Page 50 of Oath

And anger.

Someone was jealous.

Too. Fucking. Bad.

I tucked Grace closer to me, and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

“You have five minutes left with Grace,” I said, making a tactical decision. “Answer the questions, be fucking helpful, and we’ll have room to discuss your survival. Don’t answer, keep making deals, and you can be buried down here. It won’t even take that long.”

Chapter

Fourteen

GRACE

O’Rourke glared at AB like he’d kicked him in the nuts. Oh, there was an idea. Maybe I should kick him in the nuts. Then the man transferred that gaze to me. Gone was the smug, entitled jackass who’d played games during the ball. It wasn’t the bruises on his face, the blood marring his mouth, or even the way he sat, almost defiant in his restraints.

It was his eyes.

A chestnut color, he seemed almost—lost. No, that wasn’t the right word for it. But he wasn’t as in control or as arrogant as he was playing it. I leaned into AB, my lips still tingling from the kiss. As performative as that caress had been, he’d also meant it and I’d damn well enjoyed it.

“Human trafficking and corporate scum,” O’Rourke said finally, his voice flat and his expression going flatter.

The air seemed thinner abruptly and I blinked. “What?”

“Human trafficking and corporate scum. The ties between the two are inextricably linked. They have been for as long as there has been an elite class.”

Images of Maurizio Gallo’s grabby hands and laughing demands. The aristocrats at the party in France. More at a partyin New York. Yachting invites. Corporate introductions and offers…

“Vega was a cover, a story to get it past the pencil pushers and budget appropriation committees at least here.” He rolled his head from side to side, the faint cracking of his bones seeming to echo inside of me.

I fisted the back of AB’s shirt as I kept my gaze fixed on O’Rourke. “Are you saying this is all related to me?”

“In a manner of speaking—yes.” It was a straightforward and as direct an answer as he’d ever given. “A few years ago, these guys took a job to shut down Odessa. It was where Vega was stored.”

He spared a glance at Voodoo and I followed his gaze. Voodoo’s expression remained neutral, but he neither confirmed nor denied anything.

“In Ukraine?” I asked finally. Odessa was in Ukraine.

“Odessa was the name of the program that housed the tracking units for the mobile station,” Voodoo said. “Not the city.”

Oh.

“Operation Vega staged out of Odessa. On the move, never spending time in the same port.”

“It was on a ship,” I said abruptly.

O’Rourke flashed a smile at me. A small one before his expression turned to a grimace. “Yes.”

Tension threaded through AB’s arm where he held me. I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination or not, but all three of them were buzzed with everything they weren’t saying. Anger licked the air between pulses. As confident as O’Rourke sounded, he avoided any egotistical displays.

“They raided Odessa, took the drives, and fucked off to who knows where. The last person we know for certain who had the information was Voodoo.”

“We’ll come back to that in a minute,” I said, shifting forward to stop leaning on AB.

When I would have moved away, he flexed that arm and I found myself being tugged to stand with my back against his chest and his arms—both of them—loosely around me.

Rather than argue, I just went with it. “Who iswe?”