Jade chuckled at the men’s banter.
Liam leaned over her, humor lacing his eyes. “See what you started?”
“Me?”
“Yes. You had to ask about my head.” The man winked at her, then sat back down.
She shrugged. “Guilty. But not sorry.”
The guys busted up laughing.
Once the room quieted, Rafe moved to the other side of her bed. “Do you feel up to answering a few questions?”
Did she? No. Would she? To end all this…yes. “Only if you answer a few of mine.”
“Deal.” Rafe grabbed a chair, flipped it around, and straddled it. “We figured out the who, especially Breana, when you clocked her. Nice right hook by the way.”
“Yeah, Liam, don’t make her mad.” “I’m staying on her good side.” “That’s our Raven.” The team pitched in their comments.
Jade glanced down at her swollen knuckles. She’d forgotten that part. And maybe it was wrong, but time hadn’t been on her side. Trying to explain would have given Breana an opening.
Liam’s thumb brushed over the bruises. “We had no idea she was involved. Granted, we questioned it for a moment in the beginning, but we never focused on her. A mistake that left you vulnerable. That’s on us.”
“She was my therapist. I trusted her.Ihad no clue.” That part hurt. Jade had trusted Breana with her deepest secrets and fears. “There’s no one to blame but Breana.”
“Can you give us a rundown of what they said and did?” The worry behind Liam’s eyes broke her heart.
Jade explained waking up in the concrete room and the role Evan played. “They wanted me to create an autonomous cyber-weapon system that can infiltrate military networks. It would monitor comms system and rewrite commands in real time without detection. Scary stuff. The timeline wasn’t doable. I tried to tell them that, but they wouldn’t listen.”
“Raven.”
Her gaze moved to Xander. “Could you have done it?”
She dropped her chin. Sometimes she hated her brain. “Maybe. I can see the program in my head.” Her answer came out in a whisper.
“Whoa.” Dax’s breathy response said it all.
“Does our government realize what you can do?” Rafe asked.
Jade’s heart pounded. “No. And I don’t plan on ever telling them. You know what would happen.”
“They’d label you a National Asset, and your life would no longer be yours,” Liam stated the facts.
“Exactly. I’ll work for our nation and put my best efforts into my job. And you know I’ll protect our soldiers with everything in me. But please don’t tell anyone what I can do.” Jade wantedto beg and plead, but if they chose to inform Director Walsh or anyone else, her freedom, as she knew it, would be over.
“We will not be the ones outing you. Ever.” Liam’s firm tone was met with four heads nodding up and down in agreement.
“What about Breana and Evan?” Dax asked.
“I suspect they won’t say anything. Even if they did, there’s no proof. I hadn’t gotten very far in the coding. And with Breana’s plan, I highly doubt she put something like that in her notes.” At least Jade hoped not. Life was hard enough without full-time protection and the government breathing down her neck.
“Back to what happened.” Rafe steered the conversation away from one of her biggest fears. Not like she didn’t have her hands full without the title National Asset hovering over her.
Over the next few minutes, Jade continued to fill in the blanks. “I decided to embed a self-destruct sequence, so to speak. Then the next thing I know, you all show up, and here we are.”
The men stood or sat in silence. No doubt processing what she’d told them.
“And what about Echo team? Was their capture part of this?” Boone asked.
