Page 90 of Death Wish

“Run it again.”

She did as he requested. The program gave the same result.

“Very good.” Daley straightened and looked at her with a speculative gleam in his eyes. “I might keep you around a little while longer. You’re more useful than I thought.”

“Good to hear.” Simone turned back to the keyboard and tapped in her code. The screen went blank.

“What did you do?” Daley sounded panicked. “Where is it?”

“You owe me $1 million.” She brought up the bank account of the charity foundation. “Transfer the money or I won’t bring it back.”

Daley looked at Grant. “Go. Bring her to the lab.”

Her? Simone glanced at Jesse. Were they about to meet the person commissioning the program to sell to outsiders?

Grant left and returned five minutes later with Sophie Westlake.

Simone’s eyes widened. The vice president of Dragon Alley was responsible for this? Wait. Was Dragon Alley creating programs to sell worldwide to the highest bidder, even to terrorists?

“Well? Is Death Wish finished?” Sophie asked, her gaze shifting to the computer screens.

“It’s finished,” Daley said. “I checked the program myself. It works just as I told you it would.”

What a liar he was.

“What’s the holdup, then? Why did you call me down here? I told you to send it on to the buyer immediately.”

“Simone is demanding the reward money up front before she’ll release the program to me.”

“Is she?” Sophie smirked. “Very enterprising of you, Simone. I’m surprised. I heard you were a straight arrow.”

“You heard wrong. Make the deposit in the account I’ve queued up, and the program is yours.”

After a long moment of chicken, Sophie must have decided Simone wouldn’t budge on her demand. She strode to the computer, tapped in a long string of numbers.

Simone checked the charity foundation’s balance before she closed out that screen and brought up the prized computer program. “Here you are.”

“Show me that Death Wish works.” She slid a cool glance toward Simone. “You better not be lying to us, Simone. Lying wouldn’t be good for your health or that of your handsome boyfriend.”

She did as instructed, keying in the codes for the program to run without activating the traps.

“Beautiful work, Simone. I’m impressed.” Sophie beamed at her. “I brought Allison on for projects such as these. However, she disappointed me until she started dating Beckett. He was a jewel. You’re in a different category altogether. I think we can work with this arrangement and with you. Are you interested in a very lucrative partnership?”

“Hey, wait a minute,” Daley protested. “You said nothing about cutting her in. I’m the computer expert here. I’m the one you should offer a partnership.”

Sophie laughed. “Oh, please, Griffin. Don’t be ridiculous. I know exactly how much you’ve done on this project. Nothing. You pressured Beckett Francen into creating the program when Allison proved useless, and when he found out what we were going to do with it, he balked. You had to bring in outside talent to finish the job because you couldn’t handle the work yourself.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Daley snapped.

“Oh, you’d be surprised exactly what I know.” She looked at Boudreax. “Take care of this for me, will you, babe?”

Simone’s eyebrows rose. Babe? Man, she hadn’t seen that coming. No wonder Boudreax strutted all over the building like he owned the place.

“With pleasure, honey.” Boudreax pulled his weapon and pointed the barrel at Daley who paled. “Grant, cuff him.”

“You can’t do this to me.” Daley glowered at Boudreax and Sophie. “You won’t get away with it.”

“Don’t whine, Griffin.” Sophie shook her head. “You had a good ride but now you’re a liability instead of an asset. I know when to cut my losses.”

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