Page 85 of Until the End

Castle wasn’t as gifted as his sister, Maddox, who spoke six languages, but he knew four and this was one of them. As he listened, he compared what the man said to the English words scrolling across the screen.

One word, attack, had him rewinding and replaying it to be certain. “He’s claiming responsibility for the attack that happened last Thursday—but the date makes it this week. In three days.” Not much time, but they had a definitive day to work with. “Get started making the copy. I have to make a call.”

While she set up the external drive, he phoned Sanborn.

“I’ve got it, sir.” Castle stayed seated beside Kit, watching her sort the files and initiate a copy as far back as four months. “But there’s a hiccup.”

“What is it? Did Westcott try to run?”

As a matter of fact, she did. But Castle would sooner swallow his tongue than give credence to what his boss already thought of her. “It’s Alistair. He’s been shot. Not critical. I patched him up, but he’s going to need an airlift. We’re up in Massachusetts.”

“So you’re the one who just accessed my safe house in Boston.”

Sheesh, he stayed abreast of everything. “Yep.”

“You said you have the hard drive?”

“I do,” he said, trying to decide how to explain that Kit had lied, there were three drives, and he was only handing over a copy. Not the originals as ordered. No words came to him. The good news was that he wouldn’t have to face his boss with a rock-solid explanation until tomorrow after they drove back. Plenty of time to sort his story out. Instead, he said, “I watched the video and translated it. D-day is Thursday.”

Sanborn groaned. “That’d explain some other recent developments. We need the drive ASAP. I was about to send Reaper to check on something we just discovered, but I’ll have him fire up the helo instead,” Sanborn said, “and contact you with a pickup location.”

“Roger that.”

“Good work. I owe you a box of macarons.” Sanborn hung up.

Cookies were a little premature. There wouldn’t be cause for celebration until they had stopped Bravo, thwarted whatever dastardly deed was in the works, and Castle made sure Kit was safe.

“It’s in progress,” Kit said. “It’ll take a while. Why don’t you get some rest? You drove all night and haven’t slept. You must be exhausted.”

On the contrary, he was wired. “I can’t.” He glanced at the laptop, noting the progress bar on the screen, and looked back at her.

“Wait.” She shifted on the bed, setting the laptop down. “You can’t sleep because you have to watch the computer? Because you have to watch me on the computer, with the hard drives?”

He needed to be one hundred percent positive that everything they’d discussed would indeed be copied. “Don’t take it that way. It’s a chain of custody issue.”

Her brow furrowed and she shot to her feet. “You think I’d tamper with the copy?” Hurt whispered in her voice. “You still don’t trust me. Even after I’ve told you everything, practically bared my soul to you.”

She stormed around him, headed for the doorway.

Rising from the bed, he caught her slim wrist and tugged her flush against him. An intimate ripple of warmth went through his body.

“I think you want Bravo caught more than anyone and you know this is the only way that’s going to happen. The only way to ensure your safety.” He cupped her face. “Giving my boss a copy instead of the original hard drives contradicts a direct order, one I’ll have to answer for. I need to be able to tell him with complete confidence that we have everything we need.”

“Why are you risking this for me?”

“Because you won’t yield.” He brushed his thumb across her cheek, and her breath caught in her throat. “If I took those drives from you by force, I’d only prove your worst fears, and you’d hate me.” He dreaded that more than anything. The prospect of losing her. Never feeling this charged sensation with someone else.

“This is real.”

What she meant was clear. This was real. Real stupid. Real trouble. A real spark in a bed of dry grass, bound to kindle a wildfire. “It is.”

A small, bright smile lit up her face.

His heart clenched unexpectedly. His physical reaction to her was exhilarating. And terrifying.

“What about the things Alistair said at the gas station? What about the things you said? Not shitting where you eat was the poetic phrase.”

The effect she had on him, even when he’d uttered those words, was staggering.