CHAPTER 3 #2
"While you were asleep in the car, I contacted my logistics broker," he explains, his tone entirely devoid of emotion. It’s a briefing. He is delivering a tactical report. "I needed to secure a route to drop you off and deliver the drive to Marcus."
"Okay. And?"
"And my broker informed me that Marcus Thorne did not hire the tactical team that raided your apartment." Callum’s eyes lock onto mine. "Marcus panicked when you stole the drive. He knew the people he works for would kill him for losing that data. So, he lied to them."
My brain, usually so fast, feels like it’s wading through wet cement. "Lied about what?"
"He told the syndicate that I orchestrated the hack. He told them I hired you to steal the drive so I could blackmail them."
The espresso machine hisses, a loud, angry sound in the quiet kitchen.
I stare at him. The words rearrange themselves in my head, forming a picture so terrifying my knees actually feel weak.
"He framed you," I whisper.
Callum gives a single, sharp nod. "There is an open bounty on the dark web. Five million dollars."
"Five million," I repeat, the number sounding absurd, like something out of a video game. I let out a short, hysterical laugh. "Wow. I mean, I knew I was good, but five million? I’m flattered. I really am."
"The bounty isn't just for you, Gemma."
The laugh dies in my throat.
Callum pushes off the counter, standing to his full, intimidating height. "The bounty is for both of us. Dead or alive. They don't care about the drive anymore. They care about making an example of the people who breached their security."
I take a step back, my hip bumping hard against the edge of the counter.
The power dynamic in the room shifts so violently I can almost hear it snap.
Ten minutes ago, Callum Reed was my captor. He was the man holding all the cards, the predator who dragged me out of my life and into his. I was the victim, the leverage, the collateral damage.
But looking at him now, I realize the truth.
He isn't a god. He isn't an untouchable ghost.
He is a target. Just like me.
"You’re trapped," I say, the realization slipping past my lips before I can stop it.
A muscle twitches in his jaw. It’s a microscopic movement, but it screams volumes. He hates this. He hates losing control.
"We are secure for the moment," he says, his voice tight. "I severed the GPS link in the car. I burned my communication servers. They are blind."
"They aren't blind, they’re just delayed," I argue, my voice rising. The fear is still there, but it’s being rapidly overshadowed by a furious, desperate need to survive.
"If they have the resources to put a five-million-dollar bounty on the dark web in under twelve hours, they have the resources to track a dark car.
They have satellite imaging. They have traffic cameras.
You didn't bring me here to interrogate me.
You brought me here because you have nowhere else to go! "
"I brought you here because if I left you in New York, you would be dead in an alley right now," he fires back, his voice finally losing its flat, clinical edge. It’s not a yell, but it’s sharp enough to make me flinch.
We stare at each other across the kitchen island.
The silence is deafening.
My chest is heaving. I look at the man who kidnapped me. He is lethal, he is terrifying, and he is currently the only reason I am breathing.
I turn around, grab the mug of espresso, and take a long, burning sip. It’s bitter and strong, and it grounds me just enough to stop my hands from shaking.
I open the cabinet above the machine. "Where is the sugar?"
Callum blinks. The sudden shift in my tone completely derails him. "What?"
"Sugar," I repeat, opening another cabinet. "The white, granulated substance that makes this mud actually drinkable. Where is it?"
"I don't keep sugar in the safe house," he says, staring at me as if I have lost my mind.
"You have a two-thousand-dollar espresso machine and no sugar?" I slam the cabinet door shut. The loud bang echoes in the glass room. "Who lives like this? What kind of psychopath drinks straight, black espresso while waiting for a mercenary army to attack?"
"Gemma—"
"No," I interrupt, pointing a finger at him.
"Do not 'Gemma' me. You dragged me out of my apartment.
You threw me over your shoulder. You put me in a car, you drove me to a glass box in the middle of nowhere, and you just told me that the entire criminal underworld wants to mount my head on a wall. I am entitled to some sugar!"
It’s a ridiculous argument. It’s absurd.
But I can't stop. Because if I stop talking about the sugar, I have to talk about the fact that I am going to die.
Callum watches me. He doesn't step forward. He doesn't try to calm me down. He just stands there, his dark eyes tracking my erratic movements.
Slowly, the tension in his shoulders drops a fraction of an inch.
"I have honey," he says quietly.
I stop pacing. I look at him, my breathing ragged.
"Honey," I repeat.
"In the pantry. Bottom shelf." He gestures vaguely toward a door near the refrigerator.
I stare at him for a long, agonizing moment. I am trying to find the lie in his face. I am trying to figure out if this man—who kills people for money, who doesn't joke, who controls every variable—is actually trying to offer me a shred of comfort.
I walk over to the pantry, open the door, and find a small glass jar of honey on the bottom shelf.
I bring it back to the counter, unscrew the lid, and let a thick spoonful drop into my coffee. I stir it slowly, the clinking of the metal spoon against the ceramic mug the only sound in the room.
I take a sip. It’s too sweet, but it burns going down, and it feels like a tiny, pathetic victory.
"Okay," I say, setting the mug down. I look across the island at him. My panic is locked away in a tight little box in the back of my mind. The hacker is back online. "You have the guns. I have the drive. We have a five-million-dollar problem."
Callum watches me, his expression unreadable. "Yes."
"If they think you hired me, they think we’re working together," I say, my brain rapidly processing the variables.
"Which means the only way to clear the bounty is to prove Marcus lied.
And the only way to prove Marcus lied is to decrypt the rest of the drive and find the communication logs between him and the syndicate. "
"Can you do it?" he asks.
"It’s military-grade encryption," I say, crossing my arms. "It will take time. And I need a secure network. Not a burned laptop. I need a rig."
"There is a server room in the basement," Callum says. "It’s hardwired. Untraceable."
I nod slowly. The pieces are falling into place. The power dynamic has completely leveled out. He isn't my warden anymore. He is my bodyguard. And I am his only ticket out of this mess.
"Fine," I say, picking up the drive from the counter and slipping it into the front pocket of my jeans. "I’ll crack the drive. You keep us alive until I do."
Callum’s eyes drop to the pocket where I hid the drive, then slowly rise back to my face.
"Deal," he says softly.
He reaches out and picks up his silver Zippo lighter from the marble counter. He flips the lid open with his thumb.
Clack.
"But understand this, Gemma," he says, the metallic sound of the lighter punctuating his words. "Until that drive is decrypted, you do not leave my sight. You do not open a door. You do not stand near the glass. If I tell you to move, you move. If I tell you to stay, you stay."
He closes the lighter. Snap.
"Are we clear?"
I look at the dark, empty woods outside the massive windows, and then back at the lethal, controlled man standing in front of me.
I bite the inside of my cheek, tasting a faint hint of copper.
"Crystal," I lie.
Because I might need him to survive, but I am absolutely not going to be a good little prisoner.
If we are going to burn, I’m going to make sure he catches fire first.