Chapter 12 #3
She had briefly discussed with him that she had been there undercover, but she hadn’t said why. He hadn’t asked, and she’d appreciated that. Just because she was working with him didn’t mean she didn’t take the rest of her job at Gray Tower seriously.
Just not this part, she thought uneasily.
“What happened?” he asked softly.
“Sims called me into his office at the end of the day, and he…tried to sexually assault me.”
“Fuck,” Nathan growled as his expression darkened. “I’m going to kill him. I mean, I was already going to kill him, but now, I’m going to start by feeding him his balls.” Alex sat up ramrod straight and gasped at his declaration. “Shit,” he cursed. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m sorry, Alex.”
“It’s okay,” she said softly. “I just wanted to let you know you made the right choice.”
“But I made things worse by kidnapping you. You had just dealt with Sims trying to assault you and woke up tied to a damned bed. I—”
“Stop,” Alex told him, holding up her hand. “Stop beating yourself up. You had to get out of there. That was the only option.”
“I could have hot-wired a car. I could have—”
“That would have taken longer,” she argued. “Please. Just stop berating yourself, okay?”
“Okay.”
“So, what happens now?” she asked, quickly changing the subject.
“I take the information you gave me and make sure my suit is patched,” he told her. “If I can, I’d like to add Kat’s program so I can control the other suits. I’d be damned effective if I could operate that shit from my own suit.”
Alex had read the reports about the island mission.
Kat had been able to control all the super suits on the island since they were networked.
Since she had already hacked their programming, she easily wrote a program that enabled her to do things like to shut off the suits’ helmet displays, making the soldiers’ visions completely black as they relied completely on the digital display to see.
The display was awesome because it changed with varying light and could find targets via infrared and environmental vibrations.
It displayed a map by scanning the surrounding areas and utilizing previously downloaded blueprints and maps.
It made the soldiers practically invincible, except if you could turn off the display.
Then, they were screwed and had to take the time to remove their helmet.
Nathan would have a huge advantage if he could get Kat’s program working from his suit.
“How would you be able to do that?” she asked. “Wouldn’t you need Kat for that?”
Nathan chuckled.
“I might look stupid, but I’m not.” Alex immediately wanted to protest, but he held up his hand. “I’m self-taught and definitely not as good as your friend, but I can get something working, and I won’t bring anyone else in on this, okay?”
She nodded and said softly, “I didn’t know that about you.”
“I look like a grunt, but I’m really good at math and logic. Spent most of my free time when I was with the Conglomerate watching MIT classes and training videos online while everyone else was at the bars drinking and chasing tail.”
“Oh,” was all she could say.
He shrugged and said, “It wasn’t all work, no play, but fucking strangers every night got old real quick. I needed more.”
Alex tensed at the mention of him with other women. Was she jealous? Why? They weren’t together. Besides, she didn’t date, and she definitely didn’t have sex, even with sweet, sexy men like Nathan Slade.
“I see,” she said, her voice flat. Why did she suddenly sound like a bitch? Alex quickly redirected the conversation by saying, “You said you were failing your classes. That you barely graduated? But it sounds like you’re gifted. You probably could have sailed through school.”
“Yeah. I could have, but as I told you, in my teenage mind, I wanted to stick it to my parents.”
“It got you attention.”
“The wrong kind, but yes, it did. I wasn’t ever going to get approval from them, so I guess I was trying for some kind of attention, even if it was negative.”
“I’m so sorry, Nathan.”
He waved it off.
“I’m over it. Right now, I need to focus on the mission. Get the suit up and running and work on my first target.”
“Do you need help?” she asked. “I can help. I’m helpful.”
Smooth, she thought.
“No. You’ve done enough. I’ll let you get back to your life.”
He stood up, stretching his long limbs. She got up as well, following him as he made his way to the back door. Alex wanted to ask him to stay. She liked having him in her space. She didn’t want him to go.
“Can you let me know if you’re all right at least?” she asked as he pulled the door open.
“Yeah, I can do that.” He smiled, and her heart melted at how gorgeous he was when he looked happy. “I appreciate you caring so much.”
Her face heated, and all she could do was nod.
“I’ll see you later, Alex,” he said and disappeared out the door.
It took a long time before her heart stopped hammering. It took an even longer time for her to move from her position. She never stopped thinking about him for the rest of the night.