Brain(23)

Duke paused and looked at me, his eyes boring into me as he asked, “You ever killed anyone?”





Chapter Twelve




Brain





I’d been out of the shower long enough to hear a good part of the conversation, but at this question, I finally stepped into the room.

“Yeah,” Grace said, her voice so low I might not have heard it without my werewolf hearing. I could smell the fury emanating from every pore of her body. She’d been pushed to do it, and was still pissed she’d had to, but wasn’t in the least bit sorry about it. Whatever situation he’d been in, she’d kill again if she were back in it and it was the only way out.

“One of the Russians, would be my guess,” I said as I stepped into the room enough to get her attention. “We know you escaped, and the bounty on your head tripled.”

She nodded and said, “He’d been one of the men who’d tortured me, and when I had an opportunity to go, the only way out was through him. I should’ve been happy to kill him, to make him hurt, but…” she shook her head and put her forehead back on her knees. “His death wasn’t satisfying. It didn’t take away any of my pain. It kept any more from happening, but if there’d been a way for me to get away without killing them, I would’ve.”

Them. She’d killed more than one person to escape.

“Why did you keep the Ice persona?” I asked. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to create a new hacker identity, so you wouldn’t have to be constantly looking over your shoulder for them?”

“Ice could charge ten times more than a new identity. Everyone but the Russians thought I was a man, and for some reason they never put the truth out, so there wasn’t too much danger except when I was actually online, or when I needed to surface long enough to be paid.” She shrugged. “I knew how to hide online, and I was careful about how I was paid. No one found me until you.”

I smelled the lie, and figured it was time I let her know exactly how much I knew about her. I stayed on the other side of the sofa and kept my voice soft. “Because Putin is in bed with the Russian Mafia, he told our government some stuff about you, to put them on your trail. You haven’t just been running from the Russians, but from the NSA and Homeland Security.”

Her head snapped to me in surprise — I’d found out way more about her than she’d expected. I gave a tight smile as I told her, “I know what we’re getting into by helping you.” I looked at Duke. “She was right. I told her I didn’t want her laying a single finger on any electronics until I gave the okay. She seems to be trying to earn some trust with us.”

“Did you know she’s read through the Atlanta gang force’s notes on us?”

I shook my head. “No, seems you still get the award for knowing which questions to ask.”

“I told her she has three days to give us everything she knows or has deduced about the Disciples. If she wants insurance, she’ll need to come up with something else.”

I looked at Ice in question, and she shrugged. “Haven’t had time to consider it, yet.”

“You told me she’s smart,” said Duke. “I assume she’ll come to the right conclusion.” Duke looked back to Ice. “Okay, chicklet, something you aren’t telling me about what you found in our file in Atlanta. Spit it out.”



* * * *



Ice



I shook my head, rolled my eyes, and said, “They keep track of the MC during the full moon… well, the nights around it, too, so three nights in all. I don’t think they really believe they’re werewolves, but it seems to be the running joke, and they try to set up surveillance, and even follow them outside of the city and county. It’s kind of crazy.” The two of them exchanged a look I couldn’t decipher, and I added, “I don’t want to know where they go. None of my business. I’m not asking, just telling you what I saw in their notes.”

Brain chuckled. “You know how misdirection works. Looks like we’ve successfully sent them on a wild-goose chase… or in this case, a werewolf chase. Why were you hesitant to tell Duke what you found?”

“Come on! It just sounds crazy!”

“Yep, that’s the idea,” Duke said. “Okay, anything else?”

I looked at Brain. “You have at least two hacker identities online. I doubt anyone else saw the similarities between the way Wulff and Cyclops build code, but I had a reason to look, and I saw it.”

He nodded. “Which means we’ve worked together, long ago, before your problems with the Russian Mafia.”