The following morning was a tense limbo of talking and not talking. Rora and Junker agreed they would be safer if they left the city, but where could they go? Their mission wasn’t over. But it was at an impasse.

So, they had to stay. But to do what? As long as they had Strike and the Black Jewel in their sights, Junker didn’t want to lose them. The original plan was to monitor the pair, and he wanted to stick with that until they came up with a better idea of how to get the tech away from Strike. 

Then there was the next debate: to return the computer or not to return the computer?

One thing was certain, Junker didn’t know about her middle-of-the-night encounter with Strike.

But she did.

She couldn’t get it off her mind. Rora was mad at herself for letting Strike kiss her. If he hadn’t kissed her, they never would’ve… had they really had sex out there? Out there in the open?

Ok, so it was a secluded spot, but there was no denying that it was crazy to take that kind of risk. Didn’t master criminals usually get caught, not for their primary crime, but for some stupid, insignificant act… like public indecency?

If they were both locked up, and Opal was out of Strike’s control, how would they be able to get free?

They, them, we, us, our. Her mind connected them as a couple, a duo, so easily, and it wasn’t meant to be that way. Rora had never made a conscious decision to connect herself to him like he was an extension of her, but somewhere along the way, it had happened and now she couldn’t switch it off. 

Beyond thoughts of her craziness and their relationship, she was preoccupied by his assertion that he had the Point. There was no way Benjamin had switched the drives out; he hadn’t known what she’d done. Strike couldn’t have it. He just couldn’t.

And the more she thought about it, the more she figured if Strike had wanted to use the program, he’d have deployed it by now. He wouldn’t be chasing Bella’s requests or coming to meetings with her and Junker if he was working on the Point. He’d have worked every hour, every minute, tirelessly, until he got it perfect and then he’d have set it free in the world to work for him. 

So he hadn’t used the program, hadn’t figured out yet that she hadn’t given it to him. Their relationship, whatever it was, might change when he discovered her double-cross. Unless she told him the truth first… but, yeah, she was in no rush to do that.

She and Junker had lunch and then dinner, watching the cameras and seeing nothing. Just as night began to threaten they saw a blurred figure enter Bella’s hotel lobby. It went into the elevator, and the next they saw it, it was entering Bella’s suite. 

“There he is,” Junker said. “That’s him, right?”

Rora didn’t want to watch the way Bella greeted Strike or how the beauty took his arm and plastered herself to him. “That’s him,” she sighed, swirling her wine in the bottom of her glass. 

Strike had been in Rora and Junker’s room yesterday, so he knew Bella’s suite was being watched, that she’d see everything. Just as Rora began to speculate that maybe he was going to put on a show with Bella just to fuck with both women’s heads, he took Bella’s arm from his and pushed her away. 

“Oh, she doesn’t look happy,” Junker said, and he was right. 

But Strike bowed to whisper something to Bella and the woman grinned with delight. Whatever he’d said, she liked. Strike turned to leave Bella’s side and the two went in different directions. He moved to the window and just before closing the drapes, he opened his hand in a static wave. 

“Damn, was that for us?” Junker asked, hitting the table. “How do you think he knew we were watching?”

Bella popped into the bedroom and closed the drapes fast, blocking them out from every angle. Either the couple were about to have sex or Strike was going to kill the Jewel, but Bella probably wouldn’t have been so happy about that, and she’d been fizzing with excitement after Strike whispered to her.

Draining her glass, Rora put it on the table and got up. “I’m going out.”

“You’re… what? We have to talk about this. How do you think he knew about—”

She opened her hands to the screens. “The cameras are transmitting to us, he can intercept the signals, I don’t know.”

Except she did because she’d seen him sitting in front of their setup, but she hadn’t told her ally that. Strike had made a liar out of her. Made sense, she was corrupted in every other way a person could be corrupted. But that didn’t mean she liked herself for it.

“We have his computer.”

He’d been monitoring them since long before she’d taken Opal, but Rora couldn’t tell Junker that either. “But not his phone,” she said. “He has military-grade tech in the phone he built himself. It does things I didn’t think NASA could do… besides, he can do wonders with any terminal he puts his hands on.”

“That’s not hero worship I hear is it?”

Junker’s smirk was so different to Strike’s. Her friend’s smirk was usually a prelude to a laugh, whereas Strike’s could be followed by a knife to the throat. At one time, she’d called Strike her God, but that didn’t mean she considered him a hero.

When she turned her lip into her mouth, she was trying to hide a laugh and it wasn’t one of shame. “Hero is not a word I’d ever connect to Exile,” she said and went over to retrieve her jacket.

Checking her pockets for her room key, her new switchblade, and her cash, Rora started for the door.

“Wait,” Junker said and jumped to his feet. But he didn’t know whether to stay with the video feed or go with her; he looked from one to the other and back. “I… you might not be safe out there.”

But she nodded to the image of Bella’s closed drapes. “We know where they are. They’re not going to hurt me while they’re keeping each other entertained,” she said. “I won’t be long.”

Stepping out onto the porch, she took a deep, cleansing breath and then started across the parking lot. Rora couldn’t be in there watching those drapes, not knowing what was going on inside Bella’s suite.

Not that she’d really necessarily feel better if she could see in the room. Rora had been that woman. The one beneath Strike, under his body, his hands, his mouth, his power… Watching him pleasure Bella would be the worst kind of torture she could imagine.

It wasn’t fair of her to think that way, not when she’d told herself their relationship was over, and chastised Strike for acting like it wasn’t. Strike was a free agent. But that didn’t mean she wanted to see him take advantage of that freedom, especially with the woman who’d tortured her.

While walking down the block, she realized that she didn’t remember how to walk slowly anymore. Lifting her chin, she started to do the standard scan that had become a part of her life, checking for anything sinister or suspicious.

One figure stood out.

Slowing when she spotted him, Rora began to curse herself for leaving the room. He tipped his head to the side and then slipped through a doorway.

Blowing out a breath, she considered turning and running away, but knew better. This guy wasn’t going anywhere, and it was no accident that she’d seen him. Checking the street, she crossed and went through the doorway he’d used.

She was the rat following the moving cheese. The cheese stood at the top of a set of stairs. She rolled her eyes, but he didn’t respond, he just carried on up the next set of stairs.

On getting to the top of that flight, she noticed him by a doorway at the other end of a corridor. He went inside what could only be some kind of apartment, and she started heading his way. Though she did think it would serve him right if she turned and walked away instead.

When she entered, she found herself in a living room set up with furniture so new it looked like it might just have been delivered. As far as she could see, the room was empty of people. But the door closed, and she turned to find her cheese behind the door.

“Torres,” she said, folding her arms.

“Kero.”

“You’re looking good,” she said, checking out the cargo shorts and the loud shirt. “Undercover?”

“Sometimes the best way to hide is in plain sight.”

“Straight from the NSA handbook?” she asked and moistened her lips. “So, what am I doing here, Agent?”

“Thought we should have a catch up.”

“A catch up,” she said. “No police station? No threat of arrest? Just buddies shooting the breeze?”

“That’s it,” he said, going past her into the body of the room. “Would you like a drink?”

She almost laughed. “I’m not going to drink anything you pour for me.”

Because there was no one to swoop in and save her this time. If Torres drugged her and she was carted off to some NSA stronghold, Junker would have no chance of getting her out. Though she’d probably be treated better as a government captive than as Black Jewel’s slave… maybe.

Putting down the bottle he’d just picked up, Torres opened his hand toward a chair. “Then would you like to sit down?”

But she wasn’t ready to relax. “Did he send you here? You got another little doohickey he passed to you? Whatever he wants—”

“This time it’s for real,” he said.

The ease of his form grew more serious in sync with his expression. He sat down and then gestured to the perpendicular chair.

Considering him, she decided she wouldn’t drop her guard, but crept over to the chair he’d indicated and sat down on the edge. “What is it you want?”

“Everything.”

Now she sank back in the chair. Crossing her legs, she folded her arms, a smirk tickling her lips. “Really?” she drawled.

“I’m not a me,” she said, her head buzzing. The NSA knew how to talk in riddles; she’d have to learn their language. “Whatever you thought I was, or I thought I was… I’m not.”

He nodded slowly. “You bitter yet?”

A smile came before a whisper of a laugh and she slid higher to sit straighter. “Was… maybe… But then I remembered he is who he is and taking what he does personally would be… indulgent… of me.”

“What happened between you?”

Her smile got wider and with her elbows on the arms of the chair, she linked her fingers. “Now we’re girlfriends? You want to hear about a crazy, passionate affair fueled by crime and sex and debauchery?” His brows rose. “You’ll be disappointed. It wasn’t like that.”

Though it wasn’t far off, it might have been more like that if Strike had given in to his feelings for her sooner.

“What was it like?”

Impossible to explain to someone like him, not that she would ever share such a private part of herself with him. Rora maintained her glib façade. “They don’t teach you how to ask more subtle questions?” she asked. “Whatever went on between him and me, I don’t want to see him rotting in prison… He’s too brilliant to be caged… Even if he is a prick.”

The corner of his mouth curled. “He is a prick,” he said and shifted closer, twisting toward her. “But you misunderstand what it is we want. I don’t want him in jail… I want him on payroll.”

She didn’t expect that, but as she sat examining Torres, she could tell he was serious, and it made sense. “You want…”

“Think about it,” he said. “Makes sense for both of you. You could have a life with him, Kero. A real life. A home. A family.”

“Wow,” she breathed out and he smiled, but she wasn’t thinking about how great that would be, she was thinking about how oblivious Torres was. “You don’t understand him at all.” Torres’ smile fell. “Do you know how bored he would be sitting in an office?”

“Doesn’t have to be that way,” he said. “He can work in the field. He can live his life just like he does now. We’d just toss him some assignments, set him some challenges.”

“Give him rules,” she said. “He doesn’t react well to rules.”

“We wouldn’t expect him to wear a suit and park in his designated spot. Doing what we do can be quite exciting.”

Her lips twisted. “So is what we do,” she said, then corrected herself. “What he does.”

“This deal doesn’t have to include you. If you want to give us what we need and take off, that’s fine too.”

“But if I talk, you’d have enough to blackmail him into working for you,” she said. “Work with you or go to jail, those would be his options, right?”

Rora didn’t have it in her to ruin his life or to take control of it from him. If she told Torres everything she knew about Exile, Strike would suffer for his alter-ego’s crimes. Sure, they were one and the same man, but there was something in Strike that didn’t believe himself worthy of the freedoms others took for granted. Like the freedom to love. He certainly didn’t believe he deserved that one.

Pushing at her, provoking her, like he had when they’d got close the night they talked about his mother’s suicide for the first time, it was his way of keeping himself isolated. That was the reason he’d held off from touching her for so long. Some part of her knew he believed if he just didn’t give in to his feelings, they’d go away.

But they hadn’t.

They’d embraced those feelings and then she’d given him a final chance to sever their connection when she’d presented the Point to him. Of course he’d stolen it from her and made her think he was evil. Of course he wanted her to think he’d betrayed her. If she hated him, he didn’t have to worry about losing her love. It was all part of his need to be in control. If he betrayed her first, he didn’t have to worry about her doing it to him later.

God forbid, he just let their relationship run its course and take the knocks as they came. He had to hold the reins, even if that meant she became a casualty of his unspoken insecurity.

Everyone had left him, starting on the day he’d been born when his mother killed herself. His grandfather had beaten him, passed him off to anyone who’d care for him and then just as he built a connection with a new family, his grandfather would come and steal him away from them.

Strike had never been allowed the chance to form a true, honest relationship with anyone. Even Bella had been a toxic influence in his life, he’d said that himself.

Rora knew he felt the way he did because she wasn’t so different. It was the reason she hadn’t trusted Benjamin or Strike with the real Point. Somewhere along the way, she’d come to believe that everyone in her life had the potential to snap and turn on her, just like Kyan had done when he exterminated their family.

“Give us everything on him,” Torres said, pulling her from her reflection. “I can tell you’re thinking about it.”

He’d misunderstood her silence. Leaning closer, she waited until she had his complete focus. “I don’t want him to change,” she murmured. “You talk to me like I’m an ally, like I want him to have this personality overhaul. What you’ve failed to notice is that if I am what you say I am, I’m your biggest hurdle. I don’t want him to change, Mr. Torres, ‘cause frankly, if he was on your payroll, he wouldn’t be in my bed.”

That surprised him, and he didn’t do a great job of hiding it. “I thought your story wasn’t about crime and sex.”

“It’s not the crime or the sex,” she said, sitting back with a dismissive wave of her hand.

“Then what is it?” he asked, shuffling to the edge of his chair and linking his hands between his knees. “Help me understand what it is that provokes this loyalty, ‘cause if you’re right that you wouldn’t be on board, I need to work on flipping you.”

That was funny, but she didn’t laugh, she just shook her head. “I told you, I’m not what you think I am. I’m not a factor in his life anymore.”

“Funny that you’re both in the same city at the same time then,” he said. Rora just raised her brows in response. “It’s the Black Jewel. Has she got something going on with him?” Tightening her linked fingers, she raised her shoulders and stuck out her lip in a gesture meant to convey ignorance. “You do know that she’s dangerous. Unhinged dangerous.”

“Have you met her?”

“Not directly.”

Rora adjusted her legs to fold them under her. “Then you have no idea, Mr. Torres,” she said. “No idea what that woman is capable of.”

Peering at her, it was obvious that he was trying to figure her out, and it was funny to see him fail. “I’ve met you,” he said. “And I still have no idea what you’re capable of… I haven’t forgotten about that little criminal damage stunt. All your victims were miraculously compensated by the way… ‘cept one of the drivers. He’s going to be serving a serious amount of time in prison… Want to explain how that happened?”

She shrugged again, exuding feigned ignorance. “Sometimes people do bad things, Mr. Torres.”

“But not you, you don’t do bad things?”

Touching the center of her top lip with her tongue, she pouted. “Why don’t you ask our mutual friend that question the next time you talk to him?”

“You’ve got quite the mouth on you, Kero,” he said. “Should I ask Exile about that mouth too?”

Seeing an opportunity, she got serious. “That thing you gave me, the DARPA toy… What is it?”

Torres smirked in a way that made her want to claw his eyes. “He never told you?”

“He told me… in his own way,” she said, rolling her eyes again.

“If I tell you, you’ll owe me one.”

Holding up a finger, she indicated one. “You answer my question and I’ll answer one of yours. A who, where, why, or when question.”

“Ok,” he said and nodded once. “It’s a processor… with apparent infinite capacity.”

“It could be used to run any number of programs at a time?”

He nodded. “Or process infinite amounts of data… it’s a prototype, not perfect yet, but better than anything that’s available out there now.”

Now she understood why Exile wanted it and why he’d been excited by the idea of the Point. With that device, he had the ability to not only process a handful of data, but a globe’s worth, just like he’d said in the resort suite when she first explained what the Point was designed to do.

“Ok, what’s your question?”

“What—”

“Ah,” she said and held up her finger again. “I said, who, where, why or when, not what.” His gusto vanished in a puff of breath and while he was deflated, she was triumphant. “You don’t have to ask anything at all… I’ll let you ask a how question if you want.”

Bobbing his head, he got near to her and lowered his voice. “How do I turn him?”

Bowing nearer, she touched his knee with her fingernail and mimicked his tone. “That one’s easy.” His eyes widened. “You don’t.”

Springing to her feet, she started for the door.

“Kero,” he called after her, but she opened her arms. “That’s it?”

“That’s my answer,” she said, relieved when the door opened under her hand and she learned that she wasn’t locked in. “You don’t turn him. He doesn’t want to work for you and he doesn’t care enough about anything that he can be manipulated. Pursue him as much as you like, but the truth is, I’m not sure you’d want him… he’s unwieldy.”

She turned to go. “Kero?”

Rora turned back. Torres came across the room and held out a small circular metal device in the middle of his palm, no bigger than a quarter. “If you change your mind, press the button in the middle, it will send out a signal to tell me you want to talk.” Peering at him, she didn’t believe him for a second. “I promise, no tricks, it won’t track you unless you press the button… and hey, free tech, right? Just… don’t tell Exile.”

Taking the disc, she inspected it as she walked out. But before she got to the street, she popped it into her inside pocket and went back to the hotel. Torres obviously knew where she was staying, so she didn’t have to worry about being tracked to her hotel room.

When she went into the empty room, she heard the shower on and assumed Junker was in there. Although the bathroom door was open an inch, she didn’t worry about making noise, presuming that her friend would guess she was back if he heard anything.

On the video feed, the drapes were still drawn over the windows of Bella’s suite. Jealousy tasted bitter and she disgusted herself for feeling it about her ex… the ex she’d screwed last night.

Junker was busy in the shower, and thinking about last night made her realize this was an opportunity. Tugging off her jacket, Rora dropped it and retrieved Opal from the panel in the suspended ceiling. Taking the laptop to the coffee table, she knelt down, and opened the lid.

Rora took a breath and ran her fingers down the edges. “Ok, friend, don’t kill me,” she whispered to the machine and braced with her finger over the keyboard.

Her heart was hammering to get out of her chest, her head was screaming at her not to take the risk, and her skin chilled. Extending her index finger, she bared her teeth, breathed and touched a key… nothing.

Opening her eyes, her jaw fell, and she breathed out a sound of shocked relief. Strike had been telling the truth! She was still authorized. Glancing up, she couldn’t see the bathroom door from here, but she could still hear the shower.

Typing fast, she found herself looking at more programs than she could comprehend. What did they all do? What would happen if she… One in particular caught her eye, it was serendipitous, but it gave her an idea. If that was what she thought it was… Oh, if there was one program she had to learn, it was that one… and she was a quick study.

“What do you say, honey?” she whispered to the computer. “What do you say we have some fun with Daddy?”

Ease of use wasn’t something she’d have ascribed to Strike, but the simplicity was incredible. Maybe it was her determination that helped her figure it out, she’d guess that all his programs weren’t like this one, or maybe it was just that she was starting to learn his mind.

She was so caught up in playing with the settings that she almost didn’t hear the shower going off. She’d just closed the computer when Junker came into view.

When he saw her with it, he frowned. “Any luck?”

Rora shook her head. “I was just curious,” she said and wiggled her fingers. “I still have all my extremities.”

“If you’ve seen what it can do, I don’t blame you for not touching it.” She hadn’t said that, but he had, so she’d leave him with his assumptions. “How was your walk? You want a drink?”

Shaking her head, she gathered up Opal and hugged the laptop to her chest. “I think I’ll… get an early night.”

He nodded. “Good plan, I’m going to stay up a while, see if we get any movement on the cameras. Your turn in the bed tonight.”

Movement from the amorous couple? Yeah, she didn’t need the reminder. “Ok.”

She got ready for bed, taking her switchblade and Opal with her. She couldn’t put Opal back in the last hiding place with Junker still up and around. So Rora chose to slip the laptop under her pillow.

Tucking her fist beneath the pillow too, she held her thumb over the button that would open the blade in the event she needed it, and let her eyes close.