“If you go to the women's shelter, you'll be putting every woman inside at risk. If the Leviathans come for you, it will never again be a safe haven for abused women. They have enough resources left to kill anyone who helps you evade them.”
Just like that, Nasa made an argument Dillon was powerless to refute. There was no way in hell Dillon would bring men armed with rocket launchers and a willingness to use them anywhere near the shelter or risk people who'd help her escape.
Dillon was out in the proverbial cold just like he said, and the only options she had were to stay out on her own and risk waking up with a psycho leaning over her to make good on his promises, or to let Nasa and the leather-wearing men of Perdition protect her.
Whether he noticed her internal struggle or not, Nasa didn't comment.
“I'm not convinced Ghost doesn't have someone inside one of the three letter agencies on his side, protecting him and feeding him intel.
"It chaps my ass to know he was even able to breathe the same air as you, and I don't know why he gave a shit about whether or not you survived, but you have my word. I will keep you safe until I find out.”
In the quiet stillness of the bathroom, Dillon forced herself to accept the fact she couldn't do this on her own. After her time in the black site, she'd gotten serious about her own self-defense.
She could protect herself against one or two assholes who came at her in broad daylight. Evident by the fact she'd just killed a man to save herself, and while prepared to do it again, Dillon didn't know how many times she would be in a semi-controlled environment where she had the upper hand.
“No offense, but how do you think you can keep me safe better than someone else?” Dillon finally asked, flexing her fingers and squeezing her hands into fists in an effort to get the blood pumping.
Nasa gave an easy shrug of his shoulders and told her with absolute confidence, “The Perdition compound is an impenetrable fortress.”
“And yet I drove right in,” she commented dryly.
Nasa's lips pinched for a brief moment, a flare of annoyance stamped across his Nordic features.
“One of the guys does custom motorcycle work and was expecting a customer. I argued that the guy could ring the bell like every other mother fucker we don’t know, but Top and Gee convinced me the client was no threat.
“The background check I did held up to suggest he was indeed legit, so I left both the gates open for that client. Imagine my surprise when he didn't show,” Nasa shared with raging sarcasm.
“You happened to arrive just before the pre-programed timer kicked on to shut the gate, but I had eyes on you the second you turned onto our street.
"If you appeared to be any kind of threat, I'd have activated the road spikes, the steel pylons, and electrified the entire perimeter fence.”
Nasa went on to describe all the unbelievable fortifications he’d utilized to turn the compound into a defensible strong hold, and she just barely kept her jaw from dropping in awe.
“Unless the Leviathans roll up in a tank and aim the cannon barrel directly at the door, they're not getting in, and I'd see a tank coming long before it got anywhere close enough to fire off a round.
“Inside, every square inch of the compound is covered by cameras. There are no blind spots or places for enemy combatants to hide.
"Outside, I've got two hundred acres of land around us, and there are seismographs, thermal cameras, and perimeter alarms so sensitive I have a log of the nocturnal mating habits of the field mice and can tell you exactly how many fire ant piles there are on the property.
“ It's also a completely contained, self-operating system inside a Faraday cage, meaning no outside transmissions or satellite feeds can lock on to the building or anyone inside it via their cell phones.
“We use land-lines and coded cell phones I program, but even those calls are automatically bounced around through every tele-router I can connect to.
"If the world ended tomorrow via anything less than a full-on nuclear holocaust, we'd have clean drinking water, food, power, and shelter to live out our days in complete comfort.”
Even leaning on the side of desperately wanting to look closer at the compound that hid all those tactical advantages beneath a luxurious veneer, Dillon couldn't help but to point out the one fly in the offered ointment.
“If it's a completely contained system, how did Ghost get a call in with my cell?”
Dillon held her breath as she watched red stain Nasa's cheeks, the muscles in his forearms bulging as he clenched his hands into fists.
Even the vein above his right eyebrow popped, pulsing to express his fury. She braced herself for a scathing response, but even so visibly angry, Nasa spoke in a calm, moderated tone.
“I don't know.” Considering the way his lip curled when he said that, Dillon guessed those three words were the most heinous in his vocabulary.
“Ghost is the slickest piece of snot I've ever come up against, so my guess is he did something to your phone while he was with you.
“I cloned it in an effort to find out what he'd done, and was in the process of going through the code when Top came down and said you were in trouble.
"How long had you been working as a translator for Virginia PD before you got snatched up by the FBI?”
The smooth change of subject, and the subject itself, threw Dillon off balance enough to answer without thinking.
“About a year. How did you find out about... about the black site?”
With his gaze steady and solemn on her face, Nasa pointed toward the bathroom door with a little hike of his chin.
“Tobias told us everything.”
Visions of the man who'd come
