Trace wasn’t having it. One wrong move, and the hero would end up a pile of blood on her parents’ garage floor. “Wait,” Trace screamed as eight armed, masked intruders ran after Cole, guns aimed, and he stood heroically in the middle of it all. “I know about the backup files,” she said quickly.
Every head in the room whipped around to look at her, Cole’s included.
“Trace, no,” he pleaded, his voice low and filled with gravel. “It’s not worth it. Too many lives are at stake.”
She nibbled her bottom lip, gazing desperately at him, letting words flow to save his life. “All of that evidence you want buried? It’s floating in a secured cloud.”
The woman stalked toward Trace in her noisy heeled boots. “I knew it. I knew he wasn’t foolish enough to trust his hard work would reach the client.”
Cole shouted, reaching, quickly jumping back and holding his bound hands up, before he got shot. “Stop. Please. Ursula, please. She doesn’t know how to access it.”
“Cole, stop. I can’t lose you.” Trace’s chin quivered as she looked at him with wet eyes.
Ursula flicked a look, then back to Trace. “If you lie, I’ll let you live long enough to watch him die. If you’re telling the truth, you’ll have to wait here until we have confirmation that the...” She sneered before spitting a mumbling admission that Trace had so much power. “The data has been erased.”
Trace swallowed hard, holding her head high. “Even your best hackers won’t be able to access it, but there’s a back door.”
Ursula lifted an eyebrow. “I cannot imagine he told you so much.”
Trace snorted into her own sneer.
She was about to make something up, but Cole jumped on it before she had to. “Think I’m fucking stupid? I told her how to access my backup files when I realized all my hard work never made it to the client. She’s not the only person I told. Who do you think got her parents out? People more dangerous than you. Call it an insurance policy. Harm her, me, and that information will be on every news outlet within an hour.”
Ursula glared daggers at Cole.
Trace quickly said, “What is this evidence that scares you so much? Drugs? Guns? Information? Money? What is it?”
Ursula traced her thumbnail like a blade across Trace’s neck. “Does it affect your decision to risk your life, and his?”
“Sort of,” Trace said, realizing she didn’t have a good answer, but she needed her to keep talking. “Risk versus benefit. Is it worth our lives? So, yes, it matters.”
Gripping Trace’s shoulders like Ursula was about to give her a massage as she stood behind her, squeezing painfully tight, Trace cringed under the pressure. “I see why his dreams were so full of you.” Ursula cooed and smiled. She trailed her fingers over Trace’s shoulder as she stalked around her and crouched down, nibbling her bottom lip, her perfect red lipstick not even smudging. “So he told you how to find the evidence, but not what it is? I suppose he wanted to protect himself. After all, he had to get his hands very dirty to gain my trust.”
“Don’t,” Cole warned sharply.
It seemed to encourage Ursula more than anything. “Power, sweetheart. Money. Blackmail. A prime minister boning one of my girls is my personal favorite.”
“Your girls?”
“Human trafficking is remarkably profitable. These girls are just looking for a way out of their miserable lives, and I am more than happy to provide.”
Trace’s stomach rolled. “You’re disgusting.”
“A royal snorting a line of coke. A general meeting with an arms dealer. I can arrange whatever my clients want, and I’m not stupid, I keep excellent records. I mean, I suppose you’d be doing the world a favor, releasing the evidence into the wild, I suppose.”
Trace lurched a snorty scoff to mask the acidic horror churning in her gut. “Do you drug them to make them do these terrible things, or are they down to get dirty with whatever you offer them?”
“Oh, it depends. Sometimes I have to get creative. Your boyfriend ought to be familiar with some of our methods to entice them to… share what they know, to indulge in what I have to offer. A little concoction I obtained from your military.”
Trace followed the bitch with her eyes, letting her see her fury boiling over. “Tell me about the girls you take. I don’t give a damn about who you’re blackmailing, but when I get out of here, you’d better believe you’re going down.”
“You really think you’re going to walk away from this? Oh, my, you’re a sweet one, aren’t you?”
Trace sneered.
Cole laughed and quickly lifted his chin and bound hands as guns clicked off safeties. “Sorry. Just saying. She doesn’t like to be called sweet.” He flashed her a loving wink, and she knew he was following.
Colestoodback,astonishedas Trace got Ursula bragging. Offering just enough, holding back long enough, eliciting the best damn confession, while he’d left Jeremy’s phone plugged in, dialed on speaker while he was working in the garage, connected all afternoon to the Foothills Police Department, listening in and recording every word, with, hopefully, the FBI by now.
