“Then I suggest you start immediately.”
She pulled in a slow breath through her nose and let it out. “And after? After I hand you Strauss’s research, and you have what you want. What happens to Sabin?”
“He goes free,” Raines said without hesitation, which meant absolutely nothing.
She studied his face. She’d gotten good at reading the tells, finding the gap between what a person said and what they meant.
Raines had no tells. His face was a closed door with no handle.
Which was its own kind of answer.
“One more question.” She let her gaze slide sideways to Dom, then back. “Why him? You needed me for the vault access. Why bring him into this at all?”
Raines nearly smiled. “Because we’re not amateurs, Ms. Cavalier. We know that Dominic Wilde spent years working jobs with you and your brother in between his deployments.”
How the hell did they know that? Only three people knew that Dom pulled jobs with them, and two of them were in the room now. Dom wouldn’t have bragged about it. He couldn’t risk his father, uncles, or brothers finding out.
The blood turned to ice in her veins. There was only one way Praetorian could have known about Dom’s involvement in their past jobs. Sabin had told them.
Her brother, who never broke. Her brother, who had once endured three days of questioning by Interpol without giving up a single name. Her brother, who protected her secrets like they were his own.
What had they done to him?
She had to lock her knees again to keep from swaying. If Sabin had given up that information—something only the three of them knew—what else had they forced out of him? How badly had they hurt him to make him talk?
“You bastards,” she whispered.
Raines didn’t even blink. “Your brother has held out longer than most. But everyone breaks.” He nodded toward Dom. “You want your brother back? He’s your best option.”
She turned to look at Dom fully for the first time since Raines had walked through the door. He stared back, jaw tight. Those bright Caribbean blue eyes she had once loved so much were now flat, unreadable.
Damn him.
“I’ll work with someone else,” she said, turning back to Raines. “Anyone else.”
Raines shook his head. “We’re not in the business of compromise. Mr. Wilde stays with you, where we can monitor him.” He paused, and something like amusement flickered across his features. “And where he can’t run straight to Wilde Security and bring them down on our heads.”
“So what happens to him after?”
“That’s not your concern.”
“It absolutely is my concern.”
“Your concern is your brother. Focus on that.” Raines motioned his goons forward, and the two men stepped into the room. One moved to Dom, the other to her. The guard in front of her cut her ties without a word. She winced as blood rushed back to her fingers, sending pins and needles shooting through her hands. They throbbed painfully as she rubbed them, trying to work feeling back into the numb tips.
“Let me show you where you’ll be working,” Raines said and nodded toward the hallway. “After you.”
As the guards led them out, she noticed they left Dom bound. So they were afraid of him and underestimated her.
That was the first good news she’d had all night.
three
Daphne Wilde pushedher glasses up her nose and stared at six monitors that were telling her absolutely nothing useful, which was a first.
She hated it.
Eighteen hours. Eighteen hours since Dom had gone dark, and all she had to show for it was cold coffee, a stiff neck, and a bone-deep dread. Her workstation on the ninety-third floor of WSW headquarters in Manhattan hummed around her—servers whirring behind reinforced walls, the glow of her screens painting everything in shades of blue—while the city buzzed endlessly beyond her windows, despite the late hour. The rest of the Tech Lab was empty. Just her and the machines, the way she usually preferred it.
