Branson’s blue eyes twinkled with maleficence. “Aren’t we the clever one? Think what you want. It doesn’t matter. I just wanted to show you what you are going to do for me before I kill you.”
“I’m not doing anything for you.”
“But you already have.” He laughed as he tossed the package at Lee. It skidded across the pavement, stopping at his feet.
He frowned when he read the title at the top of the vacuum-sealed flash drive. Inferno Recovery. “Why package freeware? As the name implies, it’s free.”
“Oh, Lee. Sei uno stupido. You really do lack the common sense God gave a goat. Note the second word. The most important word.”
Dick. He refused to respond and give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d gotten to him and instead read the second word. Recovery? Why would there be a need for a recovery drive from a free counter-virus software?
“Do you really think I’d let you release something as valuable as Inferno to the open market?”
“You were there,” Lee countered. “You watched me do it.”
“Did I? I don’t recall you actually uploading a single line of code. If you had, a product like Inferno would be all over the news by now. As it is, it’ll take a few more weeks, maybe a month tops, to really take hold.”
A deep dread settled in like a dark fog as he walked through the events of that night. He hadn’t uploaded Inferno. Pablo had. At least he said he had.
Shit. Shit! With a newfound hatred for this man, Lee glared at Branson. “What did you do?”
“I saved you,” he retorted viciously. “I saved the company.”
“It wasn’t your company to save!”
Branson grinned. “It will be soon enough. You would have seen this coming had you not been so preoccupied with your new lover.”
“Is that what this is all about?”
“No, you idiot. It’s about money. Of course. What have I told you from the very beginning of our partnership? You brought me in to keep you in line. This is me, keeping you in line.”
Reality kept crashing down, hit after hit. “It was you who broke into the server room.”
“Pablo, actually. He’s quite talented, that one. You’re not the only one with programming skills. He uploaded a version of Inferno, but not your version. Inferno is out there burning through firewalls and kidnapping hard drives as we speak, holding them ransom. That flash drive is the only thing that can stop it by, as you so eloquently put it, setting viruses against each other. It’s brilliant, actually. We can charge anything we want. People will do the darndest things to ensure their security, don’t you think?”
He had no argument, having spent a considerable amount for the locks, the PIs, the extra security for his office.
He didn’t see Pablo anywhere, and an awful foreboding sank into his senses. “What did you do, Branson? Where’s Pablo?”
“I made it look like an accident. Cars hit water and go out of control all the time in Seattle. Quel che sarà sarà.”
Oh God. Not Pablo. He didn’t deserve this. “He was just a dumb kid.”
“Now he’s a dead kid.”
Lee needed to find a way out of these bindings and kick the living shit out of Branson. He struggled until the ropes burned into his skin and still he barely moved.
“Kyle, break free.”
“Not hurting you,” he replied softly. Calmly. Too calmly.
“It’s going to be okay,” he lied in a steady voice. “We’re going to get out of this.”
“No.”
“We are.”
He drew in a steady breath. “Yes, we are.”
How could he be so calm, so collected right now? Lee wrote it off to him not fully comprehending the world as most others did.
He snapped his glare to Branson. “Let him go. You don’t want him.”
“Actually, I do.”
“It’s me you want!”
“That’s rather egotistical of you, don’t you think?”
Lee let out a growl in frustration. There had to be a way to convince Branson to let Kyle go. It was too late for him, he understood that now, but the teen had barely gotten the chance to live.
“What do you want, Branson?”
“Simply put, for you to die.”
Lee swallowed back the fear as it threatened to surface. “Why?”
He pulled another shrink-wrapped drive from the tower. “This, my friend, is going to make me billions. Release Inferno—check. Instill worldwide panic—check. Bring to market the one and only program designed to restore the damage done by Inferno—checkmate. I’m so glad you survived that original attack, my friend. It’s what gave me the inspiration for Inferno Recovery.”
This couldn’t be happening. As the puzzle pieces snapped into place, the fear inside Lee’s body transformed into rage. His eyes burned as he nailed him with a glare. “It was you. You put that hit out on me a year ago.”
Branson nodded. “You could charge anything for a program like Inferno, but you wouldn’t let me charge what it was really worth. I couldn’t let that happen so yes, I hired a hitter to get rid of you and retrieve the prototype. With the source code I no longer needed you.”
He frowned. “But the hitter never surfaced again. I assumed he’d finally met his match.” He gave Lee a sleazy once-over. “It appears he has.”
“Go to hell.”
Kyle squeezed his hand. Twice. Then a third time. He hesitated as he continued to glare at Branson, waiting to see why the teen gave him some sort of signal. It was Morse Code. This kid’s brain amazed him.
T-A-L-K.
That he could do. “You’ve had plenty of opportunity to kill me. Why now? Why after all this time at Orchid, pretending to be my business partner, my friend, would you kill me now?”
Branson walked over and retrieved the package before moving back to the tower and replacing it with the others. “When the hitter failed and the code disappeared, I needed you to re-create the prototype. The new version of Inferno is so much better than your first, so much more destructive. As soon as I saw it in action I knew I had exactly what I needed. That’s when I called to check on you, when you told me where you were. I sent men to your condo to finish what that hitter couldn’t.”
“You’re insane.”
“I’m just taking what’s due to me. Your death will serve two purposes. It’ll rid me of you—a constant thorn in my side. It will also destroy another agent.” He rested that deviant blue gaze on Lee.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I see I’ve lost you. Allow me to explain. Let’s take a step back in time, shall we?”
Great. A monologue. Why did the bad guys always feel the need to explain their evil plan like that somehow justified their actions? Regardless, it kept him talking as Kyle continued to squeeze out T-A-L-K in Morse Code.
“I came to America twenty-five years ago.”
Wow. When he said back in time, he really meant it. Lee held his tongue and waited.
“I had nothing but the clothes on my back and the address of a friend I’d met when his family visited Italy earlier that summer. We stayed in touch through letters until the fall, but then the letters stopped. As soon as I had enough saved, I bought a one-way ticket to Seattle.”
“You flew halfway around the world to find someone you only knew from a visit and a couple letters?”
Branson’s expression grew even colder. “He was my first love. I was only seventeen. I didn’t even know love could be like that until Ronnie.” His expression softened as he went on. “He was thrilled to see me and took me in. I lived with his family for a time. We then got our own place and were blissfully happy. But then I’d received word my father had passed, so I returned to Italy to care for my mother. The old bat lived far longer than anticipated. Years went by. I finally had to help her pass.”
Dear Jesus. Did he just admit to killing his mother?
“By the time I’d returned to America, Ronnie was nowhere to be found. Be
lieve me, I searched and searched.”
“Did you ever find him?” Lee hated to ask but had to keep the man talking. And, for some morbid reason, he really wanted to know.
“Oh I found him,” Branson answered hollowly. “He’d been killed, murdered by one of his own friends. I vowed to avenge his death and made it my life’s work to hunt down those responsible for his death. That’s when I discovered he’d been part of a tactical retrieval agency.”
“TREX.” As soon as he said it, he wished he hadn’t.
Satisfaction settled into the sneer stretching his lips. “I see you’ve heard of them. They took him from me. I’d been plotting my revenge ever since. It wasn’t until a few years ago when I’d heard of a former spec ops agent who’d gone rogue after being kicked out of the agency that I knew I finally had the ultimate weapon—a man with a chip on his shoulder and the training and skills to actually do something about the wrong done to him. I sought him out, paid him handsomely for a bit of wetwork, and allowed him to become the true assassin he was always meant to be.”
“You turned him into a killer.”
Branson grinned and shrugged. “He was always a killer. I simply gave him the chance to spread his wings. He really enjoyed his work, let me tell you. Never once let me down.” He lost his smile and nailed Lee with a glare. “Until you. I had him under my control. Until you. After he’d failed to get rid of you and instead stole the prototype for himself, I wanted to punish him in the worst way. If only he hadn’t died trying to protect you. Oh, wait. He didn’t actually die, did he? TREX had him tucked away in the foothills.”
“How did you find us?”
“Did you know there’s a dandy app on your phone that finds your friends?”
Dread filled Lee’s limbs, weighing him down. “Me? I led you to the Farm?”
“It was like Christmas, having so many connections to TREX all in one place, none of them trained to defend against a coordinated attack. I’d be able to punish Jacob for betraying me, as well as punish TREX for taking Ronnie from me.” His evil grin returned. “It was like shooting fish in a barrel, really. So many loved ones, gone before their time.”
“What does any of this have to do with me? I’m not in TREX. I didn’t even know Jacob until you sent him to kill me. Why partner with me so many years ago?”
“I needed some way to fund my operations. You needed someone to keep you in line. It was all harmless enough for a time, but then you created Inferno. I couldn’t let you give away something worth so much.”
That explained why TREX had Orchid on its radar. He’d been inadvertently funding a cyberterrorist. Lee laughed, and it sounded hollow and crazy as it echoed through the large warehouse. “After everything, it really does just come down to money with you, doesn’t it?”
Kyle squeezed both his hands, urging him to continue. What did he see that Lee didn’t?
He continued when Branson fell silent. “So you’re going to sell Inferno Recovery? That’s your big plan? That’s why you want me dead, all for some stupid code?”
“That stupid code,” he countered viciously, “is going to make me very rich. I’ll mourn the loss of my very dear friend and business partner before taking over Orchid and bringing the company public. And then, my dear Lee, I will have won. I will go down in history and you will be nothing but a mere memory. As soon as I find Jacob again, I’ll have him join you.”
“Why wait?” Jacob’s gravelly voice lifted into the air. “I say we get the party started.”
Lee let out a sob he didn’t even know had built up inside him when Jacob stepped out from behind one of the pallets. Branson whipped around and brought up a gun, but Jacob was too fast and fired off a single round. Branson fell back and slid across the floor.
To Lee’s shock, Branson got back up and even dusted off his suit. He then rested his lethal glare on Jacob. He must be wearing a vest. “Is that any way to treat an old friend?”
“You’re no friend of mine, Sergio.” Jacob brought up the gun.
“You’re Sergio?” Lee jerked his gaze back to Branson. Everything fit together perfectly now. Branson didn’t hire Sergio and his men. Branson was Sergio.
Men flooded into the open area, all focused on Jacob. They didn’t stand a chance. As soon as they came into view, they fell, one by one, from shots in the rafters.
The cavalry had arrived.
A man Lee had never seen appeared next to Jacob. They placed their backs together, taking out anything stupid enough to move.
Two huge men charged, both hollering and laughing like maniacs. Lee remembered seeing them at his condo after the attack, then again at the Farm. Before two henchmen could bring up weapons, the huge men had them down.
“Nice job, bro.”
“Thanks, bro.”
Jacob squared a gun on Sergio. “It’s over.”
“Are you sure about that?” He lifted his hands. Lee squinted to see what he had in his left. “That’s right, Jacob. It’s a dead man’s switch. You kill me, the C4 I have strategically planted will detonate. Bye-bye, Burnsy.”
“Hey,” the man that had shot back-to-back with Jacob greeted when he suddenly appeared in front of Kyle. “My name is Vince. I’m a friend of Jacob’s. How about we go hide?”
“No.”
“No?”
“I don’t hide.”
As much as Lee wanted to cry out and tell Kyle to get the hell away, he couldn’t do a damn thing without drawing attention to them. He made his shoulders as big as possible to keep the commotion behind him hidden.
Lee tried to see where they went but couldn’t turn his head enough. He faced the standoff before him, feeling like a sitting duck tied to a chair as two skilled men tried to outwit the other.
Men lay scattered around the floor, none of them moving. Lee didn’t know which were alive and which weren’t and didn’t care. He just wanted this to be over.
Kyle suddenly rose from the chair and turned, stepping toward Sergio. As he passed Lee, his gaze fixed on his target, he lifted a gun in each hand.
What the hell?
“Christ,” Vince yelled. “The kid’s got my sidearms. How the hell did he do that?”
He didn’t slow as he marched with purpose, pistol in each hand. He didn’t say anything and didn’t need to. His stance, his mere presence, said it all. He may barely hit five feet, but right now, he was the biggest one in the warehouse.
Sergio laughed. The dumb son of a bitch actually laughed at a kid with two guns squared on him. “Oh aren’t you cute? Do you even know how to use one of those?”
Kyle answered by firing a round into the air.
“Usually it is customary to shoot at the one you call bad.”
“Okay.” He shot out Sergio’s left knee without hesitation.
The man screamed and fell to the ground. “You little imbecile! What are you doing?”
“Protecting family.”
“Kyle,” Walsh said softly as he appeared from the shadows, his hands up. “What did we talk about?”
“He’s bad,” the teen answered, his attention fixated on Sergio.
“Shooting him is bad.”
“He hurts people. What he does is bad.”
Sergio snarled. “Who are you to say what is bad and what isn’t?”
“Jacob says you’re bad.”
“And you always listen to him?”
“Always.”
“I wouldn’t be so quick to put him on a pedestal, my dear boy.”
“You’re bad,” he repeated, not needing any more strength in his voice than the quiet assurance he delivered. “You killed Martin. He was nice to me.”
He did what? Martin was dead? Lee glanced at Jacob, who gave him a single nod. Ah, Jesus.
Wait. How did Kyle know that? He’d been trapped in a warehouse and tied to a chair just like Lee. If Lee hadn’t known, how’d Kyle know?
“Oh get over it.” Sergio hopped to his feet and held up the switch.
Kyle lifted the gun.<
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“Kyle!” Walsh scolded. “You will not shoot him again.”
“I can end this.”
“Not like this.”
He ignored Walsh.
“Kyle,” Jacob growled. Walsh’s voice was soft, kind, cautious. Jacob’s was the exact opposite. “Kyle!”
The teen glanced at him. “I can end this.”
“So can I.” He motioned for Kyle to join him. When the kid didn’t move, Jacob approached him, not slowing even though the lethal stare from someone half his age had to be unnerving. “You have clean hands. Warmth in your heart. I used to be you and haven’t seen that kid in a very long time. Believe me, runt. I look for him every day.”
Kyle blinked at him. “Every day?”
“Every day. If you shoot this man, he won’t be the only one impacted. If you kill him, a part of you dies, too.”
“He hurt my family.”
“He did. And for that, he’ll pay. But not like this. Please, Kyle. Not like this.”
Kyle lowered the weapons and gave Jacob a single nod.
When Sergio laughed and pulled a gun from behind him, Kyle didn’t even glance his way as he lifted his and fired, shooting the gun from Sergio’s hand. Holy shit. How’d he do that? And without looking?
“Jesus Christ! You little monster! They should have known better than to think an abomination like you would ever grow into a real person. Someone should have warned them. Someone should have told them to terminate the experiment.”
“What did you just say?” Jacob took a step toward him.
“That…that thing standing next to you. You have no idea what he really is, what he was designed to be. I’ve done my research. I know what he is. Hatched from a petri dish. Raised in a lab. Experimented on. Trained to be deadlier than all of us combined. That thing you’re protecting isn’t human at all. He was manufactured. He was created to be the deadliest weapon known to man.”
“I was?” Kyle’s eyes widened as he looked to Jacob.
“Don’t listen to him.” Jacob took another step toward Sergio.
“I-I’m not real?”
“Kyle.”
“I’m not real!” He dropped the guns and ran, disappearing into the shadows.
“Kyle!”
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