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Vincent looked smugly pleased with himself. “Yes, his device was similar. I have a whole line of different collars, actually. I’m a bit of an engineer myself.”
I had the sense he was waiting for polite acknowledgement of his ingenuity, but I was too busy keeping the pressure of that lethal wire from severing my carotid artery. After a while, he huffed, petulantly, and pushed the button, reeling me down. I landed hard, and felt the rush of hot blood down my throat as the wire sliced deeper.
“Vincent gets off on making implements of torture,” Nicole remarked. “I’m more practical about that, myself. I always felt like anything can be an implement of torture, with a little creativity. But what do you expect of a guy who pulled worms and bugs apart as a child?”
“I don’t care what he did as a child,” I said. “Where are Holly, Kat, and Shane?”
Vincent’s mouth tightened. He held up the remote and hit the button, and the wire tightened. Fresh blood welled from the cut.
It loosened, and I could breathe again. But the bleeding was constant now.
“Be polite,” Vincent said coldly. “You don’t ask the questions. You don’t make the demands. You do as you’re told. No more, no less. Say you’re sorry.”
I pressed my hand on the bleeding slice. Unable to swallow. “Sorry,” I croaked.
Vincent smiled. “That’s much better. The chain is just long enough to allow you to sit down in that chair.” He pointed to a desk, with a computer on it. “Access SmokeScreen. The real one, not any of that dummy shit like your sister pulled on Nicole the last time. Play any tricks like that, and Holly loses a hand. Are we clear?”
“What do you want me to do with it?” I asked.
“I want you to run a simulation,” Vincent said, with a smile that looked almost lascivious. “Tell me how the market will react if a massive bomb takes out the CEOs and CFOs of these forty companies, all at once.” He handed me a sheet of paper with a printed list of names. CEOs and CFOs of the biggest companies in the world. Corporations worth tens of billions, or hundreds. “Of course, I’ve spent the past several months running my own simulations, and making my own projections. That’s my personal specialty. But I would be extremely interested in seeing how SmokeScreen’s projections match up to them. Nicole’s been talking them up for a long time.”
Holy shit. He was killing all those people at the summit just to make money? I shook my head, stung by the utter pointlessness of it. “Seriously?” I said. “That’s what this fucking psychodrama is all about? A little bit of money?”
Vincent frowned. “Don’t judge,” he said coldly. “It’s a fuckton of money. I am logging every keystroke you make. If you try to pull any dirty tricks, my system will detect it, and Holly will pay. I know how sneaky you Masters can be. Speaking of Holly, Nicole, bring her in. Let her witness these historic events with us.”
“Let her go,” I said. “I’ll do anything you want with SmokeScreen. I can use it to generate trillions of dollars for you. Or to manipulate any situation to your advantage.”
“Of course you’ll do that for us,” Nicola purred. “But letting Holly go? Just give up all our leverage? Ethan. Seriously? That’s an insulting suggestion. Do you think we’re stupid?”
I shook my head diplomatically.
“My favorite idea is to lock Holly up all alone in an empty, windowless room, with a camera watching her at all times,” Nicole said. “Pass food to her through a drawer in the wall. You can watch her fade away like a flower while you work for us.”’
Her words made my stomach drop. Endless, icy depths.
“Sounds boring,” Vincent said. “I would prefer something a little more exciting, dynamic. But there’s no rush. We’ll work out the perfect motivation for you, and keep you eager and obedient for a long, long time. So? Run the scenario. Now.”
The two of them gazed at me, with identical expectant looks on their faces.
What were the odds? Two sadistic psychopaths, same generation, same family? I wondered if they’d been warped into that state on purpose. Chilling thought, but I had no energy to speculate about their family while they were trying to destroy my own.
I put my hands on the keyboard and got to work.
CHAPTER42
Kat
We were rousted out of the wretched little cell after a few hours. The door burst open, and four big, burly, gun-toting dudes rushed in. Two for Holly. Two for me.
Four?Fuck a duck. Did they not remember the elevator episode? My skills rated at least six of these brainless turds, if not more. If it weren’t for Holly being there, held up like a knife to my throat, I could have wiped the floor with these mouth-breathing dipshits with the greatest of ease, and looked around for more.
But that was the whole point, I supposed. Holly was there. Ergo, nothing. All my hard, ceaseless training was totally useless.
Yeah, that was the price of love. Which was to say, ruinously high.
The guys hauled us briskly over to a white van that was parked in a busy loading dock. It was a catering van, I saw, withOrgoglio & Delizia Fine Cateringin fancy lettering on the side. Nicole stood next to the open door with a wide, self-satisfied smile on her face, beckoning us to look into the open door. Inside was a huge metal box, bolted to the bottom of the van. The top of the box was open. I could see the bundles of explosive material beneath the tangle of wires and circuitry on top.
“Isn’t it impressive?” she said brightly. “I built it myself. It’ll take out the entire city block, if all goes well, and probably damage all the surrounding buildings, too. Every window in the neighborhood will be broken for miles around. It’s epic.”
