A Father's Sacrifice

Dylan stared at her. “Two years?” He shook his head in disbelief. “That’s impossible!”

She sent him a sharp look.

“Okay. Two years.” His insides twisted in horror. He ran his hand across the back of his neck, massaging the tight muscles there. Two years. Ben!

“What kind of damage has he done?”

“He’s accessed your document files, household calendars and schedules, financial records, buying habits.”

Dylan’s jaw clenched and a cold fear engulfed him. “Buying habits. Household calendars.” He cursed vividly. “Then he knows Ben is alive. What else does he know?”

“Anything that came in or went out via e-mail.”

“Even to or from NSA?”

“That’s right.”

“Damn it!” He whirled and slammed his palm into the door facing.

Natasha jumped.

“Sorry,” he said, glancing at her sheepishly. He rubbed his hand. “So he knows about the interface. Knows how close I am to perfecting it.” Fear and rage swirled through him.

“What the hell good is a firewall then? What’s the point of all the damned computer security if—?”

She held up a hand. “He hasn’t cracked the encryption that protects your neural interface. Not yet anyway.”

He blew out a breath. “Thank God for that. But why hasn’t my software detected him? It was developed by NSA.”

Natasha smiled without humor. “That’s why he hasn’t gotten what he wants. But whoever he is, he’s that good. Firewalls are built by people. People can crack them.”

The confidence in her voice intrigued him. Dylan eyed her. She could pass for a college kid. Too young, too innocent, to be so sure of herself. He asked her a question he already knew the answer to. “Could you have gotten into my system?”

Natasha stared into Dylan’s eyes, into the lake of blue fire that burned so intensely. She resisted the urge to look away. “Yes.”

He nodded as he studied her thoughtfully. “So are you a hacker?”

She swallowed. “No.” Not anymore.

His gaze searched her face. Did he believe her?

“Okay then, who is this guy?” he asked.

The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. She looked at the screen and didn’t quite lie this time. “I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him before. Since I’ve been with the FBI, I’ve run across a lot of very good hackers. This is almost certainly one of them. But to catch him, I’m going to need much better equipment.”

“Fine. I’ll contact NSA.”

“No need. My boss can have it here sometime early tomorrow by jet courier.”

“Good. Do it.”

She began to breathe easier. He’d been satisfied with her answer about the hacker’s ID. There was no way she was going to tell anyone of her suspicion that the hacker was Tom. Not until she was sure, and maybe not even then. She told herself no one needed to know she’d been so desperate for money to pay for college that she’d performed hacking jobs for the same man who might be attacking Dylan’s system—who might even be responsible for the death of his wife and the crippling of his young son.

A sickening dread spread through her, and her gut clenched.

Dylan propped a hip on the edge of her desk, way too close for comfort. His eyes blazed.

“Well, Agent Rudolph, you are good. I assume you’re old enough to be an FBI agent. What are you—twenty-five? Twenty-six.”

“I’m twenty-seven, and my name is Natasha.”

“How did you get to be the government’s best hacker-buster?”

She smiled wryly. “So you’re still not sure about me?”

His cheeks turned faintly pink. “It’s not that I question your ability—”

“You just question my ability,” she tossed back at him.

His long black lashes floated down for an instant, giving her his answer.

Normally, she couldn’t care less if some military type or stiff-necked suit doubted her expertise. But the fact that Dylan had reservations about her made her feel as if she had something to prove. She pushed that notion aside. She wasn’t here to impress him, just to do her job and get out as soon as possible.

“Let’s just say I had a lot of incentive,” she said wryly. Incentive. That was an understatement. Mitch Decker had saved her from going to prison for hacking into classified files. No matter that she’d been framed. Prison was prison. She owed a big debt to the U.S. government.

Dylan’s dark brows went up. “Incentive?”

She gnawed on her lower lip. His intensity was mesmerizing and a little frightening. When he looked at her, she felt as if she were the only person in his world. She dropped her gaze to her hands. She wasn’t answering any more questions.

“I need to contact Mitch and give him my equipment list. Until it gets here there’s not much I can do, unless you give me access to your program files.”

Dylan shook his head and stood.

“Look, Dr. Stryker. If I’m going to do my job—”

He broke in. “It’s almost midnight. You should be in bed.”

She tilted her head at him. “As you just pointed out, I’m well over twenty-one, all grown-up. I usually make my own decisions about bed.”

She hadn’t meant it to come out like that. To her dismay, she felt a flush rising from her neck to her cheeks.

The corner of his mouth turned up. He took a step backward and leaned against the door facing.

“Campbell’s working on the programming code right now. You should get a good night’s sleep and get started in the morning.”

“Yes, sir,” she snapped, and came to her feet.

Even slouched wearily against the door facing, he commanded attention. His shirt strained over his biceps and lay gently against his well-defined abs.