Mind control. If he couldn’t keep her in line with fear, he’d do it the only other way he knew how. So yeah, fear worked. She may not care what happened to her when this was over, but she sure as hell wanted to be responsible for her own outcome, not a puppet on the end of some megalomaniac’s string.
“What does he want now?” She gave Nik’s stomach a slight shove and hitched her chin for him to lead the way.
“No idea.” He turned, and she followed him off the path and into the courtyard. The sentry stationed nearby paid them no attention, his exhaled breath not even noticeable in the crisp air as they passed him by. A programmable side effect of the microprocessor controlling his every thought and bodily function.
“No idea?” she scoffed as they fell into step side by side.
He shook his head, a slight frown forming at the edges of his lips. “None.” Nik wanted to trust his uncle so bad it hurt to watch. As the last living relative of the mighty Alexsandr Volkov, he believed in the propaganda he’d been fed his entire adult life.
Believed the world would be a better place under the totalitarian rule of the Imperium Council. An international group of stupid rich men in a race to seize sole leadership of the council by gaining ultimate control of the computer virus designed to infiltrate and infect every computer linked to the World Wide Web.
Control the Internet.
Control everyone and everything—including the other members of the Imperium.
One supreme superpower and the ruler of all mankind. Alexsandr wanted nothing less than to own the world and everyone in it. And fortunately for her, he believed he had one of the two people he needed to make it happen.
Maya and Jay.
Idiot. The douchebag Russian oligarch couldn’t have been more wrong.
Sure, he had the key to control Dominion, but he’d abducted the wrong fucking sister.
A pathological liar with blood on her hands and madness in her eyes, Maya had spun the perfect lie.
But she wasn’t the key.
She’d never been the key.
Yeah, her boyfriend-raping, baby-killing, parent-murdering twin didn’t know it, but she was the kill switch.
CHAPTER THREE
“You okay?” Jamie asked.
Jay looked up from the satellite images of the Russian compound he’d been studying to watch Jamie approach his desk. With his limp hardly noticeable anymore, he’d made incredible progress toward getting his mobility back, thanks to Eve and the weeks of brutal physical therapy she’d put him through.
Ruthless about causing pain for gain, she never let anyone in the house suffer in silence, and they’d all benefited from her professional compassion and persistence.
Selfishly, Jay was relieved.
He needed Jamie whole, ready and able to help him bring Becca home. Because Lord knew he couldn’t do it alone. Hell, he couldn’t do it without his entire team. He was a computer programmer for fuck’s sake. Not a black ops specialist trained in the art of warfare.
“Yeah, I’m good.”
“You sure?” Jamie rolled a chair closer and dropped his ass down like he intended to stay awhile, which meant one of two things. He wanted to give Jay an earful about the lack of nutritional benefits of an all-cereal diet, or he had some concerns about the state of Jay’s mental health.
If he had to guess Jamie’s choice, it’d be mental health.
Yeah, he could read Jamie well enough. The determination in his eyes. The tightness around his lips. This was about Jay and the things he generally kept buried down deep.
“Look, dude.” He pointed to his screen, hoping to avoid a lengthy conversation about the shit he didn’t want to dredge up. Not now. Not today. Not while sober. “I’ve got work to do, so quit waffling and get to the fucking point.”
“The point,” Jamie replied, his ice-blue eyes matching his intense expression, “is to check in and see how you’re managing. I mean, it must be hard to see Rebecca sporting the same tattoos as Maya, and I want to make sure you’re doing okay, and to let you know, you can talk to me about how you’re feeling.”
Aw, fuck. He scrubbed a hand through his curls. He didn’t want to talk about Maya. About the memories clawing their way up from the dark corners where he’d locked them away.
He’d done the work—was still doing the work—to live with the things she’d done. Shit like that never went away. But the scars she’d left on both his mind and body had faded, and the guilt he carried didn’t control him anymore.
