~ 27 ~
DONOVAN
“You told me this would never happen.”
I said the words coldly, evenly, without raising my voice. I hated raising my voice because it was a sign of weakness. Lack of strength.
But I was on the verge, right now.
“I never said that,” the woman on the screen answered carefully. “I said it was statistically improbable.”
Dr. Elaine Romero looked exactly as she did the first time I’d been introduced to her, on a tree-lined rooftop in Milan. Turtleneck sweater. Wire-rimmed glasses. Dark hair streaked with white, pulled back in such a tight bun her eyes became almond-shaped.
She was seated at a desk four-thousand miles away, and still she looked nervous. That part was good. Fear was power. Fear was control.
But loyalty, driven by fear, could only go so far.
I let out an uncharacteristic sigh of frustration. That particularlesson was something I’d just recently learned.
“You told me it would be untraceable,” I went on. “That everything on the drive would be safe, without the master key.”
“They don’t have the master key,” she answered.
“What thefuckdo they have then?”
“They have your data, unfortunately,” Elaine answered truthfully. “Maybe not all of it. Hopefully, only a portion of—”
“HOW THE HELL DID THEY BREAK IT!?” I screamed, hating myself for finally letting go. “AND WHAT PARTS DO THEY HAVE?”
Elaine turned whiter than normal, and she was already one of the palest people I knew. She averted her eyes for a moment; probably out of respect and submission.
FUCK.
I forced myself to stay calm.
What exactly do they have?
The notification had come through barely an hour ago, like a stiletto to the heart. The locket had been broken, the data bank had been breached. The one I’d paid hundreds of thousands to design. The one I’d paid millions to develop.
“Can you track it?” I offered quickly. “Now that’s it’s transmitting again?”
The chief encryption architect for three different first-world nations paused before shaking her head. “Not in any useful sense,” Elaine offered. “At least not right now.”
My fists curled even tighter, under the desk. “And why not?”
“Because the data change transmitter is different than the one they removed or disabled days ago,” she answered smoothly. “It connected briefly via internet back channels, not GPS. Just long enough to send the data packet indicating it had been opened, as per your original instructions when we first—”
“Elaine?” I seethed.
“Yes?”
“Where the fuck is my data?”
She went right to work, clacking away at a keyboard that remained off-screen. Everything I had, everything I was — it was all on that one fucking drive. Proof of influence, of coordination. Recordings of the poorest decisions made by the highest level people, all captured and neatly stored away for when, if ever, such leverage was needed.
The data was too dangerous to keep with me, too damning to store anywhere near my person or property. Which was why, when she’d suggested how small she could design the drive, it seemed perfect to place the most important thing in my world where I could always reach it.
Right around my wife’s slender neck.
