Submission Impossible (Masters & Mercenaries Reloaded 1)

“What woman?” Was there something more here? It wouldn’t change the fact that he’d lied to her and taken away her options, but she wanted to know what was happening.

“I didn’t see a woman,” Kyle admitted. “I only saw Hutch slinking out of the server room when he told me he was going to the bathroom.”

“And from what I understand, you snuck through his security system last night when you were supposed to be on duty.” Big Tag sent Kyle a glare that could have frozen fire. “I am going to assume you have an explanation and that you want me to believe you.”

Kyle’s jaw tightened, but he sat back as though letting the matter rest for now.

Why would Kyle have slipped out of the house?

Hutch took a deep breath and sank down into his chair. “Noelle, I was arrested this morning, and in this case it was Cara and Chris.”

“We thought it was odd that a McKay-Taggart employee moved in with a person of interest,” Cara explained. “But he’s cybersecurity, so we both bet that he was hired to figure out who had accessed your computer. That was me, of course. I did that. When Hutch showed up at your apartment, I made the decision at the time to not approach. Your father has ties to McKay-Taggart. I assumed they were with you out of an abundance of caution because of the break-in on the floor below you.”

“We realized you were going to fuck up everything when you caught us together the night before and then took off. You were careful about not saying anything that would give away what you were truly doing. We couldn’t risk you actually taking Noelle out of the city,” Chris admitted. “We needed Noelle in the Genedyne building.”

“Because they were going to ask you to do what I did this evening,” Hutch pointed out. “They were going to offer you a deal. Your cooperation in exchange for a promise of no prosecution.”

“What would I have been prosecuted for? What is Jessica doing? And was the break-in below about me?” She had a million questions, and she wanted the answers to all of them. Because she worried if she didn’t have them, she might allow herself to believe anything Hutch told her. He was close, and she wanted the comfort of his hand in hers, but she couldn’t be that woman. He’d ruined her life and hadn’t even brought her into the discussion of it. He was supposed to protect her, not make decisions for her.

“I’ll take the easy one,” Chris offered. “I don’t make decisions on who to prosecute or not. I was the one who broke in the floor below. I did it because it was the only way to access your apartment’s hub without anyone knowing.”

“You hacked her smart system from the direct line,” Hutch explained. “It’s why it didn’t show up in the logs. Did the resident come home while you were doing it?”

Chris nodded. “Yeah, this has been a clusterfuck of an assignment the whole time. The resident brought a date home, and I had to make it look good. I quickly hid her laptop and trashed the place a little and told her I’d gotten a call that someone had entered the apartment. She bought it.”

“So you were watching me through my smart system?” The idea that people had been watching her made her sick. How could she ever not feel eyes on her again?

“Yes,” Cara replied bluntly. “But only the last few weeks, and only to ensure you weren’t actively working with Layne.”

There was so much she didn’t understand. “Why me? I’m not close to Layne.”

“Because my person on the inside might have said that if anyone was working with her, it was you. Look, I didn’t realize how angry she was at first. I had to check out her claims. She was honest about a lot of things, just not you,” Cara said.

“Are you talking about Madison?” It was the only thing that made sense.

Cara put a hand on the folder she’d brought in. “Yes. Madison contacted the FBI when she started to suspect what was going on at Genedyne. It was six months ago. We spent a long time with Madison trying to get us the information we needed to prove what’s happening at Genedyne. Madison inferred that you might be in on it in the beginning. I came to realize she said that because she was angry with you for stealing one of her techs.”

Noelle took a deep breath because this was a lot to process. “Was she talking about Pete?”

“Yes,” Cara replied. “She admitted it later on. She was jealous of you because everyone wanted to work for you. She knew what the rumors about her were. But the reason I’ve stuck close to you is that before Madison died, she sent out a single text, and it was your name. I think that was all she was able to do. Her phone was destroyed in the fire, so if she put any information in but wasn’t able to send it out, we’ll never know.”