Page 92 of Until the End

She looked up at him, her liquid brown eyes filled with sadness. “I’m a full handbasket of trouble for you. Aren’t I?”

Unable to deny it, he blew out a heavy breath. If the only way he could have Kit, even for a little while, meant headaches and pain-in-the-ass trouble, then he’d take it.

“Did you tell your boss how many hard drives there are?” she asked.

“No.” Castle was straddling a dangerous line.

“What if you handed over two of the three? The only thing I need to protect is Ever Shield. I can copy everything else from the third drive onto one of the others.”

“The files are time-stamped. Willow will know they’re copies as soon as she sees them.”

“I may lack the talent of most hackers I know, but I’m not totally useless. I can alter time stamps. You can turn over original hard drives containing all the pertinent information.”

She flashed a little smile as she slid her hand along his thigh. His cock jumped in response, but seeing the desire rekindling in her eyes made his heart flip over.

Castle caressed her cheek, drawing her close. The memory of being buried deep inside her rolled through him. Hot, hungry sex that had ended explosively.

Holding Kit afterward had been the best part. It was the first time that, instead of being lonely with a woman, eager to get away from her, he’d felt right at home.

“This is ethically murky territory,” he said and that was putting it mildly.

“This is a compromise. You give Sanborn original hard drives and the information your team needs to stop Bravo. I keep Ever Shield.”

“Why would you give up the hard drives?”

“What can I say?” She shrugged. “You entice me to yield. You’re doing this for me. To protect me. I don’t want you to lose anything because of it. And the thought of you not touching me again because you resent me hurts too much.”

The sincerity in her voice caught him by the jugular and that beautiful, unguarded look on her face made him ache. He was torn.

He had spent half his life blocking out his emotions for his job, only to have the job rob him of his humanity. Now he’d found Kit. She was a storm tearing through him, a white squall drowning him in feelings, but he hadn’t completely lost his mind.

“One more thing,” he said. She stiffened in his arms and he stroked her back, not wanting her to get defensive. “Ever Shield. It’s dangerous. A serious risk to national security.”

“If I give the government Ever Shield, can you guarantee it won’t be used as a weapon against other countries?”

On the contrary, he’d bet his left nut that it would. “No.”

“Ever Shield is the Outliers’ legacy, the greatest thing Marty, Tim, Jeff, and Lincoln created. The point was for citizens to be able to protect themselves. Like the right to bear arms but for privacy and from a virtual perspective. Granted, it became bigger and more powerful than I imagined, but they’d never want it weaponized by the government. You told me to honor their memory with my actions.” She pressed a palm to his cheek and her forehead to his. “This is how I honor them.”

She was twisting the meaning of his words into something he hadn’t intended.

“Kit—”

“Your boss will use it as evidence to send me to prison.”

Taken aback, he gathered his thoughts. “I don’t think he’d do that.”

“Think? I admitted to being Steve Jobs. The only reason Ever Shield exists is because I came up with the idea, and I brought together the talent capable of making it possible. I’m supposed to hand over proof it exists. Can you assure me your boss won’t think I’m an even bigger threat once he sees it?”

Sanborn already considered her a menace to national security. Giving him Ever Shield, seeing it tested for its destructive potential, might only amplify his boss’s concerns rather than allay them.

Misguided talent could be rehabilitated and redirected. Persuaded into putting their skills to work for the NSA, CIA, the Gray Box. Masterminds whose sole motivation was to thwart the government in the name of privacy and civil liberties only pissed people like Sanborn off. Incarceration would be an easier, preferable fix. Otherwise, what was to stop Kit from becoming a Snowden if she worked for them or forming a new band of hacker rebels to produce something worse if they let her go?

Turning Ever Shield over to his boss wasn’t an option if it meant Kit might see the inside of a supermax cell. Castle wasn’t going to let that happen.

“I won’t give the government Ever Shield,” she said.

He couldn’t resist that gutsy determination packed in a lovely stick of dynamite.