Page 86 of Embrace Me Forever

He adds, “But that wasn’t what silenced him.” He pauses, eyes fixed on mine, waiting for any sign of breaking. “His scream stopped when the second bullet hit his head. Close to his mouth, if I’m not mistaken.”

My fingers itch to hurl the monitor and everything within reach to the ground. But I can’t give in to his taunts. He’d revel in my anger as though it were a scene from a tacky flick. Instead, I gather my composure. “You’ve got me, Bertram. I’ll do what you ask. But if you lay a finger on Coco, I swear I’ll dismantleyour empire right before your eyes. And I can be crueler than Sebastian.”

He brushes off my threat as though offering a negligible concession. “You wouldn’t dare,” he says, but his eyes flicker slightly—a tell. He’s hiding something. “This is the beauty of separation, Miss O’Connor. It just doesn’t have the same sting if Coco were here, would it? Even though the situation might be as dire.”

A wave of nausea hits me as I swallow.

“The agony of not knowing is far worse than seeing,” Bertram muses cruelly.

“Let me see her!” I demand.

“Perhaps, after you’ve corrected the systems, I might let you speak to Coco. Remotely, of course. I’m not in the business of making things easy.”

“I’ll do whatever you ask,” I assert, partly to appease him, partly plotting my escape. “And I expect you to keep your word.”

He leans back, a cold smile playing on his lips. “I’m laying out the rules, Miss O’Connor. And they come with a maze of terms and conditions you won’t even bother to understand. Fix the systems first. Then we’ll talk.”

“Fine, I’ll fix your damned systems,” I snap back, the wheels already turning in my head for a way out.

“I’m sure you’ve not forgotten how things work at Bertram. Consider this your very own corner office,” he quips. “But even the higher-ups get visitors. Let’s call it succession planning. Mr. Hark here will be your shadow.”

The hooded man—Hark, as Bertram calls him—wheels his chair close. Despite his role as my captor, I can hardly believe he’s more than a goon tasked with finding me and managing my logins. He’s a programmer, which suggests that soon, Bertram might deem me expendable, preferring a trusted ally over a rogue ex-employee. I need to find a way to outmaneuver him.

Then Bertram’s voice cuts through my thoughts. “I’d rather work with you, Mary O’Connor. What can I say? You’re quite the sight,” he chuckles. “But I can’t put all my eggs in one basket. Besides, Mr. Hark is a man of many talents.”

Hark flexes his fist, the brass knuckles gleaming as he casually drags them across my cheek. “I can be anything, anyone, Mary,” he says, suddenly shifting from American to a British accent. “Soft or hard. Mary.” He twists my name through a few more accents. One of those accents might’ve been what Blake heard when he spotted him on the university campus.

Bertram adds, “I’m a businessman, Miss O’Connor, and I pride myself on efficiency. Mr. Hark, well, he’s my Swiss army knife.”

I jerk my head away from Hark. “Don’t touch me!” I snarl.

Hark chuckles darkly as if he’s the heir to Bertram’s throne of cruelty.

Bertram’s tone hardens, “What Mr. Hark asks, you answer. What he instructs, you follow.”

I barely glance up, my fingers already dancing across the keyboard. “I’m starting, Bertram. You might want to make yourself scarce,” I say, my focus shifting to the other monitor displaying the familiar B.I.T. system login from my days in London.

“That’s hardly the way to speak to your boss, especially one so thoughtfully holding your family’s safety in his hands,” he taunts. “Once the system’s free of your late boyfriend’s gremlins, we’ll get back to Project Mock. And as for your complicated password? Quite the brain teaser, but consider it cracked.”

So they’ve breached the backup folder, the one that necessitated my icy torture in that motel. Ironically, it was this sequence of events that led me to Blake, or rather, led him to me.

“Still clueless about what to do with it, aren’t you?” I launch a tempered sarcasm, my mind darting through possible codes Icould deploy, subtle yet potent enough to signal for help. After all, every network is built to connect.

“That’s why you’re here, indeed,” Bertram concedes.

“The algorithms won’t work perpetually. I’m not God.”

“No, you’re not. You’re just a girl who knows the future.”

“I’m not going to be your Prometheus.”

Bertram’s voice turns cold. “Tell me, Miss O’Connor. What do the algorithms predict about my odds of harming your darling daughter if you fail to comply?”

“You can’t keep me here forever,” I counter. “Project Mock will take years to complete.”

“Then you’d better start working, Miss O’Connor,” he says curtly before cutting the connection.

Hark leans in, his breath on my shoulder. “You heard him. Get to work!”

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