Dare Me (Take Me 2)

“What the hell just happened, Nikki,” he told her in a tight voice, “is that this device is valid, but the launcher has been compromised.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, I was tracking it when it was in your computer. Now

that I’ve activated the device, whomever inserted it into the port…is tracking us.”

She glared at him with misty eyes…and Damen truly did feel like an asshole of epic proportions.

“Don’t you dare tell me, Damen Castillo, that you’re going to destroy my laptop.”

His teeth ground.

“Jude McMillan is only one of my legion of lawyers,” she forcefully said, with absolute loathing in her tone. “I will fight this so fucking hard that your ass will hurt when we’re done. And you won’t have a job. You will not have a fucking job.”

He closed the lid of the computer. But he didn’t hand it over.

While she seethed, he told her, “I can keep it in my possession, Nikki. This is my case. I don’t have to hand it off to anyone else.”

“Like I trust you any more than I would your QTango Ops people?”

“I’m going to ask you to trust me,” he asserted, his gaze unwavering. “But that comes with concessions.”

“You have my fucking laptop!” she all-but growled. “How many more concessions am I supposed to make, Damen? You just proved I am innocent of any sort of treasonous or terrorist act. I have rights. And Jude and my team will ensure—”

“I can keep your laptop in my possession,” he repeated, calmly. Though on the inside, his gut coiled. He was walking a very fine line here…and it was about to become even more sliver-thin. “And it will be in your sight the whole time.”

Her gaze narrowed on him. “How is that possible? I’m supposed to be on my way to Switzerland. I have people to help there, Damen, while you return to Spy Headquarters—wherever the hell that is.”

“I can work on deciphering this intel tonight. In New York.” He stared more pointedly at her. “While in your presence.”

“While in my—” Her long, sooty lashes fluttered and her lips twisted. She had words to say…they just didn’t come out.

“In a hotel suite I’ll secure for us.”

“Oh, my God,” she said on a harsh exhale. “Do you honestly think…after all of this…that I’d want to be in the same city with you, let alone the same hotel room?”

“Consider this,” he said. “Wherever I am, your computer will be with me. Safe. So will you, if you want to keep it in your sight… I can protect you and your precious photos.”

“What on earth makes you think I’d agree to this?”

“Because, Nikki, don’t forget…” He pinned her with a deathly serious look. “Agent Garcia knows exactly whose laptop she inserted this device into. She—and her very dangerous people—will come looking for it… And you.”

6

Damen felt like a huge ass.

This woman’s life had nearly been destroyed when she’d lost her husband. And here he was, taking possession of everything she considered to represent that life.

It gutted him to have her sitting beside him, grinding her teeth, fighting back tears, clearly wanting to rail at him some more…but not being able to do so, given they were on an airplane. Her hands were as tied as his were.

She couldn’t demand he return her laptop, because he could officially force the issue. She couldn’t physically try to reclaim it from him, obviously.

And what was worse than all of that, was that Damen suspected Nikki Kane would never, under normal circumstances, hinder or disrupt an investigation of this magnitude.

Well, even though these weren’t normal circumstances, she might actually—in the back of her brain—realize that she absolutely could not withhold information in this instance because she knew how severe, how grave, all of these evil machinations were. She’d been involved in the bombings, after all. She’d been a victim—had suffered a minor injury and, very likely, she’d had the hell scared out of her when she’d had to evacuate her hotel during the melee and violent rumblings from the eruptions.

In addition, she’d treated survivors and their families. Their children. Her friend and colleague, Dr. Kate McMillan, was even in the process of adopting one of those orphaned survivors, and Nikki had looked after that child for Kate when she and her then-fiancé, now husband Jude McMillan had gone to New York for a quick trip.