The pain would’ve been compounded by the raging hard-on he had from the mainlined adrenaline. It was nonsexual in nature. But he often channeled this sort of rush when he was with a woman. It was easier to get off redirecting the buzz than deriving pleasure solely from the act itself and forget about the intimacy of making a connection beyond the physical. An ugly memento from the PTSD that had booted him from the Navy SEALs.
“Kick me again and I’ll restrain your ankles too.” Nothing like a woman who wouldn’t take shit from anyone, not even him, but he drew the line at having his family jewels damaged. “I’m sure fighting me can’t be good for your heart.”
“What do you care?”
“I don’t want you dying on me. At least not before I get answers.” He pulled out a black hood from the center console.
Panic seized her face. “Wait, wait, wait.” She looked uncertain about what to say next. “They killed everyone.”
“Who? Those men? Who did they kill?”
Her eyes turned glassy. “If you’re not going to let me go, Castle, don’t let them get me.”
Even in the riotous haze of gunfire and a mad dash for her life, she had remembered his name. “I won’t.”
“I’m not a criminal. I haven’t done anything wrong. Please don’t take me to a black site. Please.”
Poor woman had serious hang-ups about the government. Too bad he sucked at convincing her she had no need to fear him. “Relax. I won’t let anything happen to you. I’m one of the good guys.”
A tear leaked from the corner of her eye and rolled down her cheek. “Prove it.”
His chest constricted at how terrified and stricken she suddenly looked. He wasn’t a people person, trained to do candy-ass sweet talk. He was the muscle, a blunt instrument—albeit one with a brain.
There were others in the Gray Box better equipped for coddling—easygoing Reece, smart-ass Alistair, even femme-fatale Maddox when it suited her objective.
“If you’re innocent in all this, I’ll keep you safe. I swear on my life.” He didn’t take oaths lightly, but something about the genuine shift in her from fight to fear ramped that primal urge to protect her into high gear.
Her terrified gaze dropped to the hood in his hand. “Don’t put that on me.”
“Afraid I have to.” Protocol for bringing in a detainee was to protect the location of the Gray Box. No exceptions. “But I won’t gag you if you promise not to scream anymore.”
Trembling, she nodded.
Hating what he had to do next because it was likely to spike her already high level of anxiety into overdrive, he put the black hood over her head.
She shuddered and the frantic whimper that came from her made his chest ache.
But he tamped it down with ruthless efficiency and focused on what mattered most—the mission.
05
Northern Virginia
10:45 a.m. EDT
Next to losing all the people she loved, this was Kit’s greatest fear. A gun-wielding government agent blindfolding her and carting her off to an undisclosed location, where no one might ever see or hear from her again. This was worse than dying.
Sounded crazy. Insane-asylum-level paranoia. But it happened in the coder community. It had happened to Simon “the Wyrm” Peterson. He’d created and tested a program that someone in one of the alphabet-soup agencies had deemed a threat to national security, and he vanished. The Wyrm was a cautionary tale, her barometric guide to steer clear of the black-hat world.
The Outliers changed lives and found kick-ass ways to thwart Big Brother, only dipping their toe over the line. They were legends in the coder community.
Kit’s chest tightened. The Outliers had changed lives. Had and never would again.
All the real coding talent in her biological family had gone to her twin brother, Kyle. After what happened to him, Kit had formed the Outliers. She’d handpicked every lonesome, gifted white-hat hacker with skills far outshining hers, guided them with a vision, and gave them a purpose. A sense of belonging that Kyle had lacked.
Little good it’d done any of them. Now they were gone, just like her brother.
A hollow emptiness sank through her. Tears stung her eyes, but she beat them back, willed them not to fall. The weak cried, and these days, it was survival of the strongest.
There was one thing in her favor. Secret agent man didn’t know her name or the extent of the Outliers’ link to Z-1984. Whatever it was. She heard him searching her bag while they were on the road. But he wouldn’t find any clue to her identity in there. She’d ditched her cell phone, afraid Bravo might use it to track her, and had stashed her license along with the hard drives. Her credit cards were left behind at the loft, and she had subsisted off the limited cash in her bag. All for the best, really, because if she’d used any of her cards—swiped at a hotel for incidentals, an ATM machine, paying the bill at a restaurant—her digital trail could’ve been traced.
The Herculean effort was all for naught, considering Bravo had found her anyway and now she was zip-tied in the back of a government vehicle.
Anonymity was her sole protection against whatever supersecret organization she was dealing with at this point.
If the CIA, Homeland Security—whatever spooky agency the badass driving worked for—suspected she’d aided terrorists, there was no telling what could happen to her. This wasn’t guilt by association. The Outliers was her group. Her family. And she was the only one still breathing.
Responsibility for their actions fell on her.
There was also suspicious data stored on the hard drives, information regarding the other individuals and businesses they’d helped. Nothing illegal per se, but any of the apps and programs they used to circumvent the ever-invasive eyes and ears of the NSA could be twisted. Misconstrued. The hard drives needed to stay out of government hands.
She roped in a breath to quell her spiraling terror.
The dog had put his head in her lap shortly after Castle had bound and blindfolded her. She was already hot, and the mangy beast’s body heat was only making her legs sweat.
“We’re almost there,” Castle said.
They’d been driving about thirty minutes, give or take. A renewed fight kindled in her veins, but she needed to think before she spoke, choose each word carefully this time.
“It’s getting hard to breathe with this hood.” Sweat dripped down her temples, her lungs tight like there was a boulder on her chest, and her heart was beating so hard it ached. That was really bad. “Can you take it off?”
“In a minute.”