Black Dawn Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  COPYRIGHT

  BLACK DAWN

  Cristin Harber

  PROLOGUE

  Matt Pindon threw back another shot. Only live once. Yup. That was his motto for the weekend. Hell, for his life. He and his boys were kicked back, shouting at the ladies and throwing a party for one of their buddies’ farewell to bachelor-dom. It was all good.

  He stood and swayed, trying to remember if he’d eaten the meal he’d ordered at the bar earlier or if somewhere in this place sat a lonely burger and fries. He faltered when leaning to look for the food, thought better of it, then slid back on his barstool. Screw food anyway. It’d just kill his buzz.

  “Matt, man, you gotta make it through tonight.” Parker shook his head, drinking a beer. “Enough, maybe?”

  Matt slapped him on the back. Parker Black was a solid dude, one of his best buds. They had nothing in common anymore but could still sit around, share some war stories—though Parker’s were often classified, the asshole—and drink a good drink to have a good time. It worked out.

  “Enough? Nope. Matter of fact”—he ran his numb tongue over the roof of his mouth, his gauge for just how plastered he was—“I need another beer.” Life was too good to him. He knew it. Owned. Played it. Another drink, another broad. It was all a game, and he lived to win. The odds were in his favor almost every time, so who was he to complain? He threw his arm up, flagging down the bartender. “Hey, another round.”

  Parker shook his head again as he’d done so many times before. That shit grated on Matt’s nerves, but they were boys from the beginning. They came from nothing and nowhere together. Parker more than Matt, so as much as Matt needed Parker, he thought that Parker needed him too. He was Parker’s family. And that meant Matt wouldn’t tell Parker to quit the responsible guy routine.

  The bartender arrived with a beer and a rag, wiping up and switching out the old for new. Matt grabbed the longneck and slugged half of it back.

  “Seriously, man, you doing okay?” Parker asked.

  “Always.” No way would Matt ’fess that he’d been fired—again—from another security job. If he didn’t watch his ass, he’d be slinging a Taser at the mall to catch shoplifters. Then again, if his fuckin’ douchebag bosses ever opened their damn eyes and saw that he had other shit going on, they might not make the mistake of firing him.

  “Right.” Parker chuckled as though he didn’t believe him. “I’m out. Got a work thing I have to hit up sometime tonight.”

  “See ya.” They bumped fists, and his buddy walked away.

  That was Parker. Always working. The guy could’ve done half the crazy shit Matt had in high school, but he’d worked on breaking the mold for geeky nerd guys by clocking gym time. Then he could’ve done the real world alongside Matt, but nope, Parker chose a paid ride to a fancy college. And shit, now the dude was at a bachelor party and dipping out of a bar to work. What the hell?

  Matt didn’t get it. Didn’t want to get it. What he wanted was a motherfuckin’ blow job from a pretty girl, to do another shot with his boys—where were they anyway?—then he wanted to pass out in his hotel room.

  “Hey, is anyone sitting here?”

  Matt shifted on his barstool and saw gorgeous. She was the kind of cool that rocked his world. Beautiful with a style that screamed sexy and confident, and that kind of scream he wanted in his bed tonight. Blond hair that was a shade darker than platinum and blue eyes that shone so light and bright in a bar of fussed-up, boozed-up women. This woman was out of his league, and that kind of challenge was a rarity. Hell, challenge accepted.

  “Seat just freed up.” He could throw down a line. Could try for something she hadn’t heard before, but she was the best of what New York City had to offer. Maybe she was a model. An actress? “How’s the night treating you?”

  She smiled, took the seat, and paid no attention to him. Still, he didn’t feel a hard-to-get vibe. Nor did he get the too-good-for-you attitude. He got… nothing. She was just there, waiting to order a drink. How about that?

  “I’m Matt.”

  She tilted her head, letting strands of hair sweep over pale skin. “Lexi.”

  “Here by yourself?”

  “Nope. A work thing. A contest, I guess. I won. Yay me. So I’m here to celebrate.” She signaled the bartender then looked back over. “Hundreds of people are in town for my… work thing, so if you’re some creepy serial killer dude, look elsewhere. People would notice me missing.”

  He laughed. “Let me celebrate with you.”

  Her lips quirked at the corners. “Think you’ve celebrated enough already.”

  “Nah, bachelor party. Night’s still young. It’s my job to get hammered.”

  “And end up by yourself? Where are your buddies?”

  “Honey, I couldn’t care less where they were, sitting next to the likes of you.”

  She smiled primly and shut him down with a bat of her eyes. That was the problem. Couldn’t throw lines at a girl with class.

  He laughed, drew back. “Too cheesy. I get it. You’re not that kind of girl, even if every man in this bar is praying that you are.”

  Lexi pivoted on her barstool. “And what kind of girl is that?”

  He worked his jaw back and forth, knowing he was too damn buzzed to keep her attention if he didn’t nail whatever was about to slip from his mouth. “A woman like you walks into a bar, and this man—hell, any man—prays for a look. Maybe a kiss. He wants a green light to get your number as much as he wants to take you to his room. There’s a whole lot going on in a lot of men’s heads right now, seeing as you appear to be a free agent walking into a bar that’s sausage city in the middle of NYC.”

  She looked over his shoulder, her eyes drifting across the room. “Doubt that.”

  “You aren’t even playing coy with me, are you?” He stole a glance over her curves. “That’s about one in a million.”

  “I’ll make it easy for you, Matt.”

  He leaned
in. “You remembered my name.”

  A gentle laugh fell from her lips. “I remember a lot.”

  “Make it easy for me, peaches.”

  She made a face. “Don’t expect a kiss. No crazy hotel room romp just because I sat next to you. I didn’t ride here—”

  “You took the train from where?” Because he would offer to take her back. Damn.

  A less-than-sweet smile curved her dangerously deceptive lips. “More like a Gixxer.”

  “Like a GSX-R?”

  Her eyebrows lifted. “Know something else that goes by Gixxer?”

  That leather-clad, smoky-eyed beauty with all that power between her legs… “Fair warning, peaches. I might’ve just fallen in love.”

  She laughed, downplaying what might have been the sexiest thing he could imagine. “I didn’t head three hours north to give my number to some man I’ll never see again—”

  “I drove three hours. It’s meant to be.”

  She gave him another disinterested smile. “I’m not trying to be rude—”

  He blinked. “Where do you live?”

  “Not here.”

  “But where, peaches?”

  “That’s not a cute name for me, thanks.”

  “God, you seem like a sweet one.”

  She tossed her head back and laughed. “Does that crap ever actually work?”

  “You tell me.”

  “You’re persistent,” she lobbed back.

  “I’m who you were supposed to meet tonight. Trust me.”

  Now it was her turn to blink slowly. “Maybe.”

  The bartender finally showed up. “Need something?”

  She stole her eyes away from Matt and ordered a beer.

  A beer. Longneck, domestic. In the bottle. were her exact words. The motorcycle-riding princess was his wet dream incarnate. He’d joked about it before, but after her drink order, he was, without a doubt, in love. Or at least staking claim. Everything about her stole his heart. Or made him want to get her out the door, away from every other asshole there, and see what she would do next. This was the type of woman he’d never let go.

  The bartender arrived with her beer. “Starting a tab?”

  She shook her head. “No, just this one.”

  “You and me, peaches.” Matt bounced his almost-empty beer bottle between his hands. “We’re going to start over.”

  She shifted those baby-blue eyes up. “Didn’t realize we’d started anything to begin with.”

  “Let me take you out to dinner. In DC. Where we both live.”

  “I live in DC?”

  “Three hours away.”

  She assessed him. “I could’ve come from any direction.”

  “Fate wouldn’t let you sit next to me if we weren’t supposed to meet.”

  She studied him then sipped her beer. “Another line, Matt.”

  He laughed. “Give me an answer, Lexi.”

  “No, but I appreciate the invitation.”

  He clutched a hand to his chest. “Oh, woman. You just killed me. Give me one reason to say no.”

  “I don’t have to.”

  “But you want to.”

  She turned on her stool. “I don’t trust you. I don’t trust a single guy in this room.”

  “Not even a little?” Everything about her made her more interesting. “Fine, fuck it. New approach.”

  “Are you going to narrate every way you ask me out?” She laughed.

  “Here’s the deal to prove my point. Give me your number. I’ll stop hitting on you and go find my buddies. We’ll do our thing, you head off to do yours. And within the week, I’ll give you a call. Dinner. In DC. Deal?”

  She didn’t say yes.

  He leaned closer. “If you don’t give me an answer on the date, I’m going to make a play to get you in bed right this damn second. You’ll love it. So win-win either way for you.”

  “You’re kind of an ass.”

  A guy tapped her shoulder.

  What the motherfuck? A territorial growl began in Matt’s chest.

  The guy who could’ve been the poster boy for Geeks Without a Chance stepped closer. “Excuse me, are you—”

  “No,” she answered before the guy finished the question.

  “Back away, dick.” Matt threw a protective arm around her.

  The shoulder-tapper backed up, tucking his tail like the little nerd boy he was. “Shit, man. Easy.”

  Matt stared down the skinny little fucker. Scrawny. Brainy. Straight out of a computer lab somewhere. And dude thought he could interrupt Matt? In what world did that guy stand a chance? Shit.

  His eyes shot to her. “Thought I recognized her—”

  Matt’s gaze narrowed. “You didn’t.”

  Computer boy backed away. A few seconds ticked by, then she peered up at Matt. Clearly she was unnerved, and for every line he’d thrown at her, it turned out all he had to do was act as if he were her man already. Easy enough.

  “Thanks,” she said, wary of the world.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Sure you’re not some famous model?”

  At the joke, she relaxed, and he leaned into her. “Not even close.”

  Though she could be by the looks of her. “So my offer…”

  “Your offer.” She glanced at his arm possessively around her and almost looked relieved to have someone caring for her in a bar full of nameless faces.

  “Yes or no, Lexi?”

  “Yes.”

  He leaned forward, brushed the hair back from her ear, and whispered, “Three hundred miles to meet a girl from my backyard. I’ll take it.”

  She scrawled her number on a napkin. “I have to go deal with work stuff. But it was nice to meet you.”

  As she left, he pocketed the cocktail napkin with her digits and finished his beer. Alright. Nicely done. But that didn’t take care of him for the rest of the night. He turned toward the crowd and went in search of someone who’d be interested in him right now.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Two years later…

  Bass thumped hard. The lights were low and dark with flashes of red. The warehouse vibe was chill, and the party raged. Lexi Dare was in her element, with her people, and no one was the wiser that it was, yet again, a party celebrating her. SilverChaos. Whenever there was a big corporate hacker challenge during the day, one of the top dogs in the cyber world threw a rager that night.

  Tonight was all her doing, though few knew who she was. Anonymity was comfortable. It had been her one constant over the years, even if some hackers had tried to connect her name and handle. To most, she was just a regular party girl who worked the underground scene. Friendly enough, she vibed out with the crowd and knew with photographic precision ninety-nine percent of the room’s occupants, even if they didn’t know her. They were a tight-knit community that functioned fine without real names, hidden in their cloaks of anonymity. Only a couple nosey ones made her nervous. She’d been in the mix since she wandered in so many years ago as an abandoned teenage prodigy with no one but a foster sister and a notebook full of code that no one but her understood. Until she’d met these people.

  They made her feel accepted, as if she had a shot at what having a family would feel like. At those parties, she felt as though she were returning home for a reunion. Really, that just showed how little about family she knew and how much of it she craved.

  Now she was back to where she’d started years ago: lonely and abandoned. These events were the only social activity she had anymore, the only ones that let her feel normal, and she clung to them, hoping to retain some of herself even as she knew that with every day in the real world, the real her faded.

  Her leather pants and smoky eyes? She’d hide them when she went back home. Either her foster sister would keep her clothes or Lexi would stash them deep in the closet where Matt would never find them. It was just too… hard to find the right balance between living the expected, suburban, almost-a-housewife life and being the real her.

  “Blondie!”


  She turned toward the voice she’d heard before. It was the second time that night he’d made an approach. He was a nice-looking Asian guy who went by Phiber, and he wasn’t half bad at corporate hacks. What he’d put forth during today’s corporate-sponsored competition was solid. But his wardrobe, what looked like dozens of layered shades of black, did him no favors, and his ego was the size of Silicon Valley. He really thought himself the excellent hack.

  “Blondie’s not my name.”

  His head jutted awkwardly with each bump of bass. “Drink?”

  “No, I’m good.”

  She was one of the few women there that night, or in general. It wasn’t lost on her that she was attractive. Men did double takes when she rode up on the back of her sporty racing bike or when she pulled off her helmet and her fuck-yeah braids were tousled. She didn’t mean to look like that—it was just how she could breathe. According to her fiancé, it was also how she attracted attention, which was why he had a problem with everything these days.

  How she dressed.

  When she worked.

  Her bike was too dangerous.

  Her makeup was too loud.

  Even now, Lexi ground her molars together, briefly weighing the idea of being without Matt—which meant without anyone who called her family—against the idea of being alone in this filled world of loners.

  Things weren’t great at home. Matt pushed the line from being a jerk to just being an asshole. But loyalty was important. Trust was too. Family forgave—that was what he reminded her of constantly. Family filled that void she’d always had. Matt was her family. Right?

  She pushed out a breath, not wanting to deal with reality. Matt thought she had a security clearance, that she worked a freelance techy “geek” job—God forbid the guy rub two brain cells together—and she had to travel to clients. It was one of the few things he let her do without him anymore, but that was primarily because they needed the steady income from her work.

  She’d lied to him from the get-go about exactly what she did to earn a living. Maybe that made her a bad person. Maybe she’d known without realizing it that she was headed down a road that looked perfect but was rocky and dangerous. When he’d dangled a permanent, protective connection in front of her, she jumped at it. Too hard.