“Ask her.”Kody directs his gaze toward the edge of the trees.“She’s been eavesdropping this whole time.”
We all turn.
I squint at the shadows between the guest house and the trees.Sure enough, there’s a pale glint.A shimmer of blue hair.
“Dove,” I call, not harsh, just enough to let her know she’s been made.
“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”She steps out of the dark, arms crossed and shoulders tight.“When I heard my name…”
“Come here.”I crook a finger.
Carefully, as if stepping into enemy territory, she edges closer.And closer.When she settles on the edge of the porch beside me, still not touching but close enough to share heat, the night air settles, too.
She’s one of us now.
For a moment, no one says anything.
Then Leo, predictably, breaks the silence.“So Dove… You want his head, his balls, or his bank accounts first?”
“He doesn’t keep anything valuable in his pants.”Dove blinks.“I want the only thing he’s ever really loved.His control.”
Leo’s expression slackens, all woolly bigfoot-like with knotty braids twisting around his face.
“We need to understand what kind of criminal we’re dealing with.”Monty tips his head.“We have money, resources, and a lot of reach, but we need to know what we’re fighting.”
Dove hesitates, and I give her a small nod.
“Jag’s a hacker.”She exhales through her nose.“A damn good one.He doesn’t just break into systems.He burrows into them.Governments, banks, private security firms, even hospitals.He covers his tracks better than anyone.I don’t know why he does it.He never told me.”
“He has enemies.”Kody leans forward.
She nods.“Some are underground.Violent.I’ve seen things over the years.Scary men following me and him showing up at the right time to stop the attack.He would chase me from one town to the next then up and disappear for a month.I stopped asking questions.He doesn’t like questions.”
“He’s possessive of you.”Leo frowns.
“I don’t know why.It’s not the hacking.Not the power.It’s me.The one thing he thinks he can control.Since our parents died when I was eight, he’s been watching me, shaping me, caging me.If I step outside the role he wrote for me, he loses his mind.”
“Then we start there.”Monty nods, already building a strategy behind his eyes.“We disrupt his control and identify his contacts and enemies.”
“I’ll lure him.”Eagerness charges my blood.“Play with him for a bit.”
“You don’t know what he will do.”Dove’s expression hardens.
“You don’t know whatIwill do.”I grip her chin.
Rather than pulling away, she leans into my touch.
“In the meantime,” I breathe, pressing closer, “you won’t go anywhere without armed guards.”
“I can’t afford that.”
“We can,” Monty says.
“I appreciate your help, but…” She shifts aways from my touch.“What do you want in return?”
“Nothing.”
She makes a sound of disbelief.
