She hadn’t declared it to the others, but Rora’s directions had positioned them only a day away from where she had to be. At the time, she hadn’t been sure she’d be stopping for the Point, but Leandra wasn’t more than a seventy-two-hour car ride from the secret everyone wanted to know, so coming this way worked out.

This one piece of the puzzle was always going to be important, no matter how events played out. But since her stay in Bella’s basement, there had been a part of her that wished she could just forget the damn thing had ever existed.

Burying her head in the sand wasn’t going to make anything go away. The damn problem kept chasing her, so she had to confront it.

Coming back to this location was eerie. At one time the building had been her home and now there was a stranger living in her apartment.

Rora didn’t have to go inside, the storage unit she’d rented out back was filled with everything she had left in the world. At least, it was supposed to be. Rora didn’t even care that when she opened it, the place was nothing more than a concrete shell. Of course the people who’d emptied Benjamin’s apartment would’ve emptied her storage locker too. That actually made sense to her.

Slapping her screwdriver against her thigh, she started forward. Whoever these people were, they would have a lot of high school yearbooks and paperback novels to trawl through to find that they had nothing at all. 

At least, as she hunkered down to the concealed outlet at the back of the unit, she hoped that they didn’t.

With Torres passed out and Burke chasing down Bella, Rora guessed that this was the closest she was going to get to a clear path to the thing everyone was in pursuit of. And she had faith that Strike would be keeping an eye on Torres and Junker, preventing them from pursuing her, though each man’s interest in her would be different.

Popping off the front of the outlet, she ran her finger around the outside. Bingo. She plucked out a small USB storage device. This was it. The Point. Unbelievable that such a small thing could have such huge repercussions on so many lives. 

It took little time to put the façade back on and slip out of the unit. While there might be cameras around, she couldn’t be accused of stealing something from an empty unit. She had a scarf around her face anyway and had parked in an area without cameras, so she felt safe slipping away into the night. 

Rora got back to the truck and considered her next move as she drove. She could go to Leandra on her own, but if she did that and Bella or Burke caught up with her, Strike wouldn’t have time to get to her before something grave happened.

She couldn’t really leave Junker and Torres alone for much longer anyway. It would only be a matter of time before Strike got bored of supporting them and split. He’d probably come after her. She didn’t believe he’d abandon her, not if his recent declarations were true. But his patience for others was thin, especially others he didn’t like in the first place.

Her intention had always been to retrieve the Point and return to the trio of men. It would be a miracle if she got back to find them without new injuries. All she could hope was that Strike had been so busy investigating Torres’ story that he didn’t have time to be aggravated by the others.

Glancing at the laptop on the seat beside her, she smiled. “Feels weird that he’s not here, doesn’t it, O?” she said. “I think he’s using you to show me what I mean to him…” Her attention went to the road and she sighed. “I still can’t decide if I should believe him or not.”

Rora hadn’t slept since she’d started this journey, it was approaching three in the morning and she considered stopping for rest. But she wasn’t sure she’d be able to sleep with the Point burning a hole in her pocket.

Since Benjamin had written the algorithm, it had been a thorn in her side. For a while, after they’d hidden the USBs and split up, there had been a period of peace. Adjusting to working together and not being together had taken some time, but they’d been professionals and worked hard at it. And she’d always had such respect for Benjamin that she didn’t think herself capable of walking away.

Someone, somewhere must have known the Point existed, but she’d never told anyone about it. Benjamin had been taken by Bella because the woman wanted the power the Point could give her. Now Benjamin was gone, but Bella was still in pursuit of her holy grail.

Bella was exactly the kind of person who shouldn’t have control of such a thing. She’d exploit it to the maximum. Strike on the other hand, had said he wanted to explore the tech, but she couldn’t see him building an evil lair into the side of a mountain and directing world affairs for his own gain. He might be one of the smartest men she’d ever met, but his needs were simple. The man didn’t even sleep, for goodness sake, what would he do with jewels and gold?

“I suppose the problem would be if it got away from him,” she said, not really thinking about the fact that she was talking to a machine. “We have to make a decision before we get back. Either we give it to him, or we don’t.”

Before she’d laid eyes on Exile, she’d been told he was an enigma. But she could never have imagined how she’d be drawn in by the man.

Her attraction to him had been undeniable from the beginning, but he’d been so resistant to it that she’d really believed he was indifferent to her. Now she understood that the man who’d claimed to be afraid of nothing, was afraid, of her.

Just like she’d thought in his presence once, fearing he could hurt her heart, he’d feared the same thing.

If Strike wanted the Point, he’d have come for her full-throttle. But now that she had it in her possession there was only really one way to find out where Strike’s loyalties lay. Like she’d said to him in the bathroom the previous morning, it would always be hanging over them until she knew for sure.

She could hand it to him and ask him to destroy it. But she’d have no way to know if he really had. With all the tech he had at his disposal, it would be easy for him to tell her he’d destroyed it, but actually be copying it or sending it to himself for later use.

Trust.

That’s what this came down to.

Rora hadn’t trusted Benjamin not to return to the Point after they’d hidden it. That was why she’d switched the devices and hidden the true Point on her own. She’d trusted Benjamin more than she’d ever trusted anyone, but she’d learned even that trust had a limit when she chose to lie to him.

In truth, deciding to deceive him wasn’t about his technical capabilities; she’d believed she was protecting him. Benjamin had a pure heart, but could be naïve, just as she had once been. If he’d kept the Point or used it with hackable networks, then others may have got hold of it without him knowing.

He might have returned to it, retrieved it, and believed that he was only accessing the code for educational purposes, but he didn’t understand there were malevolent people out there.

“Strike understands it,” Rora said, sliding a hand onto Opal. “He’d know how to isolate it, wouldn’t he?”

Junker hadn’t meant to give her such clarity. But he’d put it in such simple terms that she didn’t know how she hadn’t seen it before.

Holding onto righteousness was ridiculous. Who was she trying to impress? Her parents were gone. Her career was over. There was only one thing in the world that mattered to her and she’d lost that because of her own misguided integrity. But if she had the chance to fix that mistake, shouldn’t she take it?

Was that it? Had she been the one to make the mistake by not trusting Strike’s heart? Maybe he hadn’t made a mistake at all.

This was a hell of a decision. To throw her lot in with Strike and trust him all the way or give up on any chance of having someone to rely on. If she couldn’t make herself trust Strike when she loved him as much as she did, she’d never be able to trust anyone.

“Opal,” she said and breathed out again, returning her hand to the wheel. “You have to help me out here, honey, we need a really ingenious idea, or I may as well drive both of us off the road right now.”

Rora hadn’t asked for this responsibility, Benjamin had given it to her long before he took his own life to protect it. Every day she missed him, or something reminded her of the man. But while she’d been with Strike, it had been easier; he’d carried some of the burden for her. But it was his motives that perplexed her… just what drove a man like Exile? Could love ever be his priority?