Page 81 of Tango
“We were friends. Best friends.” Her broken tone infuriates me further.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve put her through?” I demand.
“It should have ended that night. I tried to make things right, but I’m in too far.” Ramiro looks from her to me, then back to her again. “I am sorry for dragging you into this. But now, there’s no choice.”
“What do you mean, it should have ended?” Alice questions. She takes a step closer, and I move in right behind her, ready to yank her to safety should things escalate any more than they already have.
“Your patch was supposed to fill the holes I left. If they had, then the hackers wouldn’t have gotten into the systems. But they did, and since the test worked, now we have to follow through. If I don’t, they’ll kill my family. Don’t you see?” He takes a step closer. “I don’t have a choice.”
“There is always a choice,” Alice says. “You chose wrong. Did you kill—” She trails off. “Did you kill Logan?”
Ramiro’s expression shifts. He goes from being almost remorseful to hard. Unfeeling. “Logan got what was coming to him.”
“You killed him.” She takes a step back, right into my chest. I steady her with hands on her shoulders.
“How do you think your uncle is going to take this?” I snap, fury igniting my normally controlled temper. “He’s been searching for you.”
“Uncle Frank will never know. They’ll never find my body, and neither of you will walk out of here. So there’s no chance he’ll ever find out.”
“You’re wrong,” I reply. “And it’s going to break his heart to see what you’ve become.”
The door opens again, and an entire team of security guards dressed head to toe in tactical gear descends upon us.
I’d say this is a substantial escalation.
“Logan did put up a fight—if that helps. Took three bullets to put him down. And he still managed to send out whatever it is he sent you. We certainly couldn’t figure it out.”
“You murderer!” Alice lunges forward, furious tears streaming down her face.
I pull her back, holding her against me. Her entire body trembles in my hold. “Think it through,” I whisper in her ear. “We’ve got guns on us. Don’t let your anger get you shot.”
Alice stills. “Fine.”
I release her.
“What’s the plan then, Ramiro? Are you going to kill me too?” she asks. “You said we weren’t going to walk out of here. So are you going to face me down—after everything we’ve been through—and put a bullet in me too?”
Ramiro doesn’t respond, but I can see that her words affected him—at least a little bit.
“First, we have something better planned for you.” Another man steps into view. Darren Wade. Huck’s second-in-command of the security department. He grins at me. “Tucker Hunt. He’s not quite as intimidating as you said he’d be,” he says to Ramiro, who locks eyes with me.
“Don’t be fooled. He’s deadly,” Ramiro warns.
“You should listen to him,” I tell Darren.
“I’m not worried. I’m holding all the cards,” he says with an arrogant grin.
“What do you want from me?” Alice asks.
“I’m going to provide you with a list of accounts, and you’re going to drop the firewalls so my clients can get what they need. Then you’re going to plug it up so no one can tell that anything happened at all. In and out with no possible chance that anyone can trace the leak back to Web Safe.”
He grins as though he’s already won.
“Why me? You have plenty of people here who can do this.”
“Ramiro says you’re the best.” He clasps a hand on Ramiro’s shoulder. “He couldn’t do it alone.”
“But you asked me to patch the system,” Alice says to Ramiro.
