Page 74 of Fury

“Wait, what’s this?” She sniffed. Messed with the globe. Dug her fingernails in and pulled out a tiny rectangular object she identified immediately.

A microchip.

* * *

DAMOCLES SAFE HOUSE

“Why would a microchip be in the necklace?” Hollyn turned to Davis like he’d have an answer. Her gaze dropped to Fury, who was still looking at her like she was a slab of bacon. And as if he could read her mind, the hairy beast licked his jowls.

Fear still fresh from being attacked, she distanced herself farther from him.

“What’s going on?” Chapel stalked into the room.

The permanently stony expression he wore chilled Hollyn to her bone. Rendered her mute when she should speak up. Clearly, today wasn’t the day she’d find her nerve.

“Not sure yet,” Davis answered. “Fury got a hit on Hollyn.”

Well, that was one way of putting it.

“Broke her necklace—found a microchip hidden in it.” He extended his hand to Hollyn.

“Where’d you get the necklace?” Chapel demanded.

Which sounded a lot like he was blaming her. “M-my dad.”

“The dad,” Davis said pointedly, “who was killed had developed military-grade technology.”

“No,” Hollyn objected. “He developed technology. Someone else wanted to weaponize it.”

Chapel studied her hard. “Let’s check it out.”

She set the piece in Davis’s hand, deliberately avoiding the grumpy team leader and the four-legged force of nature.

Davis nodded to Chapel, who didn’t look happy as he trailed Hale into the command room.

Hollyn’s hands were shaking by the time she sat in front of the computer.

Dark-haired Hale dug through some things on the desk and tugged a chip reader out.

Hollyn held her breath as he opened the file that popped up, then swiveled the screen to her and slid the mouse her way. “What?”

“It was in your necklace from your dad . . . ” Hale shrugged. “Figured you might want to open it.”

“Oh.” Right. Sure. But that awakened a whole new level of dread. What had Daddy hidden? Was it a message? Did she really want to even know if it’d gotten him killed?

Chapel and Davis stepped up behind her chair. To her relief, Fury kept his distance this time, his teeth squeegeeing over his KONG. She rubbed her neck. Nightmares about him jumping on her were going to plague her sleep for a while.

She opened a folder and found several files, all with numbers instead of names. “Here goes nothing . . . ” She clicked open one of the files.

“What are we looking at?” Davis asked, apparently leaning in, because his words whispered along her earlobe.

With a shiver, Holly struggled to focus. Blinked and looked again at what was on the screen. Heart in her throat, she gasped. “That’s my algorithm!” Bending toward the screen, she squinted, processing the information there. “Not my whole algorithm, but the part that was missing from the lab files.”

“And what does that do?” Chapel gruffed.

“The algorithm?” She peered over her shoulder at him. “It just. . . makes the program run. Without it, the drones are just drones.”

“With it?”

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