Page 93 of Death Wish

An alarm went off, followed by the overhead lights flashing red.

Simone edged closer to Jesse who tightened his grip around her.

“What’s that?” demanded Sophie. “Bastien, what’s happening?”

Boudreax glanced at his smart watch and cursed. “The compound is under attack. We have to get out of here.”

“What about them?” Sophie gestured to Simone and Jesse.

“They’re coming with us. We’ll take care of them when we’re out of town.”

“I need the program, Bastien.”

Boudreax aimed his weapon at Jesse. “Give Soph the program, Simone, or I’ll shoot Porterfield, then turn the gun on you.”

“You’re going to kill us, anyway.”

“You can both die now or you can die later. Choose,” he shouted.

Jesse squeezed her briefly. When she looked at him, he gave a slight nod while keeping his gaze locked on Boudreax.

Although Simone didn’t like it, she couldn’t see another way out of this dilemma. Also, she’d promised Zane to listen to Jesse.

She released him and walked to the computer. “How do you want the program?” she asked Sophie. “Do you have a flash drive or do you want me to send it as an attachment to your email?”

“Send it to my personal account.” Sophie rattled off the email address. Once Simone sent Death Wish to her email account, Sophie beamed. “It’s mine, Bastien. Finally, the program is complete, and it’s mine. I’ll be able to broker deals on this program for a long time, thanks to you, Simone.” She patted Simone’s shoulder. “I’m sorry we have to end our partnership before it’s really begun but you must understand my position. I can’t have a security leak, and you, my dear, are a tremendous threat to my security.”

Simone tapped a few keys and started a system dump onto one of the Fortress servers reserved for her use on this mission, then blanked out the screen.

“What did you do?” Sophie demanded.

“Wiped my presence from the system, of course. I don’t want either of my names associated with you and your crony.”

“Soph,” Bastien warned. “We need to go.” He handed her his weapon which she trained on Jesse. “I’ll cuff them, then we’ll get out of here. If the attackers are their friends, we’ll use these two as hostages to escape.”

“Where will we go to kill them?”

“I know a place out in the jungle. No one will find their bodies before the wildlife takes care of the evidence. But we need to move fast.”

Boudreax used a zip tie to secure Jesse’s hands behind his back, then jerked Simone to her feet and did the same to her. “Let’s go. Sophie, bring up the rear. If Jesse so much as sneezes, shoot him.” He bent and grabbed a gun from his ankle holster. “But I don’t think he will. If he does, I’ll shoot his girlfriend, and I don’t think he wants me to do that.”

Simone flinched as Boudreax jammed the barrel of his gun into her side and propelled her to the door.

He unlocked the door and dragged Simone from the room. “You give me any trouble, and you’ll regret it,” he muttered.

“Wow. I’m shaking in my shoes over that one.”

“You should be. I can make your death easy or hard. I’d prefer hard.”

“Of course you would.”

“Simone,” Jesse murmured.

Yeah, yeah. She needed to quit antagonizing the security chief. They needed him off his guard so she and Jesse could escape.

Would they be able to accomplish that with Jesse injured? He said he was all right but Simone knew he was more hurt than he’d admitted.

She remained silent, waiting for a sign from Jesse or for an opportunity to make a move.

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