Madison makes a frustrated noise. “Do you know where their servers are?” she asks. “It would save us a lot of time and effort when we go in if we only have to focus on the cloud copies.”
I nearly wince, because in a negotiation you don’t often tip your hand so early. But I suppose he’s her relation, and this isn’t exactly a proper negotiation. I can’t tell which party holds the power.
He exchanges another look with Leo, then sighs and leans forward on his elbows. “Yeah. I know where their servers are.”
A million questions rise to my tongue, but I swallow them back and defer to Madison. Watching me do it, Leo’s expression shifts slightly into something that could vaguely be considered approval.
“Well?” Madison demands, reaching for another chip. Taking her lead, I do the same. Leo—who hasn’t said a word; who perhapscan’tsay a word—lifts a brow at me as his lips quirk up at the corners.
Felix’s eyes flick to me. “Well, what?” he taunts, even though it was Madison’s frustrated challenge.
“What is this? Are you stalling?” she demands. “I thought we were going to have a nice casual meeting and talk about what to do about the fact that someone—something—wants both of us dead.”
Felix sucks on his teeth and sits back, eyes still on me. “I did too. Then, this guy rolls in with my buddy Mac and the Russian as backup. They in your ear right now, too,enana? Isla verga del gringoall it takes to get you to switch sides?”
I couldn’t care less about the implied insult to me, but he just insinuated she’s some kind of whore—even though I know it’s meant to bait me, I fucking fall for it anyway.
My hand on the table closes into a fist, and my heart pounds in my throat. Out of respect, I lower my voice so Mama B doesn’t overhear me. “Because we’re in your house and I don’t want to cause a problem unnecessarily, I’ll let that go—but you willnotdisrespect her, and you certainly won’t do it in front of me to make a fucking point. Got it?” I grit out.
“Atta boy,”Mac pipes in approvingly.
Felix grins, the gold tooth in the back of his mouth flashing in the light from the big window in the front.
Madison lays a hand on my thigh under the table, squeezing just above my knee—a silent thanks and gentle request to let her handle this. I look at her and force myself to swallow my rage. But I can’t snuff it out completely—my caveman brain can’t let it go until I mark my territory. Conscious of two sets of watchful, untrusting eyes on me, I lean in and kiss her temple.
When I pull back, Felix’s expression is different. Less smug, more calculating.
“I can’t tell you where the servers are,” he finally admits.
“Because you don’t know?” Madison fires back, disbelief plain in her tone.
“Fine. Iwon’ttell you where the servers are.” An outraged noise falls from Madison’s lips, and just as she finishes inhaling to lay into him, he holds up a conciliatory hand and glances down at the screen of her phone again. “But… if you tell me that you want to take down SmarTech and make sure thismurder softwaregets destroyed, I’m in.”
If Madison is surprised by what feels like a complete 180, she doesn’t show it. For my part, I think I’m starting to get a handle on how Felix’s mind works. He knows he needs to eliminate the threat to his own life and that he needs information from us and our help to do it. But he refuses to relinquish the upper hand, so he’s going to do his best to make it seem like he’s doing us a favor. It’s quite tricky of him.
Normally, I’d never work with a man like him. Anyone who needs the upper hand all the time trusts no one, and that means he isn’t trustworthy enough toshare information with either. But Madison’s connection with him is creating a tenuous bond—perhaps only for the duration of this mission.
She cocks her head at him and reaches for her phone, which he hands back to her. “We need to know where they are.”
Apparently, not even Madison warrants a straight answer on that one. He takes another chip, munching noisily. “Why?”
She turns to me, so I take this one. “Because until they release the product, they’ll probably be storing it in that server. Our plan is to corrupt the program files or disable the program with a kill switch, but if we can’t, we’ll need to destroy the servers that host the AI.”
“You thinkin’ an explosion?”
I purse my lips. “SmarTech has government contracts, and I’d rather not have Big Brother breathing down my neck. So if we can accomplish it without an explosion, that would be preferable.”
“Aw, but I love explosions,” Mac laments, sounding truly put out.
Madison is barely able to maintain a straight face.
“All right,” Felix says after another silent, minimal conversation with his right-hand man. “I won’t tell you, but I’ll do you one better. If you can guarantee the big guy won’t go on a murder spree and try to wipe out my team, we’ll help you out.”
“Do not speak for me,”Dimitri warns.
“How?”
“Just let me know when you’re planning on making your move, and I’ll make sure we’re in place to fuck shit up,” he grins. Apparently Felix likes explosions, too. “Tell my ole buddy Mac that I’ll be in touch. I have a feeling he’s got what I need and, from where I stand, he still owes me one.”
