UNDERCOVER INFIDEL
Releasing May 29,2025
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He’s the world’s most brilliant cyber intelligence expert. She’s MI6’s leading AI weapons specialist. When artificial intelligence turns deadly, they’re humanity’s last defense.
INFIDEL
I’ve spent my career staying three steps ahead of everyone else in the cyber intelligence game. But Dr. Margot Sterling—brilliant, infuriating, and far too perceptive—sees right through my carefully crafted defenses. When we uncover evidence that Chimera’s AI weapons program goes deeper than anyone suspected, the woman given the code name Lex and I are forced to work together to prevent a catastrophe.
The problem is, I don’t play well with others, especially not someone who challenges everything I thought I knew about artificial intelligence. And I definitely don’t do relationships. But as the stakes get higher and the lines between professional and personal blur, I’m starting to question whether going it alone is still the smartest strategy. Especially when Dr. Sterling proves she can be just as ruthless as I am when it comes to protecting the people she cares about.
LEX
The last thing I want is to be paired with Conrad Carnegie, Earl of Blackmoor, and the infamous “Infidel” of Unit 23. His reputation for breaking rules and operating in morally gray areas precedes him. But when my research into militarized artificial intelligence reveals a threat more dangerous than anyone imagined, Con may be the only one I can trust.
As we race to contain an AI weapons system that’s already gone rogue, I find myself drawn to the brilliant, dangerous man behind his carefully crafted facade. The deeper we dig, the more it becomes clear that stopping this threat will require crossing lines I swore I never would. Con’s been playing this deadly game longer than anyone—I just hope trusting him doesn’t prove to be my final miscalculation.
1
Infidel
The amber liquid in my glass caught the moonlight streaming in through the floor-to-ceiling windows of my private office at Blackmoor Castle.
Zero three hundred was an ungodly hour to be awake, yet every night of the last several, my eyes sprung open at the same time, with the same question racing through my mind—how had I missed the signs that a woman I’d tried desperately to get in my bed was actually the mastermind behind the development of the most potentially deadly weapons system since the atomic bomb.
That her body now lay on a cold slab in the SIS morgue did nothing to assuage the terror behind my insomnia. She hadn’t been working alone, and we had no leads on finding her accomplices.
I’d taken to using the hours when I should be asleep to physically work my body to the point of exhaustion. Tonight was no different. After a ten-mile run on the treadmill in my gym, I was more wired than tired. I pulled my sweat-drenched shirt over my head and tossed it on the floor as I studied the endless stream of feeds on the multiple monitors set up in what I referred to as my command center, pacing between them since my constant state of anxiety kept me from sitting for more than a few minutes at a time.
I poured a second glass of scotch, a rare indulgence since it only hindered my ability to sleep. After the day I’d had yesterday, I needed it. Tomorrow would be the same, knowing a few short hours from now, I’d be forced to work with a woman who infuriated me as much as just being in her presence made my cock hard as steel.
Being forced to work with Dr. Margot Sterling, MI6’s preeminent expert on artificial-intelligence weaponry, was akin to a prison sentence for someone like me, mainly because I had to concede—albeit only to myself—that she was damned good at her job. There were times when I’d go so far as to think she might be almost as good as I was.
I drained my drink and was headed back into the gym to do my second workout when a flash of red caught my eye.
“Bloody hell,” I muttered, watching someone attempt to breach my most sophisticated security protocols.
Instead of immediately shutting them out as I typically would, I stood in utter fascination as they navigated my defenses with an elegance I’d never seen before. Their code was poetry in motion, anticipating my countermoves before I made them.
On a hunch that the perpetrator wanted me to know who they were, I traced the intrusion, unsurprised to find it came from the facility I knew housed MI6’s AI-research division.
With a few keystrokes, I pulled up the CCTV feeds. The building appeared empty except for one office, which was still illuminated enough for me to make out the woman behind the attack on my system. The blue glow of her monitor cast light on her long dark hair and the confident set of her shoulders. In the same way I’d sensed who my hacker was, she knew damned well I was watching.
Suddenly, every screen but one went black. On the remaining functioning monitor, the CCTV footage I’d been watching cleared, and text materialized, letter by letter.
While almost as impressive as you are, your security has a fatal flaw, Lord Blackmoor.
That message quickly cleared, and for a couple of seconds, a woman’s face came into view. She looked directly into the camera with a knowing smirk that sent my pulse racing. Then, just as quickly, she was gone, and another text animation appeared.
Your office at Blackmoor. 0900. And, Con? Do have on a shirt when I arrive.
When my systems came back online as if nothing had happened, I poured my third glass of scotch, turned in the direction of the window, and raised it in a toast.
No one had gotten that far past my defenses before. The equally beautiful and dangerous Dr. Sterling would prove to be the death of me, or my perfect match. Either way, tomorrow would be interesting.
