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Page 21 of Midnight’s Captive (Stroke of Midnight #2)

Ash followed Taryn out of her office. She locked the door then led him deeper into the building. They turned down another hall lined with closed doors. Some were numbered, while others had little brass plaques that they passed too quickly for him to read.

“Where are we going?”

“To solve your problem,” she said.

Sure, that wasn’t mysterious at all.

Finally, Taryn stopped in front of a steel door. He nearly ran into her because he was too busy studying his surroundings.

His explorations of Tremaine headquarters had proven that interesting secrets hid behind mysterious closed doors. “What is this place?”

Taryn didn’t answer right away. She looked past him, checking for a tail.

“Part of the old Jack’s business.” With that cryptic statement, she pressed her hand to a panel next to the door.

The door opened with a creak. She glanced around again and ushered him into the dark doorway. “Quick!”

The door closed behind them with an ominous slam. Darkness surrounded them along with a slightly musty smell.

“Um, should I be concerned?” The Jack had a reputation for dirty dealings, but Ash had begun to believe that this Jack—that Taryn—was different. Had he read her wrong?

“All will be revealed,” she intoned. Her laugh echoed in the darkness.

He sucked in a breath. That simple sound sparked a flood of complex emotions. Joy, hope, curiosity.

Her footsteps moved away from him. Then, suddenly, the room flooded with light.

He blinked rapidly, letting his eyes adjust. He was standing in a small hallway.

Taryn stood in another doorway, her hand on what he assumed was a control box. “C’mon.” She waved him closer, then stepped aside.

“Holy shit.” His mouth dropped open when he got his first glimpse of the room and its contents.

A chair sat in the center of the room, surrounded by walls lined with monitors. It looked like a combination of the setup at his warehouse and the cybersecurity battle room.

“Is this...” His words trailed off. He couldn’t believe his eyes.

“A hacking setup? Yeah. It belonged to the Jack before the last Jack. I think the one before me tinkered a bit. Or made a few updates, at least, but I wasn’t allowed down here often.” She shuddered.

Ash looked away from the chair and studied her profile. “He was a bastard, wasn’t he?”

“You have no idea,” she said quietly after a long pause.

The words hung between them, hinting at secrets that Ash longed to explore. Instead, he asked, “Is it active?”

Taryn shrugged. “It’s got power.” She gestured to a panel of switches on the wall. “I’ve never used it, so I don’t know how well it works.”

“Is it registered?”

Her laugh filled the room, chasing away the hint of melancholy. “You think the Jack has a registered system?”

Yeah, that was a stupid question. The Jack had always skated the edge of legality. “True. Wired in?”

She shrugged again. “I don’t think the signal can be traced, but that’s not my area of expertise. Will it work to fulfill my request?”

“You want me to use this?” Ash blurted. The words sounded harsh and ungrateful, but from the moment they’d left her office, he’d never expected Taryn to help him help her.

“Is that a problem?” Her voice was hard, flat and he knew he’d offended her.

He hurried to reassure her. “No, not at all. I was just surprised. Can I check it out?”

She nodded and he stepped past her and fully entered the room. He approached the chair, his head already spinning with possibilities.

He stopped by the chair, which barely looked used. He’d recognized its silhouette from a distance: a Johnson super chair, specifically designed for amazing ergonomics for hackers. Well, the marketing materials said they were for cybersecurity specialists, but everyone knew what they really meant.

If the Jack had been willing to shell out that much for a chair, maybe the rest of the equipment was as high quality.

Circling the room, he studied the rest of the equipment, whistling in appreciation. Despite the layers of dust, it all looked to be in good shape. Except... something was missing. “No keyboard?”

Taryn looked surprised. “Do you need one?”

“I... I don’t know.” Ash rubbed the back of his neck, lingering over the scar tissue. If he didn’t have a port and there wasn’t a keyboard...

He dropped his hands in defeat. “I appreciate you showing me this, but I don’t think I can use it.” His stomach sank. He’d been one of the best. Before his capture, he could’ve made this equipment sing. Now he couldn’t even use the best setup he’d seen in years.

Taryn’s voice was gentle. “You don’t need a keyboard. It runs off a port.”

How could he explain how impossible that was? “I know,” he said. “But I don’t have one.”

“You did.” She reached up to tap the spot on his neck.

Her touch was gentle but it still burned. He hated the reminder that he wasn’t the man he used to be. “Not anymore,” he growled.

If he’d expected to scare her off... He’d forgotten who he was dealing with.

Instead of backing off, she pressed harder. “It’s still in there, right?”

He jerked his head away and stepped away from her, already missing the warmth of her touch. “Yes.” What was she up to?

“If you trust me, I can help.”

Help? “How?”

“I can open the port.”

He gaped at her. She made it sound so simple.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t thought about it. When he’d first been captured, every minute of every day, Ash had planned and plotted how to access his port. His fingers had scraped over the scab and picked at the edges. The only thing that had stopped him was knowing Hope would be the one to pay if Tremaine Security discovered he’d opened it. And that was still true today.

Still... it wouldn’t hurt to know what she was thinking. “How?”

She rolled her eyes. “With a scalpel.”

He might have blanched. Or made a sound. “What?”

“I have significant experience...” He had the sense she was censoring her words. “Cutting open wounds.”

If she was trying to reassure him, it wasn’t working. “Do you have official training?”

She laughed. “If I had training, do you think I’d be tending bar instead of working in a clinic somewhere?”

“You couldn’t pay me to work in a clinic,” he muttered. Bodies and blood. Ugh. He shuddered.

“Oh my god. Stop being a baby. Do you want my help, yes or no?” Hands on her hips, she stared at him.

In five years, she was the only person who’d ever offered to help him access his port.

God, what would he have done if someone had made the offer back then? He couldn’t have had both his sister and the port.

But damn, in those first years, he’d missed surfing the networks like a lost limb. Even knowing the corporation would have punished her if he’d dropped offline, Ash wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have sacrificed Hope for access if he’d had the opportunity.

“No.” His whisper sounded loud in the quiet between them.

When Taryn stepped back, her expression closing down, he reached for her, then dropped his hand, knowing her boundaries on unwanted touching. Instead, he stepped in front of her, willing her to look at him.

“I can’t,” he said, when she finally met his gaze. “I want to, but I can’t. There’s no way to hide even the smallest incision from Tremaine. They’ve reminded me over and over again that Hope will be the one to pay for any mistakes on my part. I can’t risk it. I can’t risk her.”

Wrung out emotionally, he dropped his head. He jerked it back up when Taryn placed her hand on his arm. “It’s okay. I understand.”

He blinked at her through eyes blurry with unshed tears. Fuck, he wanted this over and Hope safe.

“What else do you need besides a keyboard?” she asked softly.

“That’s a start,” Ash said gruffly. “Can I turn on the equipment and test it out?”

She nodded. “Yes, that’s fine.”

Before she could remove her hand, Ash took a risk and placed his over hers. “Thank you,” he said, and squeezed it before letting go.

Brushing away the moisture in his eyes, he dropped his hand and got to work.