorous warnings, junior members of the staff and guards couldn’t resist logging into the game on their downtime. And that allowed the hackers—code name TakeBack—to infiltrate the rest of the embassy. The need to keep the hacking a secret, and prevent any copycat hacking, meant this had to be resolved like yesterday.

  “Hewitt can’t be held accountable for how his game is being used. And we have nothing on him except that questionable account.”

  “Which is where he’s keeping his illegal gains. We don’t have anything on him since he’s better than any of our experts. Present company excluded since you did find the bank account.”

  “The man’s a ghost. He had no digital footprint. Everything has been erased or redacted. If I didn’t know for sure, I’d think he worked for the Company.” Molly cranked her head to the right and left as she shook out her wrists.