Page 39 of Hacker Unknown

“Don’t answer that.”

She didn’t listen. Her finger swiped across the phone. “What the hell is going on, Sonali? Where is Paolo? The image Sawyer just posted of him in the world chat better be fake.”

“I’m fine, boss,” I grumbled. “Sonali, hang up the phone.”

“Don’t be so grouchy, Paolo.” Kat’s voice floated through the air. “Can you spin the phone around? Or is Paolo naked?”

Why couldn’t the cancer take this moment to kill me? Antonio and Kat stared at me through the phone. Kat leaned forward, her nose almost touching the screen. “Are those pink fuzzy cuffs? I told Brock he needs to get some of those for the club, but he insists on only stocking the black leather ones.”

“They’re really soft,” Sonali added.

She was correct. The one she had put on me was much more comfortable than the cold metal one Sawyer had snapped around my other wrist.

Sawyer cleared his throat. “Kat, what you did yesterday … that was fucked up. He might have a pink cuff on that hand, but I have him locked down on the other side too. Give me my resources back, and I will let him go. Hell, I will even delete the photo.”

Kat scrunched her nose. “Oh, don’t worry about deleting the photo. We already downloaded it and plan to add it to the company’s Christmas card this year. It’s not very often we get pictures of our employees while they’re kidnapped or held for ransom. The medical backdrop really adds to it.”

It was clear I would never live this day down. “I quit.”

Antonio shook his head. “I don’t accept your resignation or negotiate with terrorists.”

“Terrorists?” Sonali questioned.

“Yes, we are at war with Sawyer and his alliance. Paolo can use the skills I hired him for and figure a way out of this mess. Or after the fight on Saturday, I can think about negotiations with Sawyer.”

I had to be living in an alternate universe. My boss was so consumed with the stupid game he wasn’t going to get me out of this hostage situation. Technically, if Sonali unlocked the pink cuff, I could pull the bobby pin I had stitched into the cuff of my jeans. Not once had I ever needed to use one of the secret picks.But after years of kidnapping people and cuffing them to chairs, I wondered why more people didn’t think proactively.

“Clearly, they aren’t going to help. Hang up the phone.” I didn’t need them to know I passed out and a doctor was about to enter the room.

A tall man dressed in a white button-down and black dress pants strode into the room, pushing a large machine. “Good, you are awake.”

“Who is there now?” Kat demanded.

Fuck!If my damn hands weren’t locked to the bed, I would have yanked the phone from Sonali’s hands. “Nobody. Hang up the damn phone.”

She narrowed her eyes at me for a moment before they flicked back to the phone. “Paolo passed out in our bedroom and hit his head on a table. He was knocked out for a while. This is Doctor Saxon. He is going to see if Paolo needs any medical attention.”

“Did someone shoot him with a tranquilizer?” Kat asked. She didn’t let anyone answer before continuing. “See? I told you, Antonio, we need to tranq our employees, so they become immune to things like this. I’ll send you the article again with the case study I found.”

This was not the first time I’d heard this argument. It had come up after a mission we ran off the coast of Spain. Matt, one of the other men on my team, took a dart to the side, and we had to lug his ass back to base before we could complete the mission a man down. When we returned to the United States to debrief, Kat had given a presentation on what we could do to make sure this didn’t happen again. Asher and Antonio both voted no against her plan.

Kat’s plan actually sounded exciting. Members of AA Security would each be given a tranq gun with five darts per week. On the last day, we would be ranked by how many darts we had used and how many targets were hit. She even created a point scale for which targets would get you more points. I didn’t quit agree with the point scale. Kat had her point value at fifty and Anontio at a hundred CJ was only at five. The deadliest person in the office was Kat her points should have been the highest.

The doc glanced at the phone and then at me. “I thought you passed out, and from the medical history Sonali gave me, I think I know why.”

“Medical history?” Antonio ground out. Great, boss man was pissed.

“HIPAA,” I complained.

“If you want to work for a company that abides by HIPAA, you need to find another place to work. And if the next words out of your mouth are, ‘I resign,’ like I said the other day, I do not accept. Sonali don’t even think about cutting the feed, and I give you permission as his boss—if he starts to complain, grab a ball gag and shove it in his mouth,” Kat said.

I knew they cared about me, but it was easier to keep my plan in place about what was wrong if they didn’t know. The moment they found out, I was sure Antonio would allow tranquilizer guns in the office. .They would put me to sleep and drag me in for treatment. They already had their own doctors on standby that would do anything they wanted.

“Can I start?” the doc asked.

I said no at the same time as the rest of the room said yes.

It seemed the doctor didn’t care about my opinion as he wheeled the device over to the side of the bed. “This is an SF-983 scan machine. It’s a prototype from one of Sawyer’s companies. If you don’t mind, I would like to submit your test data for feedback on the machine.”

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