An ominous pause. “You know what my search turned up, Fenix?”
“What?” The sick feeling in Ash’s stomach anticipated what Caspar was going to say.
“Your fingerprints, all over code from the Tremaine Corporation. Including the code that busted other hackers working on special projects for me.”
Yep, that was what Ash had been afraid of.
He’d tried to keep his code clean, even generic, when he’d first arrived at Tremaine Corporation. That had quickly changed. Clean code didn’t catch the bad guys who were way more advanced. And busting hackers was the only way to ensure Hope’s safety.
His code—the twists and turns that his mind saw while he was coding—was pretty distinctive and he’d hoped that no one would notice it in Tremaine cybersecurity measures.
He hadn’t been that lucky.
“Bad news?” Something in Ash’s manner must have caught Portia’s attention.
Ash briefly considered keeping the call private but that would take too damn much effort and make it look like he had something to hide.
He did, but it wasn’t this call.
“If you’d managed to stay off my radar, Fenix, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. You’d be just a fond memory. A kid who worked for me and disappeared one day. Since you didn’t screw me, I was happy to leave you in the past. But you just had to show back up.”
Caspar was heading into repetitive territory. It was all part of his personality. He spun you in circles and then struck when you were confused. Ash expected it and concentrated on not giving him anything new to target. Hard to do with Portia watching him so closely. Both sides of his past were closing in on him.
Ash dug up his bravado. “Look, Caspar, you want to chat about the old days, just ask me out already and we can get a drink. Otherwise, I’ve got things to do.”
“Oh, Fenix. You haven’t changed, have you? Still the same brash, blustery fellow who barged into my home demanding to be part of my crew.”
Ash didn’t respond. It was all true.
“You’re missing something, aren’t you? I mean, someone.” The glee in the mechanical voice was doubly unsettling.
His heart froze.
Caspar didn’t fuck around.
Taryn.
“Don’t you hurt a hair on her head!”
Portia looked at him.
“I think we can come to a mutually agreeable trade.”
How the hell had Caspar gotten to Taryn? Her security guys had been all over Ash when he’d touched her in the bar. Had they picked her up outside the bar? When she was rescuing Hope?
He gripped the phone so tightly his knuckles turned white. “Leave Taryn alone.”
“Taryn? Who’s that? No, dear boy, I have your lovely sister. Hope, isn’t it? Of course, she isn’t nearly as feisty as I remember.”
Blood drained from Ash’s face. The phone slipped from his fingers and hit the desk with a clatter.
Portia grabbed his phone and put it on speaker. She had come around to his desk when he hadn’t noticed.
“You have Hope?” Ash barely choked out the words over the panic that filled him. Caspar could be cruel, and Hope was the definition of defenseless.
“Yes, I have your dear, sweet sister. Picked her up from the hospital today. A little bird provided me with a plan. I just moved up the timeline a little bit.”
Tarynhad given him the plan?
