Page 62 of The Truths that Deceive

“I’m not hysterical.” She takes a breath. “And you know it. No, they didn’t say anything. You went limp, and then they stuck me with a needle and I woke up here.” Calista bites her lip. “But Smith… they took the bag with the computer…”

“Hey.” I draw her in, kiss her gently. At first, it’s just meant to be a comforting kiss, but it deepens, twists down into something more and I wish… I draw back.

Her sweet taste is on my lips, in my mouth.

“You said there wasn’t anything on the computer.”

“Just the photos,” she says. “But… with hacking, like with spy work, everything leaves a trace. I should have… I should have destroyed it.”

I turn her words in my head, selecting the right ones.

Calista’s smart. So I go for the truth. But I keep it generic.

I shrug. “I want to know. I’m nosy.”

“I’m your kidnap job.”

“And now we’re here. Who’s after you and why? And why the fuck was someone texting you from Estonia about the Collectors? They were more or less broken apart not too long ago.”

“Are you going to add that you can only help me if I help you?”

“Will it get you talking?” I ask.

“No.”

I smile. “Here’s what I think’s gonna happen. Soon one of them will come through the door and take me and then you. I’d like to know what I’m up against.”

Her shoulders slump in defeat. “I don’t know anything, nothing more than you. Back in Germany, my field agent said he thought something wasn’t right, so I… I collected bits and pieces. But I haven’t been through them. Haven’t connected the dots.”

They think she has something. Question is, who?

“What about the Collectors?”

She slants me a look. “I don’t know.”

Now that’s a lie, but I keep it to myself.

“But you have suspicions,” I say quietly. “About the weapon.”

“I think it’s more than one person trying to sell stolen blueprints.” She pauses. I can feel her groping for the right thing to say. “And I think it might go deep. Bolivia’s involved. I think the misdirect is to the usual suspects in the Middle East. But… until I can get my data back and go through it, I won’t know.”

She talks, and it’s a whole lot of nothing but I’m fixated on what she let slip, ‘until I get my data back.’ She has it all. In one place.

I draw information from her, switching the subject, talking about her hacker days, entrepreneur sidelines, of a server in Jersey and a cloud full of nothing, and apps she hasn’t released.

Any other job, and I’d let it go. I’d have taken her back right after the show at the art event. And then I wouldn’t have thought of it ever again. She knows nothing about the pieces on the black market that have already been made. And the weapon is not exactly my business. Just the hefty windfall for her pretty little head.

But Bolivia and the Collectors and the sextrafficking? Combine all that with interested parties coming into the picture along with a new weapon?

It’s definitely of interest to the Obsidian Knights.

And I can’t rely on them busting through that the door. What I need is a plan, and?—

The door creaks open and a big, tattooed asshole in need of a shower and a shave comes inside the space. His eyes light up at the sight of Calista.

It makes my blood turn to acid.

The guy grabs her by her hair and hauls her up from the floor, making her yelp. It takes everything I have to not move. To not wrestle the gun from him and kill him for daring to touch her.

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