Page 54 of Don't Let Go

If it was another target, we’d deal with it. But I didn’t think this was strictly a target or an information deep dive. Clamping my jaw closed, I forced myself to wait her out.

“I was trying to figure out what the hell Mad Dog had to do with Section Five… A cluster of operations based around a label like ‘mad dog’ doesn’t fit. Even if it started as a government sanctioned black op that went off books, why ‘Mad Dog’? Why sound like a liquor? Or a motorcycle gang?”

Now emotion bled into her voice. Irritation fluttered between each of the words—no, not irritation. Disgust. Something about the whole thing truly disgusted her.

“What did you find?” Remington maintained a kind of cool presence I wished I could offer. At the moment, I’d like to split a few skulls open, starting with the guys who’d made her feel this way. It wasn’t what she needed from me right now though, so I kept my temper locked down.

If the fucking Brit could give her the kind of steadiness she craved, then I’d back his play. She stilled at his question, then shifted her gaze toward him. I could almost feel the tension spilling off of her and adding to the earlier turbulence.

“MadOg,” she said, pronouncing it “Mad Dog” as we’d been calling it, but then she spelled it out. “M-a-d-O-g.”

I still wasn’t seeing the connection. They’d skipped the extra D, made it sounds like Mad Original, but that didn’t seem like the point. Or was it…?

“Five letters,” Remington said, seeming to hone right in on it and she snapped her fingers then pointed at him.

“Section Five.” With that, she hit two keys on the keyboard and a wealth of information populated the screens. The keyword seemed to all be MadOg. Still mad dog, but not. The MadOg, the one she’d worked for, was listed as a failing operation. Everything had been liquidated, even the equipment sold along with the real estate.

She’d taken their secrets, then vanished before they could silence her. To cover their own trail, they shut it all down.Afterward, they erased all the witnesses. Cold-blooded, ruthless, and efficient.

All three of her screens began to fill in with more and more connections. Umbrella was not the right term. It was more like an iceberg. An iceberg where far more of it was below the surface. You only saw a sliver of the truth.

“It’s a web, a violent, bloody web that focuses on profit and loss. To keep their books balanced, they have no problem going into the red. They’ll bathe in it if they have to.” The chill in her voice didn’t belong there. I dropped my gaze from the intricate maze she’d uncovered. The darkness in her eyes pulled at me.

“It’s not your fault,” I said. Maybe she wasn’t ready to hear it. Maybe she would never be ready, but I’d say it every damn day until she believed me. “What they did is on them, not you.”

Head tilted, she closed her eyes. I could almost feel her shutting me out. Tugging her chair backward, I swung her around.

I had to brace my legs as the truck slowed. I wasn’t sure if it was traffic or if Locke was pulling off for a break. Right now, the only thing that mattered was Patch.

“I know you don’t want to hear that,” I continued and crouched in front of her. I didn’t want to loom over her and intimidate her into believing me. I could do that, but it was pointless. Instead, I gripped the arms of her chair and locked my gaze on her face, practically willing her to open her eyes.

“If I hadn’t taken the information to blackmail them into leaving me alone…”

“You did what you had to do to survive.” I believed that with every molecule of my body. “You could have gone to the media or warned your coworkers. Sure. They would still have shut you down and all those people would still have been scrubbed. The only difference is you would have been scrubbed with them. At least in the best case scenario.”

That jerked her eyes open and she frowned. “Best case?”

“Yep.” I kept my hands on the chair and not on her no matter how much I longed to drag her into my arms and hold her. “Best case. Cause worst case, they would have painted you as the bad guy. Wrecked the life of every single person you knew. Your family, your friends, your neighbor, the local dog walker. They would have painted you with a violent brush. In the end, you’d have no idea what was real and what wasn’t.”

Fear edged out grief, but neither could stop the anger surging into her eyes.That’s it. Get pissed, Sugar Bear. Get mad. Those sons of bitches will cheerfully fuck you over. We’re not letting them do that.

I wanted to shout it all from the rooftops, but she wasn’t ready to hear that yet.

“In the end, you're just another crackpot. An out-there conspiracy theorist that resurfaces as an urban legend now and then. It’s even better than plausible deniability for them. Because they’d have already debunked the rumors of their existence by proving you had no idea what you were talking about.”

Every word I said seemed to generate even more fire in her eyes.

“I hate them,” she whispered.

“Me too,” I said and now I put a hand on her knee.

“As do I,” Remington added his hand to her shoulder, then met my gaze over her head. She’d given us a kill list whether she realized it or not. I nodded once.

MadOg, or whatever they wanted to call themselves, were living on borrowed time. Still, neither of us said a word. It had to come from her.

She had to be ready to face the next step.

It didn’t take her long. “How do we stop them?”

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