The muscles in her face twitch restlessly, and she doesn’t look at us. Cal and I exchange a look, knowing her brain won’t allow her let this go. Not until she’s studied the cabin pressurization system several more times. It’s become something of a habit for her, going over the schematics of Gambit’s plane, talking herself through the sabotage of this specific system. I know that when the time comes everything will go smoothly, but I also understand the anxiety driving her at the moment.
She left Gambit’s home under the pretense of joining his little killer’s club, promising to repay him for sparing her life by spending what’s left of it waiting for a phone call from him that will result in her being asked to do something she won’t. The stress of that promise, of that lie, has weighed on us since she made it, and now we all hear it. The ticking of the clock counting down to the day we can finally, truly, be free.
We just have to hope time runs out before the phone rings.
When Selene’s anxious mind is satisfied, she shuts off the projector, plunging us into semi-darkness. “It’s going to work, right?” She whispers the words, rambling on before either of us can say anything. “Not just the plane, but the rest of it.All of it. It’ll work, right? It has to because otherwise….”
My mind fills in the blank.
Otherwise, we put our lives and the lives of everyone in our home at risk.
Otherwise, there’s no justice for AJ.
Otherwise, they win.
And we can’t let them win.
I find her hand in the dark, pulling it up to my mouth and laying a kiss in the center of her palm. “It will work.”
31
SELENE
“Ithink I’m going to be sick.”
Everything stops.
Well, Cal and Beck stop, pausing on the stairs that lead up to the bedroom I shared with Aubrey for so many years, but the nausea refuses. I pull in a breath through my nose and push it out in a quiet hiss through my teeth, willing my heart rate to slow. When the breathing doesn’t help, I bend at the waist and study the disposable booties on my feet. They’re an ugly gray color, connected to the white suit covering my body.
Spunbonded polypropylene.
That’s what it’s made of. I turn the words over in my head. The weight of the syllables drags me back into my body and keep me there. Relieved that the panic and nausea have subsided, I right myself and nod at the men in front of me, signaling that I’m good to continue. They both hesitate.
“We can—” Beck starts, his voice pitched low.
I shake my head. “No, it has to be now. It has to be today.”
He glances at Cal. As they have one of their signature silent conversations, I thank my lucky stars that the group of hookers Gambit sent to Aubrey as a gift for finally closing the Qatarimilitary base deal necessitated the dismissal of his security detail. Between that and Aubrey killing the cameras throughout the house to ensure his privacy, we couldn’t have asked for better circumstances. All of which means, no matter what the two loves of my life decide, we’re going up these stairs, and today, we’re ending my husband’s life.
It only takes them seconds to wrap things up, but it might as well be hours given how slow time is moving. Cal warned me that it would be this way. That the moments leading up to the mission would make me feel like I was swimming in a tank of molasses while my blood buzzed and my heart raced.
Nothing could have prepared me for how accurate that description was.
Last night, I couldn’t sleep. I stayed up watching videos of AJ and staring at the clock that seemed to be moving at half speed. Every second, a minute. Every minute, an hour. Every hour, a lifetime. Beck had to force me to come to bed, carrying me over his shoulder while Cal followed us up the stairs asking how many orgasms it would take to get me to sleep.
“You’re sure you’re good?” he asks now, scanning my face.
“Yes.”
I’m not good. Not by any stretch of the imagination, and I think he knows that. Just like he knows I won’t be good until this is done. None of us will be.
Beck takes my chin in his hand. “It’ll be over soon.”
If peace can be found in a moment like this, it exists in the gentle way he cradles my chin. In the way Cal eases his way back down the steps and takes hold of Beck’s free hand and one of mine. In the whispered ‘I love you’s we utter before he turns his gaze back on the landing ahead of us.
“Stay close and quiet.”
We know Aubrey is here alone, but we move with caution. Clearing rooms and closets on this floor the same way we did onthe first. It’s strange, sneaking around in a house I used to call home, taking care not to leave a trace of myself in spaces I’ve existed in for most of my adult life. But the strangest thing of all is crossing the threshold into what used to be my bedroom and seeing Aubrey’s sleeping form sprawled across the bed.
