Page 47 of Oath

“Intent means nothing.” His eyes sharpened. “Desire, design—it responds to one thing.”

“Money.” Because money talked and bullshit walked.

“Exactly. In the past five years, the people in charge of Vega changed—a lot.”

I frowned. “They shit-canned it.” Or they were supposed to after we moth-balled it. The job had been pretty straightforward, get the hard drives, shut the whole thing down and blow it up. We’d done that.

“Alphabet, you aren’t stupid or that idealistic.” O’Rourke actually sounded beyond tired. “You really aren’t. It was a gambit, a political play made possible by corporate synergy.”He coughed, the roughened and hoarse nature of his voice reminding me we hadn’t been hydrating him.

Arms folded, I studied him for a long moment. “Educate me.”

“Why?” O’Rourke just stared at me. “Information is capital. I have it. You want it. What do I get for it?”

“How about a bullet in the head if you keep wasting our fucking time?” Lunchbox prowled down the stairs to join us. His presence added weight to the moment. The normally cool, level-head he boasted in most combat situations seemed completely absent.

O’Rourke sighed. “Can I trade an answer for some water?”

“Depends,” Voodoo said from above, his voice hovered around us. Didn’t surprise me that they’d noticed me coming down here.

When Voodoo didn’t elaborate, it forced O’Rourke to define the condition. “On?”

“On whether the answer is going to be worth the time. So far, all you’ve done is set me up to walk into a trap.”

Despite his hands being bound behind his back—and the small matter of his survival hinging entirely on our goodwill—O’Rourke laughed.

It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t even particularly amused. It was the kind of laugh that echoed more of defiance than humor.

“You’re the one who walked into it,” he said, eyes glinting. “Could’ve stayed in the wind.”

“Ah, so it’s our fault?” I asked, more curious than angry. A flicker of amusement crept in despite myself. There was a reason we’d liked O’Rourke, once.

He stopped laughing. Just—stopped. The smile slid off his face like a mask dropped on the floor. A switch flipped.

“You made the choice to come,” he said, voice flat. “You knew the odds it was a trap. You walked in anyway. So yeah, it’s at least fifty percent your fault.”

A soft sound drifted down the stairwell.

A snort.

Feminine.

And, I got the feeling, amused.

Explained why Voodoo hadn’t descended. He stayed up there to keep Grace up there. She was right, we were never going to be okay with just walking her into some of this no matter how tough she tried to be or how fierce her determination.

“Fine,” I said, unwilling to argue this point. “It’s fifty percent our fault, but that makes the other fifty yours. So, time to pay up.”

O’Rourke just stared at me. “Doesn’t sound like much of an incentive.” He tilted his head from left to right and then back again. “Have Grace ask me.”

Have. Grace. Ask. Me.

Those four words echoed against a cool darkness inside of me.

“This isn’t a game,” I reminded him. “Even if it was, she’s a civilian. A noncombatant. Don’t talk about her.”

The skeptical look he wore just shouted bullshit. “She is in this. She’s hardly a civilian. You want answers. I want to see her. Quid. Pro. Quo.”

Lunchbox answered him with a hard left across O’Rourke’s face. Honestly, I hadn’t even seen him move. One minute Lunchbox prowled the room, the next he was punching the asshole in the mouth.