Double Bind by Kathryn Michaela

She wouldn’t let them see her grovel or whine.   She was Sarah Gaul, and she would give them every ounce of Spitfire in her.
                She turned to face Jared and the older man standing next to him.   All of the usual melancholy was gone from Jared, and he looked at her with an unfamiliar sardonic expression.   Sarah could barely believe that this was the same man that she had been dealing with for years.   She suddenly thought back on all the pranks that she and Valerie had played on him and she blushed.   Who knew that there was this collected calm man behind all his simpering.
                “Well, this is an unexpected, and very unfortunately surprise,” Jared said, his mouth shifting disgustedly.   “I had hoped that imprisoning your brother would keep you from your incessant sniffing about.”
                Sarah glared at him.   “So you’re the reason that the police wouldn’t let David go!”
                He shrugged.   “Not technically.   Clive here just removed some of the security features that were concealing his very illegal work from the police.”
                Sarah turned to scowl at the older man who was grinning from ear to ear.   “It is a rare opportunity when I get to take a hacker like TwinkleBro on.   It was delicious.”   He flicked a bit of dirt off one of his fingers.   “Next time I’d like him to be there when I do it.   I’d love to see the expression on his face.”
                That was when Sarah saw the insignia on his shirt.   He was with the police.   He was working with the police, and he was working with Valerie and the others.   She could not believe that things were going so poorly.   No wonder the police kept missing the bad guys, here they had a professional hacker keeping them away.
                “Look,” Sarah said, her voice angry.   “I don’t know what attack you are planning next, but you won’t get away with it.   The police are right on your tail, and when they catch you, it’s you who’s going to be stuck in jail forever.”
                Valerie and the businessman beside her both laughed.   Sarah turned to look at them, trying to mask her confusion.   Valerie stepped forward grinning.   “Oh hon ,” she said, running her hand over Sarah’s face.   “You think so small.”
                “What do you mean?” Sarah asked, afraid of what they were going to tell her.
                “We don’t want to attack anyone,” Valerie said.   “We just needed to get you out of the way.”   She waved at the big duffel bag and Jared leaned in to unzip it.   Inside was an insulated box that probably contained chemicals, but also a huge sheaf of papers and folders wedged in beside it.
                Jared picked up a few of the papers, riffling them with his other hand.   “Do you know what these are?”
                Sarah didn’t actually have to guess.   She recognized them easily enough.   After all, she’d been working on them long enough.   “They are our formulas.”
                “That’s right.” Valerie said, leaning in to sneer at her.   “When I transferred over for a little corporate espionage I thought it was going to be easy.   It usually is.”   Her expression shifted to a glare.   “Until I met you.   I’ve never met anyone so controlling in my life.   No matter how close I got to you, I could never get access to the completed formulas.”   She gritted her teeth, leaning in menacingly.   “I worked for ages trying to just get a glimpse at one single product.”   She straightened.   “Well, now with you out of the way, it will be easy.”   She waved at the duffel bag.   “This is just the start.   We are going to steal every ounce of progress BioGen has ever made.”   She grinned at Sarah.   “It’s so nice of you to take the