His Reboot Girl (Emerald City #3) Read Online Free Page B

my hand, and proposed to Dorothy. I caught a glimpse of her face, her smile quickly turning to a grimace of horror.
    “I’m sorry.” She’d backed away, one hand over her mouth, as she tripped over her own feet in her haste to put some distance between us. “I can’t. I’m so sorry.” She’d stumbled, and then recovered. The band had faltered in their song, and silence had fallen over the entire room. As I knelt there, dying a thousand public deaths, she’d turned and fled, taking the remnants of my heart with her.
    The band. They’d been playing her favorite song. One by Lionheart. Something about Paris?
    I flexed my fingers, and typed:
    10DaysInParis

Chapter Eight
    The flashing cursor blinked once, twice, and then cleared. I held my breath.
    Welcome SCrowe
    A list of options scrolled down the screen. I exhaled in a rush, the force making me dizzy for a second.
    “ Yes! ” Donny leaned over my shoulder, the gun within grabbing distance. Almost.
    My reactions were too slow at the moment, and I knew I couldn’t do it without making the situation a hundred times more dangerous. I bit down on my frustration. When I made my move, like with the login, it’d be a one-shot deal.
    “Is it in the Projects area?” He gestured at the screen with his phone.
    I wasn’t telling him I didn’t have the faintest idea. Instead, I fixed a calm mask on my fears, and leaned back a fraction. “It’s your turn to give me something. A measure of good faith, if you like.”
    “Like what?” He sounded amused.
    “Let the women go. Adele and the cleaner.” I flexed my fingers as though getting ready to type. “I’ll give you what you’re after, but I want them out of here.” I sucked in a harsh breath. “And then give me the collar. I’ll wear it.”
    “The women are my insurance.” Donny stepped back. “Get me into the wetware vault and then I’ll let them go. Not before.”
    I glanced at the cleaner. She lay unmoving on the floor. She ought to be waking by now, unless he’d done some serious damage. Fear coiled in my gut. I’d make this bastard pay.
    Praying I could do this without having to think, I scanned the folder list, and selected Projects. Typing at high speed, I let my fingers move in the pattern that came naturally to them and entered a six-digit code. I then selected another folder, typed another code, and finally came to a series of vaults.
    “These are the links.” I sagged, nausea rising in my throat. “Everything I have, it’s here.” Years of work. Hundreds of test cases. Information that, used correctly, could give one man control of a private army. The military had funded most of this work. The CyGes corporation would not be happy.
    Donny stared at the data links, a greedy smile spreading on his face.
    “Free the women,” I said. “That was the deal.”
    “What? Oh, yeah.” He scanned the room, his eyes narrowed. “Get your ass over there.” He jerked his chin at the far wall.
    For fuck’s sake! I dragged myself across the room and dropped to the tiled floor, just as he snapped a restraint around my wrist, and fastened the other end to the leg of the bench.
    Adele lifted her head to meet my stare. She no longer looked frightened, or even distressed. A grin was spreading across her face. “Nice one, Donny. Let me up.”
    “Yep.” He leaned over, unclipped her restraint, and then pulled her into his arms. “We did it, babe. You were right.”
    I wanted to beat my head against the wall. How stupid was I? I’d thought Adele had been the brains here, and I’d been right. It had all been an act, and I’d believed it. I swallowed my humiliation. “The collar?”
    “Fake.” Adele tugged it off, and I saw the metal catches on the back were just for show. They would have scraped the surface of her skin, but nothing more. She was an accomplished actress.
    “Are you going to let the cleaner go?” It was a struggle, but I kept my voice hard, squashing down my anxiety.
    “Let me