Page 53 of Don't Let Go

“Problem?” I asked, bypassing Remington even as he also headed in her direction.

She spared an almost distracted look at me. “No, I was examining the infrastructure of Mad Dogs’ various enterprises. They have diversified in this damn near elegant pattern, and it’s pissing me off.”

“How is it elegant?” I moved to lean against the corner of her desk where I could see the screens she studied. “Businesses are businesses.”

“Yes, and no. All businesses, even super-secret government shady ones, leave a paper trail. It’s how they get caught. You can pretend you don’t exist all you want, but purchases have to be made, buildings inspected, and taxes paid.”

Taxes. I snorted. “You’d think even the government could avoid that one.”

She shot me an amused look over the edge of her glasses. I hadn’t realized she even wore them. Apparently, they were for long hours focused on the computer.

“No one screws with the IRS. Not even the U.S. government itself.” Her droll tone was at odds with her humor, though she sobered swiftly. “While Section Five might have begun as a government operation, I don’t think it’s stayed that way. In fact, I have a feeling it’s a hellish set of nesting dolls that took advantage of top secret status to build a profitable information network under the umbrella of national security.”

I turned that nugget of information over.

“Any evidence or just a gut feeling?” I didn’t doubt her instincts, but actionable intel was always best. It made my gut burn to think we didn’t get as much out of Mackintosh as I would have liked.

“Gut feeling,” she admitted, leaning back in her chair and rolling her head from side to side. There was a distinctive sound of clicking as if she’d popped her neck. I didn’t miss the faint grimace that flickered across her face.

Straightening, I settled a hand against the back of her neck and began to work the taut muscles. They were locked up hard. “Tell me—” I spared Remy a look where he stood not even two feet away. “Tell us about the gut feeling.”

Not answering immediately, she let her chin drop toward her chest as I continued the slow massage of the cramped muscles. A low groan escaped her and I accepted it for the encouragement it was.

“It’s just…fuckright there.” The low, throaty sound was definitely something I wanted to spend more time coaxing from her. “I didn’t realize how sore my neck was…”

Another sigh, but she leaned into the massage so I kept the pressure steady and worked the area where the muscles seemed to be loosening.

“Mad Dogs is incorporated as Mad Dogs Inc, literally. The company itself is just a holding company. An umbrella corp that allows multiple shell games to be played simultaneously via a network of businesses from MD Professional Resources, that provides office support, to MD Outfitters that provides equipment for hiking and extreme sports.”

Another little sigh left her. Those low sounds were the most unexpected aphrodisiac.

“Office support—they’re looking for industrial espionage?” Remington’s elegant, if irritating, accent put the brakes on my personal fantasies. Not that I could indulge them at the moment.

“Possibly,” she said, lifting her head to look at him even as she leaned into my touch.

“That would make the Outfitters the wet work contractors and more.” I didn’t need her to confirm it, but it made perfect sense. In fact, it made almosttoomuch sense.

It was the outsourcing and the outfitters that had gone for her. Who had held her. I locked eyes with the assassin and read equal intent in his gaze. The tempest of anger in the air sizzled against my skin, but like me, he locked it down as we looked at Patch.

“Yes,” she said, leaning more into the contact with my hand. I shifted the massage to stroke the column of her neck. “That’s the problem. While they all exist under the same umbrella, they don’t share any kind of visible network or staff ties.”

So they filed different paperwork. I didn’t see a problem with that.

“Also, there are at least eight other ‘MD’ operations that have been incorporated or dissolved over the last fifteen years. The most recent one to dissolve included a complete shut down of the whole structure. On the surface, it looks like they filed Chapter 11. Restructured the debt and the assets until the organization essentially vanished as a new ‘MD’ took over.”

“I presume there is something about this most recent one that bothers you,” Remington said slowly, his tone conveying more than anything else the careful weighing of what she was and wasn’t saying.

When she tilted her head back to rest against my hand, I stilled. The fall of her hair over my wrist tickled the skin. I was glad I’d washed up before touching her. The long sigh escaping her seemed to resonate with me.

“They apparently liquidated the operation a little over five years ago.” No emotion colored those heavy words. Over five years earlier…

“You believe they liquidated the operation you worked for,” I said, matching her tone evenly. I wouldn’t shy away from that grim reality. No matter how personal this was for her, and I didn’t make the mistake of thinking this wasn’t personal, butshehadn’t done anything wrong.

If they shut it down and scrubbed their employees, that was on them. Most black site operations, especially an off the books, private one that avoided answering to any kind of government oversight would find a few bodies a lot easier to deal with than any questions.

“Yes,” she said, then swiveled back to the screen. She pulled away from contact with me as she scooted forward. You could practically see the shields going up around her. Her screens switched, information scrolling as she accessed their histories and paperwork.

I skimmed it, but I kept more of my attention on her than what was on the screen. What she’d found upset her more than she was willing to admit. Based on the way Remington tracked her motions, I didn’t doubt he read the same into her response.

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