Move the Sun (Signal Bend #1)(40)

Her expression was flat and stony. This was not the woman squealing over kid cereal fifteen minutes ago. “We’re talking. First thing I’m saying, before I give you anything, is my guy is better than your guy. I know more about you than you know about me. You want to hurt me, I take you and your club down, too.”

His stomach coiled into a knot instantly. Christ. Had he misread her that badly? Had he put his club at risk for a good f*ck? He leaned forward, his forearms on the table, and snarled, “You here to hurt me and mine?”

She shook her head. “No, Isaac. I knew nothing about your club until a couple of days ago. When you threatened me that morning, I got myself some security. That’s all it is. I’m not here for you, and I have no wish to hurt you. I’m protecting myself.”

“But your guy knows what you know.” Fuck. Fuck. He’d misplayed every turn.

“He does. He won’t hurt you, either.”

“So now I’m trusting someone I’ve never even seen?”

“Looks that way.”

Isaac shoved his chair back and stood up, nearly tipping it over. He stalked around the kitchen for a minute and then came back and leaned on the table, facing her. “If my club or my town gets hurt because— because of—this”—he gestured wildly between them—“I will rain unholy fire, I swear to God.”

“It’s called Mutually Assured Destruction. I can’t hurt you because you can hurt me, and vice versa. I’m going to tell you what’s behind the wall that Bart won’t breach—not for weeks, anyway. He’s really good, though, to have found this”—she pushed at the pages in front of her—“I could get him a contract if he wanted it.”

Isaac snorted. “He’s a convicted felon, Sport. Government won’t want him.”

“You’d be surprised who the government wants for certain kinds of jobs. All the hackers I know have records. But that’s beside the point. I know about the meth. I know your contacts. I have interesting details that you think you protected. I don’t care about any of it, unless you’re coming for me. It’s not why I’m here.” She crossed her leg over her knee. “So the question is, are you coming for me?”

She had completely blindsided him. He’d been prepared—or he told himself he was, anyway—for her to be working against the club somehow. He’d hoped—and expected, truthfully—that she had no interest in the club at all. It seemed he’d been right, until he’d made her feel threatened. Fuck. Now, she was primly telling him that she could f*ck him, his club, and his town hard whenever she felt like it. And he had nothing on her but an apparently glorious military record. He slammed his fist into the table. “FUCK!”

Very calmly, she said, “Isaac, sit. I don’t want to hurt you. If we’re being straight, then let’s be straight. I will tell you some things, but it cannot— cannot—leave this house. And there are some things I just can’t tell you. In fact, I can’t tell you a lot that has to do with the reason I’m here under an assumed name.”

He sat. “What the f*ck? That’s what I need to know.”

“I’m not in the Army any longer. Now I do very highly classified contract work. My identity is concealed because there aren’t many who do what I do. It’s also why we don’t work from DC. We’re spread out in out-of-the-way places. I’m out of bounds to tell you that much. I won’t tell you what it is I do.”

“Why is the wall so obvious?”

“So that they know as soon as someone starts looking. Well-concealed security has a blind spot; it takes time to see that anyone’s poking around. A hacker who hits a wall like this, though, is known right away.

Bart is tagged, I’m sure. No matter how good he is, if he probed hard enough to come up with that article, then they know he’s looking. He needs to wipe his slate and start fresh. You should probably use that only-for-emergencies phone and tell him that now, in case he’s putting in some off-the-clock time. The biggest threat I posed to you before I did my own digging was you digging into me.”

Isaac nodded, stood and pulled his burner out. Fuck, f*ck, f*ck. He was so angry his hands were shaking. But who was he angry at? Her? He felt betrayed, but had she betrayed him? How? No—he was angry at himself. He’d been sloppy. And he was in deep with this woman. He’d spent most of the hours after her nightmare watching her sleep, f*cking guarding her, feeling protective and—and—FUCK.

Bart answered, clearly from a deep sleep. Good; he hadn’t been working. “Yeah.”

“Stay off the Lilli thing, Bart. Do NOT f*ck with it again. She says she’s sure you’re tagged. Do you know what that means?” Because Isaac didn’t, not really.

“Fuck. Yeah. I’m on it.” He sounded fully awake now.

Isaac ended the call and came back to the table. “Is this talk gonna have any satisfaction for me, or are you just going to keep ruining my f*cking day?” Jesus, he needed to punch something.

“You know my name is Lilli Accardo. You know I was an officer and a pilot in the Army. I’m not from Texas. I’m from California. The rest of it is just normal stuff that people share in the process of getting to know each other. It’s protected because it’s identifying, nothing more. So if you still want to get to know me, then we should maybe spend the day doing that. Both of us. But I’m still Lilli Carson in this town.