Page 28 of Nuclear Option (Owens Protective Services)

We wound our way through tunnels, passing men and women who all seemed to be in a rush to get somewhere. We finally stopped outside a room and the soldier opened the door for us. “Your people can wait in here while you’re in your meeting.”

“No, they go with me.”

“That’s not the way this works, and you know it.”

My lips tightened in anger, but there was nothing I could do. “Take care of her,” I said to both Rae and New Guy. I pressed my lips to hers one last time and watched as the soldier locked them inside. “Let’s get this shit over with.”

After walking down a few more hallways, he finally opened a door that led me into a room with Hayes. I glanced back at the soldier. “Where’s Rafe?”

He jerked his head at the mirror on the wall, letting me know he was on the other side of it. Fucking great, he was leaving me alone to clean up this shit. I walked in and sat across from Hayes, who looked a little worse for wear, and I doubted it was all from the beating I gave him before I left to find Eva.

The thought of even being in the same room as the man who manipulated Eva, then had her kidnapped to extract information was making it difficult to look at him. And I was supposed to get information out of this asshole.

“So, you wanted to talk with me.”

He lifted his head, sporting two black eyes and multiple contusions on his face. “I thought you might be the lesser of two evils.”

“You thought wrong,” I said angrily. “What makes you think I’d go easy on you after you had Beth kidnapped?”

He didn’t know Beth’s real name, and I wasn’t about to inform him now.

“I never wanted to hurt her. I just needed answers.”

“And kidnapping was justifiable to you?” I hissed.

He slowly looked me in the eyes, and I knew whatever he was about to tell me was really fucking bad. He put his hands on the table, the handcuffs around his wrists holding them together. “You have to understand, it was never supposed to get out.”

“What wasn’t?”

He swallowed hard. “The reason I needed information on the men from Beth was because of what was taken the night of the power outage. It’s something I worked on a long time ago— ten years, to be exact.”

“And what’s so special about what was taken?”

“It’s a computer, but it’s got machine learning capabilities.”

“Those already exist,” I shrugged, not impressed by what he was telling me.

“Yes, but not like this. My business partner and I designed it with a specific goal in mind, to be used for government purposes.”

“In what way?”

He grew agitated as he continued, his hands shaking, his whole body practically in meltdown mode. Knowing what I did about extracting information, I’d say they tortured him before they called me. But if he was telling me, why didn’t he just tell them?

“I need assurances,” he said quietly, his eyes darting around the room. “Technology like this could hurt so many people, and as the designer, I could be thrown in jail for the rest of my life, or worse.”

“I can’t make any promises. I don’t have that kind of power. And frankly, if you created something this terrible, I have no doubt you’ll get what you deserve.”

I went to stand, but he grabbed my arm, his hands shaking furiously as he held me tight. “Please,” he whispered. “I can’t let this happen, but I won’t go to jail either. And I won’t let anyone get their hands on this that might use it for the wrong reasons. It wasn’t created with that intent in mind.”

I believed him, and even though I didn’t want to grant him any privileges because of what he did to Eva, the information had to be important for this type of reaction. “I’ll see what I can do.”

I walked out of the room, met in the empty hallway by Rafe. “We’re not giving him a damn thing.”

“You heard him, and I know you can see the way he’s acting. He’s terrified of whatever this is. If he doesn’t talk, then you’ve got nothing, and a potential weapon out there that will eventually be used.”

“We haven’t exhausted all methods of extracting information from him.”

“He hasn’t given up yet,” I pointed out. “Time isn’t on your side. You wouldn’t have urged me to come out here unless you thought there was something bad going on.”

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