Dutch lifts a hand, and his eyes flash up to me. “Get rid of them.”
Sol nods. The lighter lidclicksfaster and faster, betraying his nerves. “You don’t have to get your hands dirty. I’m sure there’s a convenient way to do it.”
He’s right. The easiest thing in the world would be to “dispose” of them, as Hayato suggested. All I’d have to say is yes, and Ren and Hayato will take care of the rest, just like they did to Grey’s best friend who threatened to expose The Grateful Project.
With Ace and his friends gone, the Grave City Crew wouldn’t know J’s face either. The problem would disappear as if it never existed.
I look at J who’s sitting with her hands clasped on her lap and her shoulders rigid. She’s pretty much listening to a discussion about murder. Technically, her presence here makes her an accomplice.
“Just once,” Sol coaches. “It’s just one time, Finn. You don’t have any other choice.”
While that’s tempting as hell, killing Ace and the other two feels like something KurosakiandJarod Cross would do.
Which means it’s something that I absolutely shouldn’t.
J looks up at that moment. Her blue-green eyes find mine, and my breath catches at the determination in her gaze. “We can tag them.”
“Tag?” Sol tilts his head.
“Give me access to their phones, and I can create a connection that sends information straight from their mikes and cameras to my algorithm.”
Dutch’s brow wrinkles in confusion. “How does that help?”
J’s still too small for that chair, but as she shares her plan, her body straightens to its full height, and she looks like a queen. “Everyone they meet, everything they say, whatever their plans are, we’ll know.”
“Okay. So we off them and take their phones,” Sol says, rubbing his hands together.
“No,” J snaps.
“We need them alive and interacting with people if their phones are going to be any use.” Zane’s words are thoughtful. He looks at J with a half-smile. “Can you do that?”
Her eyes slide away. “I can…”
“In less than twelve hours?” Dutch grunts.
She chews on her bottom lip and shrinks into the chair again.
Dutch raises his chin. “Finn, is something like that even possible?”
“It is.”
“Then maybeyoucan do it,” Dutch grinds out. From his tone, it’s clear that he wants J nowhere near this.
I shake my head. “I know that itcanbe done, but I have no idea how to do it. Besides, we’d need a team to create an infrastructure that can handle an influx of continuous data. Even then, we’d need more than a week before they’d create anything worth risking our lives and Cadence and Grey’s. Twelve hours isn’t possible.”
J looks down at her watch. My first thought is that it must be beeping or flashing yellow, but I don’t hear anything at all. So why is she staring at it?
“Okay.” Dutch blows out a breath. “Then I guess we have to make the hard choice.”
“I’ll do it,” J says. She’s speaking so softly that, at first, no one even registers that she spoke.
But I do.
I watch her dig her teeth into her bottom lip, wring her hands together, and squeeze her eyes shut. With a deep breath, she tries again. More loudly this time.
“I’ll do it.”
Everyone in the room stops to look at her.
