Ruthless Temptation by Ravenna Tate

forced to entrust her with secrets
that only a handful of people knew. He sure as hell hoped his instincts about
her were right, because once this cat was out of the bag, there was no putting
it back inside. If she betrayed them, he’d never live it down.
    Not
only that, it would jeopardize everything they’d worked for to this point. One
of the hackers was already in the wind. They hadn’t heard anything from Sam
Preston after he’d quit Fairchild BioSystems unexpectedly. They’d been lucky to
round up the other four. Associates of his and Blaine’s were still rounding up
the other thirteen people who had been on the satellite call that Barclay had
intercepted.
    The
plan was that once they were all in the warehouse, each of the Weathermen would
travel to Central and do what they could to convince them to help stop this
program. They would show them Oliver’s numbers so they knew it wasn’t a joke
that they all had less than three years to survive underground, and then hope
like hell that was enough to sway one of them. If they got one on their side,
they felt confident they’d get the rest.
    But
knowing this about Dave put a whole new chink in the armor. Dave wouldn’t let
himself get caught like a common criminal by Viggo’s or Blaine’s associates. If
there was code in there preventing them from hacking back in, Dave had been the
one to put it there, and he was the only person who could show it to them.
    And
if Dave was involved in this, and there was a way back in, why hadn’t he done
that already? Why had he let this go on for eight years? Had he been afraid
he’d be caught? That seemed like a flimsy reason to allow the surface to fall
into ruin.
    On
top of all that, Bonnie was loose on the world. That was a hot mess waiting to
explode in their faces. They really should pick her up, too. He’d ask the
others what they thought once everyone had a chance to listen to the recording.
    Madison
was in his office, clicking away on her laptop. He sat down next to her,
frowning when he realized what she’d been searching.
    “ What do you hope to find that I can’t tell you?”
    “ The truth.”
    He
placed a finger under her chin and turned her face toward him. “I’ll tell you
the truth.”
    “ All of it?”
    Her
voice shook, and Viggo saw the fear in her eyes. He couldn’t blame her. They’d
been dealing with this shit for eight years, but the public didn’t know the
half of it. “Close the browser. There’s nothing about The Madeline Project
online that even comes close to the truth.”
    She
did as he asked, then looked at him warily. It tugged at Viggo’s heart to see
that uncertainty in her eyes. These past few days had been the most exciting of
his life. Madison was a breath of fresh air, wrapped up in a sexy body. He
enjoyed her company, and that was unusual for him.
    He’d
never minded the physical part of any relationship that had lasted longer than
one date, but he’d often quickly grown bored talking to the women he dated. Not
Madison. She fascinated him, and he had already grown used to her presence here
in the apartment.
    “ Okay,” he said, focusing on the issue at hand. “Where
should I start?”
    “ At the beginning.”
    That
made sense, and if he was going to tell her about the program, he might as well
tell her everything. He started with their early efforts to break into the
program, then told her about the breakthrough they finally had when Rob Marin
tipped his hand.
    “ If he was so involved in this, why was he working for
Ace to begin with?”
    “ Three of the five hackers worked for one of us.”
    “ What ?”
    It
gave him a small measure of satisfaction to realize the public still didn’t
know this. He had no clue how they’d kept it so secret, but was grateful they
had.
    “ Sam Preston left Fairchild BioSystems before we
secured the warehouse in Central, and we can’t find him. Dante Herrera worked
for Jensen Software and Web Development, and Mindy Tesserone worked