Chapter 13
Chapter
Thirteen
ALPHABET
The signal from Bones should’ve pinged by now.
We had redundancy built into the redundancy—a subdermal tracker, untraceable by standard sweeps, hardwired to activate if his vitals spiked or flatlined.
His phone was either in a ditch or tossed into a microwave, based on the last static-laced ping we scraped from the network.
That wasn’t the problem. The problem was the implant—quiet as the grave.
Which meant one of three things.
Bones was dead.
Bones had cut it out himself.
Or these so-called Vega bastards had done something I didn’t fully understand.
And that… that was the real problem.
Vega wasn’t a person or a team. It was a program, a protocol, a whispered myth in the darker corners of SIGINT briefings. A Cold War-style ghost supposedly mothballed after the Berlin Wall fell. Counter-intelligence wrapped into sophisticated computer programming and predictive modeling
So-called artificial intelligence on crack
A program that never worked. But it didn’t stop their repeated investment like Charlie Brown trying to kick the ball Lucy was forever taking away. Arguing that if they didn’t do it, then someone else would was about as sensical as mutually assured destruction.
The one scattered reference I dug out of a redacted archive came from a former team lead. The goal: "Vega doesn’t protect information. It erases the need for it."
Still… Leaving the computer, I headed down to the basement. This place had a cell in it, which worked out in our favor. I didn’t ask where Voodoo dug this place up from, when we needed something, he damn well found it.
O’Rourke was still inside the cell, shackled at the wrists and ankles, blindfolded, headphones snug against his ears. No sound. No light. No stimuli. A human in purgatory.
I stared at him for a long moment. Taking him along was a risk. But we’d also scanned him for trackers, he had none. That didn’t mean he didn’t have an inert one, but I had a radio jammer down here that would hopefully mitigate it if he did.
In the meanwhile, I unlocked the cell door and walked in. He didn’t move. I peeled the headphones off first. He flinched, maybe out of reflex. Then the blindfold. His pupils tightened like they were trying to crawl back into his skull.
Sensory deprivation could really fuck with a person. He didn’t speak. Just breathed. Watched me.
“Bones is gone,” I said.
No reaction.
“No phone trace, no subdermal ping. Nothing. Tracker’s dead.”
Still nothing.
“I think your pal Vega had something to do with it.”
That got him. A breath, quick and shallow. The kind you take when you realize the drop’s coming, but it’s too late to grab the edge.
“I told them not to use it,” O’Rourke muttered. “I told them it wasn't built to end problems. It was built to erase them.”
I stepped closer. “Erase how?”
He lifted his head. “Erase you. The moment you become inconvenient.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.” Did he know something or not?
“No,” he said, smiling grimly. “But it’s what the program became.”
I didn’t respond. I didn’t need to. The program didn’t even exist anymore.
He kept talking. "You still think Vega’s some smart program? Some watchdog chewing on intelligence trafficking? On isolating technological advances from other countries in order to co-op them?”
“That used to be what they said in the old files about it.” The whole idea behind the protocol had been to take the lead. Part of the reason the damn thing never worked, it needed too much data to actually deliver anything. Large language models still hadn’t achieved that type of sophistication.
“Intent means nothing.” His eyes sharpened. “Desire, design—it responds to one thing.”
“Money.” Because money talked and bullshit walked.
“Exactly. In the past five years, the people in charge of Vega changed—a lot.”
I frowned. “They shit-canned it.” Or they were supposed to after we moth-balled it. The job had been pretty straightforward, get the hard drives, shut the whole thing down and blow it up. We’d done that.
“Alphabet, you aren’t stupid or that idealistic.” O’Rourke actually sounded beyond tired. “You really aren’t. It was a gambit, a political play made possible by corporate synergy.” He coughed, the roughened and hoarse nature of his voice reminding me we hadn’t been hydrating him.
Arms folded, I studied him for a long moment. “Educate me.”
“Why?” O’Rourke just stared at me. “Information is capital. I have it. You want it. What do I get for it?”
“How about a bullet in the head if you keep wasting our fucking time?” Lunchbox prowled down the stairs to join us. His presence added weight to the moment. The normally cool, level-head he boasted in most combat situations seemed completely absent.
O’Rourke sighed. “Can I trade an answer for some water?”
“Depends,” Voodoo said from above, his voice hovered around us. Didn’t surprise me that they’d noticed me coming down here.
When Voodoo didn’t elaborate, it forced O’Rourke to define the condition. “On?”
“On whether the answer is going to be worth the time. So far, all you’ve done is set me up to walk into a trap.”
Despite his hands being bound behind his back—and the small matter of his survival hinging entirely on our goodwill—O’Rourke laughed.
It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t even particularly amused. It was the kind of laugh that echoed more of defiance than humor.
“You’re the one who walked into it,” he said, eyes glinting. “Could’ve stayed in the wind.”
“Ah, so it’s our fault?” I asked, more curious than angry. A flicker of amusement crept in despite myself. There was a reason we’d liked O’Rourke, once.
He stopped laughing. Just—stopped. The smile slid off his face like a mask dropped on the floor. A switch flipped.
“You made the choice to come,” he said, voice flat. “You knew the odds it was a trap. You walked in anyway. So yeah, it’s at least fifty percent your fault.”
A soft sound drifted down the stairwell.
A snort.
Feminine.
And, I got the feeling, amused.
Explained why Voodoo hadn’t descended. He stayed up there to keep Grace up there. She was right, we were never going to be okay with just walking her into some of this no matter how tough she tried to be or how fierce her determination.
“Fine,” I said, unwilling to argue this point. “It’s fifty percent our fault, but that makes the other fifty yours. So, time to pay up.”
O’Rourke just stared at me. “Doesn’t sound like much of an incentive.” He tilted his head from left to right and then back again. “Have Grace ask me.”
Have. Grace. Ask. Me.
Those four words echoed against a cool darkness inside of me.
“This isn’t a game,” I reminded him. “Even if it was, she’s a civilian. A noncombatant. Don’t talk about her.”
The skeptical look he wore just shouted bullshit. “She is in this. She’s hardly a civilian. You want answers. I want to see her. Quid. Pro. Quo.”
Lunchbox answered him with a hard left across O’Rourke’s face. Honestly, I hadn’t even seen him move. One minute Lunchbox prowled the room, the next he was punching the asshole in the mouth.
The sound of flesh striking flesh was a meaty thunk in the downstairs quiet. Undeterred, O’Rourke turned his head to the right and spit out blood before he looked back at me.
“I thought this was your interrogation.” O’Rourke raised both of his eyebrows. “You need them to hold your dick for you too when you take a leak?” The blatant challenge just begged for us to beat the shit out of him.
“I let my friends do lots of things.” I shrugged. “Friendship doesn’t come with conditions.”
Despite how incensed he was—as demonstrated by how hard and fast he’d hit O’Rourke—Lunchbox didn’t react. At least not visibly to the taunt from the other man. Give it five minutes, at this rate, however and O’Rourke might get his wish.
“But it came with an expiration date.”
“We are not debating your choices or your betrayal. Either answer the question or we stuff you back down here and leave you.” It made no difference to me at the moment—except that he had answers that could get us to Bones a fuckload faster since we had zero to work with at the moment.
“I’ll answer Grace,” O’Rourke said. “In fact, she’s the only one I’ll answer now.”
Lunchbox popped him again, sending another wad of crimson-laced spittle to strike the wall. Grin bloody, O’Rourke just straightened himself and waited. I could almost feel Lunchbox processing the man’s request, actions, and our response.
Did we let Grace down here to talk to him?
Did we just say fuck it, and go?
Did we take the time to break him down?
We could do it. Anyone could be broken. It was all a matter of time and effort. Just because we could, didn’t mean we should on any front. It also didn’t mean what we got would be successful. Most intelligence obtained through torture wasn’t as actionable as the information coaxed from a prisoner.
When all you wanted was for the pain to stop, you’d say just about anything. Promise anything. Do anything.
A low whistle cut through the silence. One. Sharp. Sound. Voodoo made the call. He’d assumed command. That was how it worked, particularly right now. A shuffle of step, then soft little bumps as she descended the stairs.
Her feet didn’t add any additional sound, but the stairs had a light creak to them and she wasn’t trying to be quiet. Lunchbox melted back a few steps. It wasn’t so much a retreat as he posted himself next to the cell “bars” and leaned against them.
The way he folded his arms suggested relaxation, but he was far from it. Hell, so was I. But as Grace made it to me, I moved ahead of her and stationed myself firmly between them, but not blocking her view.
Shackles didn’t mean O’Rourke was helpless.
When she was five feet away from him, Voodoo said, “Far enough.”
Dressed in loose sleep pants and a tank top, she’d layered a hoodie over it but her feet were bare. The incongruity of her pale pink toenails on her delicate feet irked me. Really irked me.
She was made for softness, for laughter, and for music and fun.
Instead, she was down in this dusty basement with this bottom feeding asshole who was more interested in negotiation than making peace.
O’Rourke shifted his full attention to her, a faint glint in his eye and a half-smile on his bloodied lips.
Unimpressed, Grace folded her arms and actually stood with one hip jutted slightly. “Where is Bones?”
“Prisoner, would be my guess. Probably being interrogated.”
“That’s a supposition,” Grace said. “Do you know where he is or not?”
Good girl. Direct questions. No wiggle room.
“Not.” Another shrug, or as much as O’Rourke could manage in his current condition.
“Do you know who has him or not?”
“Vega.”
I didn’t growl, but irritation at O’Rourke’s words grew.
“Is Vega real or not?” Impatience crept in Grace’s voice. The sleepy doe-eyed look she had when she came in had vanished to something far crisper and intent as she watched O’Rourke.
“Vega is real enough,” O’Rourke said. “What you want to know is who is using Vega and why.”
“Do you know who is using it and why they are using it?” Sharpness punctuated the question, and she threw it down like a challenge.
“I do.” He smiled, despite the reddening bruises on his face from the pair of hits he’d taken. “I would be happy to tell you all about it.”
“But?” Voodoo prompted from behind her. I didn’t jolt, but O’Rourke did. He’d forgotten Voodoo was there.
If he added more fucking terms to this questioning, I might consider extreme measures.
“But I want out of here,” O’Rourke said, his attention lasering onto Grace. “If you tell me I will be let go and I’ll survive this, then I’ll believe you.”
What?
“Why?” The sheer volume of what the fuck in Grace’s voice almost made me laugh.
“Because these assholes won’t want to disappoint you or make you cry. That means if you promise me I’ll be fine, then I will be.”
Lunchbox cut a glance to me and our gazes locked briefly. I shrugged. I had no idea what game he was playing either.
“That might be hard for you because I’m not promising you anything.” Oh, there she was, fire in her eyes and flames in her voice. “I don’t owe you a damn thing. If I’ve learned anything over the past few months, we can and will get what we need done. We want to find Bones, we will find him.”
Absolute confidence. Zero doubts.
“Ouch,” O’Rourke said. “So harsh, pretty girl. I thought we bonded.”
Rolling her eyes, Grace looked at me. “Is there a point to continuing this?”
Excellent question.
“The point—” O’Rourke began, but Grace snapped her gaze back to him so fast, I swore I heard the crack of it striking him like a blow.
“I wasn’t asking you. You want to play games. I do not. So—shut up.” Then she looked at me again, her expression gentling from that fierce almost Ripley-esque badass she’d assumed when speaking to O’Rourke. “Thoughts, AB?”
Oh, I had plenty of ideas. But there was one I needed to test.
I held out my hand. She came to me like a tide pulled to shore—effortless, inevitable. Her fingers slipped into mine, warm and sure. I tugged her close, one arm sliding around her waist as I dipped my head and kissed her.
It was supposed to be a tease. Just a brush of lips—something light, something curious.
But Gracie had other plans.
Her hand found the back of my neck, fingers threading into my hair as she rose on her toes, pressing into me like she'd been waiting for this—like she'd decided this kiss would answer every question I hadn’t dared to ask.
At the first flicker of my tongue, her mouth parted.
That was all the invitation I needed.
The kiss deepened, sharpened. Slow turned to seeking. Seeking to claiming. She tasted like something I couldn’t name—something I’d been starving for and hadn’t realized until now. Sweet heat and something wild, something that made my knees threaten betrayal.
She pressed herself closer, no space left between us, her breath hitching against my mouth like she needed this just as much. My hand slid up her spine, anchoring her to me, and still—still—it wasn’t enough.
From butterfly wings to a hurricane, she blew me away with the ferocity of it.
And I let her.
Hell, I fell into it.
Lifting my head took serious effort, but I managed and ran my tongue over my lips to savor the taste of her. O’Rourke made a grunting sound and I caught sight of the violent desire on his face.
Desire.
And anger.
Someone was jealous.
Too. Fucking. Bad.
I tucked Grace closer to me, and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
“You have five minutes left with Grace,” I said, making a tactical decision. “Answer the questions, be fucking helpful, and we’ll have room to discuss your survival. Don’t answer, keep making deals, and you can be buried down here. It won’t even take that long.”