Snake Eater - THE BRAVO BOYS [book three]

Chapter SEVEN

Logan Nash

The coders and administrators under my employment all wander around the open plan floor of the Alpha Tech headquarters, working on their development tasks as I watch from the window of my upstairs office.. When The Beauty Queen, Shelby Quinn, makes her way inside right on schedule, punctual as expected and looking like the million dollar prize she is, she's followed by two muscled up beefcakes I know to be the Bravo Team twin pair of Duke Cassidy and Lincoln Slater..

I know enough about Specter and their agents to recognise the two men and from everything I've read in Iris' reports on the Devildog duo, they are an inseparable and formidable force.. I doubt that I could measure up to men like them in Shelby's eyes, the types with medals pinned to their chests and praise heaped upon them for their glorious service.. I come from stock far less heroic.. No.. The place I come from was built on lies, illusions and fucking insanity, and those years had made me just the same.. Insane.. A mess of neuroses, anxiety, stress, claustrophobia, PTSD and whatever else the shrink had added to the long list of shit that makes me an undesirable candidate for any woman's affection..

Even so, I can't help the rise of a jealous curiosity that burns through my chest as I watch the way Shelby smiles at them, making sweet eyes with a lightheartedness that she definitely hasn't afforded me since our first meeting..

So it isn't all men she hates.. It's just me..
Good to know..

I watch as one of the interns points and directs the three of them to carry their boxes of equipment across the main floor to the stairs.. The beefcakes allow Shelby to take the lead as she begins the climb to my office, following her like a pair of puppies.. When she reaches the doors to my office she doesn't knock or even call out, there is no pretense or feigned civility with her.. She just opens the door and steps inside as if we're her place and not mine.. "Good afternoon, Mr Nash.."

I glance up from the code running across my screens with a forced friendly smile.. Somehow the Beautiful Marine looks even more perfect since the last time I saw her, frustratingly so.. "How many times do I have to tell you, Barbie.. My name is Logan."

"You'll keep repeating it until it sticks, I suppose.." She smiles tightly, glancing around the space to assess my belongings, as if she might gauge some kind of profile on me from the state of my office.. Her steely silvery-blue stare sweeps over the digital mind-maps pinned to the walls, the stacks of coding books, overflowing boxes of hardware, tangled wires and broken pieces of tech that clutter the room.. Dallas would call my filling systems 'organised chaos', but really that would be a generous overstatement..

"Nice place you got here, Logan.." Shelby flicks her silky blonde ponytail back over her shoulder with a snide smirk before she leans down and picks up a dismantled motherboard in her dainty hands, turning it over in curious inspection.. "The whole 'unibomber' vibe really suits you.."

"Yeah, you wanna read my manifesto?" I chuckle dryly, leaning back in my seat to watch as the twin Devil Dogs behind her stack their boxes on the floor by the door..

"Lemme guess, it's all 'brave new world, Skynet fearing, red pill vs blue pill' bullshit?" She smiles a sharp smirk with a wicked way about her.. Her taunts trickling beneath my skin to heat my blood..

Goddamn that smart mouth of hers.. Sweet and savage..
I want to shut her up and kiss her at the same time and I hate the effect she has over me.. I'm used to being the smartest person in any given room, but The Beauty Queen poses a kind of intellectual challenge that I've never encountered before..

Armed with a brilliant brain and that barbie-doll beauty, I am utterly possessed by her presence and shaken by her spirit, she has the mystical appeal of some kind of blue-eyed goddess and I can't fucking stand it..
The last time I had believed in something so divine, it'd burnt me bad and I swore never to take up faith again..