“Give me the code, or we’re all going to die!”
“No one’s going to—shit! She’s wearing a transmitter.” He pulled up Maya’s hem, revealing a tiny wire snaking up from her pants to a thin mic anchored by surgical tape underneath the collar of her shirt.
A hard yank, and he pulled the unit free, tossing it toward Jay.
“No,” Maya gasped, struggling harder now. “Give me the code, or we’re all going to die!”
“Advanced tech. Stealth-grade. Military issue.” Jay dropped the device and crushed it beneath the heel of his boot, cutting off transmission. “Who the fuck is Johnson working for? Do you know who his backers are? Tell us who the Syndicate is, Maya, and we’ll let you go.”
“Give me the code, or we’re all going to die!”
“Nobody’s—what the fuck?” Jamie stumbled backward as she started to convulse in his arms.
“Give me the code, or we’re all going to die.” Voice robotic, she spasmed violently, her eyes twitching up and down in rapid succession. “Give me the code, or we’re all going to die.”
“Tell me how to remove the chip,” Jamie yelled. “Hurry!”
“Give me the code, or we’re all going to die.”
“Let her go!” Jay barked, shoving Becca behind him.
Jamie released her, and Maya let out a raw, gurgling scream, her pupils contracting to pinpricks and blood bursting from her nose before she dropped to her knees. Head thrown back, spine arched, and muscles locked tight, she stared above her with sightless eyes before she crumpled to her side in a lifeless heap.
No pulse check necessary.
The wicked bitch was dead.
“No. No. No! What the fuck was that?” Becca shouted in horror, rushing toward her sister. “What the fuck was that?”
“Don’t touch her!” Jay wrapped his arms around her from behind, pulling her away from her twin’s body. His fear irrational, he wanted no part of Maya’s evil spirit clinging to his girl.
“Failsafe,” Jamie said, shaking his head, his expression grim. “Someone remotely activated her kill switch. Like flipping a circuit breaker. Instant shutdown. Never seen anything like it.”
“She’s dead?” Becca whispered, shock making her voice quiver.
“I’m sorry, Bec.” Silence fell heavy in the cavern as Jay struggled with his emotions in the wake of Maya’s untimely demise. One second she was here—in the next—gone. What the fuck did he do with that? He didn’t know what to think. What to feel. How to react.
Thankfully, Jamie took charge. “Put Becca in the boat.” He advanced on Jay and pried the forgotten phone from his clenched fist. “I’ll get the pictures.”
Grateful for the direction, he took Becca by the elbow and guided her toward their craft. He stepped down first, and she didn’t protest as he took her hand and assisted her in. “Sit,” he said softly, and she sat.
Then she looked up at him. Eyes glassy with shock. “She’s dead?”
He nodded, and not knowing what else to do, he parked his ass beside her. “She’s dead.”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Numb, the only way to describe her state of being, Becca stared at the blinking cursor on the screen in front of her. Fingers on the keyboard, she felt nothing. No. Not true. She felt nauseous. Not from the events of the past twenty-four hours. But because the luxury yacht the JTT occupied pitched and rolled with the ocean swells as they powered their way along the California coast, heading toward Miramar and the Half Moon Bay area.
“How’s she doing?” Adam asked, his voice hushed as if he didn’t want to spook her.
She didn’t lift her head but knew Jay had turned his to look her way. “As well as can be expected, I guess.”
“Progress?”
Outside, a harsh blast of northern wind pelted rain against the windows in rhythmic bursts, and Becca shivered despite the warmth being generated by the large amount of computer equipment jammed into the small space.
Only the best of the best would do for Jay and the JTT. She had no clue how Zander had managed to procure a private yacht and equip it with a fully functional war room complete with encrypted satellite uplinks routed through secure military-grade bandwidth—but he had—and she’d ensconced herself in the former library since her arrival onboard.
