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I shook my head. “Even if I order you not to?”
“My job always has been to keep you safe. I’m following those instructions.”
I huffed. He was stubborn. He had a single focus. I paid for the focus to be keeping me alive.
“I don’t want to know.” He wouldn’t put a dent in my trust of Knight.
“You say that now, but you don’t know what I’m going to find. You’ll change your mind.”
I cut a stare at him meant to injure. “I know I can’t stop you from digging into his past, but I don’t want to see the file. I need you to know that. Leave me out of it.” I peered at him. “Tell me something. Why now? What are you trying to do?”
“Are you asking for my opinion about bringing him back into your life?” I didn’t like his tone. The constant insinuation that where Knight was concerned, I couldn’t make a good decision.
“No. I’m not.”
He nodded, but I had left enough room for him to start sifting through Knight’s life in France. It was a sliver that he would use to create an entire canyon of distrust.
I felt the anger bubbling. This was a horrible time, but I still needed to talk to him about the tracker. I took a deep breath.
“I do need you to do something for me.”
“Anything,” he answered.
“I don’t want the tracking implant any longer.” I pushed my hair out of the way. “I want you to take it out.”
“It’s vital to my security plan. It’s how I keep track of where you are at all times.” He withdrew a small screen from his jacket that could have easily been mistaken for a phone. He turned it around to demonstrate. “See?”
The light blinked green on a grid of the city. I quickly realized the blinking light was me. My stomach turned. Until last night, it had made me feel safe, but the more I thought about how my father had used it all those years made me disgusted. I wanted it out.
“You’re going to need a new security plan.” I looked at Kimble. “I have first-hand accounts that the companies that produce the software for this device have been hacked. They aren’t fail-safe. I’m not willing to put my trust in something like that. I think it served its purpose, don’t you?”
“It’s because of Knight Corban.”
I shook my head. “No, it’s because my father came up with archaic ways to control me. I don’t want this.”
“Your father only wanted to keep you safe.”
My eyes blazed. “He’s been dead four years. I want the thing cut out. Now.”
Kimble reached in his pocket. I gasped when he flicked his wrist and a blade appeared. He stepped toward me. It wasn’t the time to show fear or to consider letting it take up residence. I wanted this. Demanded it. I trusted Knight when he said the device was dangerous and had been compromised. I inhaled, tilting my head back and to the side.
Kimble pressed the tip of the blade against my skin. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” I gritted my teeth together.
He jabbed the end of the knife just under my skin and jutted it upward quickly. I grimaced when I felt the blood trickle against my collarbone.
“It’s out,” he reported.
I carefully sat in my chair, feeling dizzy from the abruptness of having the chip removed. Kimble stood in front of me. He handed me a handkerchief from his pocket. I pressed it against my neck to stop the bleeding. He placed the bloody chip on the corner of my desk. It was small. Smaller and more square than my pinky nail.
“I need to go to France.”
I looked up at him. “Fine.” I didn’t feel like arguing.
“I don’t like this. I’d feel better if I was leaving knowing you weren’t going to see him.”
I pulled the handkerchief from my neck. It was sopped with blood, but it seemed as if it had finally stopped. I searched in my desk drawer for a band-aid. I usually kept one or two in case of a high heel blister emergency.
