How the hell had Samira got herself into this position? Where was Jamie? Rafe? Holly? Had Charlotte been rescued, at least?
What does your instinct tell you?
She stared at the ceiling. She knew what she wanted to be true—everyone safe, the pressure permanently lifted from her chest, that she could be free to start something with Jamie, that he could be free to give himself to her.
Wow. It turned out she wasn’t ready to give up on him. But first she had to convince him to stop giving up on himself.
Well, technically,firstshe had to get out of this alive—get everyone out.Thenshe had to convince him.
Yes. Yes, maybe that was the secret to finding the courage to see this through. She’d lived so long in fear of the future but maybe it was time to look forward to something—the promise of a new day that wouldn’t start with waking up alone and empty. Maybe that new day would be tomorrow. A clock ticked. She scanned the walls and found it. Six minutes until the password changed. Ornottomorrow.
Footsteps neared. Voices. The door handle moved and the door swished. A heavyset man in a black suit held it open, scanning the room.
Then Hyland strode in, right up to the table. He planted his fists on it, his weight forward, arms straight, like he was commanding a board meeting. Fitz sidled in behind. Samira pushed back into the wall. The senator was way bigger in person.
“Ms. Desta,” he said. His tie was gone, his top shirt buttons undone. “How good to meet you after all this time. I apologize that I’m a little rushed—I have several of the world’s most powerful people waiting for me—so I’ll make this quick. I understand you’re attempting a power play. Well, let me school you in power plays because this is what I do best. This...” He waved his security guy forward. “This is what we call a show of strength.”
The guy unlocked his phone, strode toward Samira and held it out. The screen showed a photo. A woman lying on a concrete floor, eyes closed, long black hair splayed in a pool of blood. Samira blinked and looked away. No. No.
“You may recognize your friend Ms. Liu. Yourlatefriend, Ms. Liu.”
Samira’s windpipe closed. Her eyes stung.
“I know you thought you’d saved her with your friend’s call to the police, in the same deluded, naive way you’ve convinced yourself you have some kind of power over me. It was quickly dismissed as a hoax. Amateur hour, Ms. Desta. And this—” he beckoned to Fitz, who opened the door “—is what we call a trump card.”
Holly was shoved into the room, hands bound, mouth duct-taped. She squirmed against her captor—one of Laura’s guards, a bloody cut smearing his temple. The room tipped. Samira slammed her hands onto the carpet either side of her hips.
“And the other two?” Hyland said, moving aside as Laura’s bodyguard fought to force Holly onto a chair. “The men they were with?”
“Dead,” the bodyguard said, through clenched teeth.
Samira’s chest pinched. The room blurred.
Holly gave a muffled yell as the bodyguard secured her hands to the back of the chair. Hyland’s guard tied her ankles to the legs. Her dark makeup was streaked down her face. She looked at Samira with an expression made even more desperate by the makeup and the gag.
Tears escaped Samira’s eyes. Her breath scraped.
“Unlike you,” Hyland said, shoving his hands in his trouser pockets, “Ms. Ryan here is a genuine threat to me and one I’ll be quite happy to be rid of.” He nodded at Fitz, who pulled a gun from under his suit jacket, a metal tube on its barrel. A silencer?
Samira’s chest felt ready to cave. She pressed her hand to it. Her vision pinpricked.
“Which just leaves the sword of Damocles—in this case, your parents and Tess Newell. The death of Ms. Ryan, right in front of you, along with Ms. Liu and your two male friends, will serve as a warning to you that I mean business. But, as you know, I don’t like dealing only in sticks. Leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Your parents and Tess are the carrots that will keep you silent as long as I want to keep you alive—and I haven’t yet made a decision on that. Oh, and it’s not just theirfreedomthat’s at stake. No, no. I will have them killed if you don’t fully cooperate with me right now, just as I had your traitor fiancé killed.” He raised a finger, as if he were making a point of order. “Oh no, wait. That’s not a carrot, technically, is it? It’s another stick. My mistake. It turns out there are no carrots, here, Ms. Desta. You cannot fight me. You have no power. I have all the power and I always will. Remember that, for as long as you may or may not live.”
“Okay,” Samira wheezed.
“Speak up, Ms. Desta. I can’t hear you.” He flicked a finger, and Fitz aimed his gun at Holly, cradling it in both his hands.
“I...I...” She jabbed her pointer finger toward the laptop on the table. “On there,” she gasped. “Everything.”
Her eyes rolled back. She blinked hard and caught sight of the clock. Two minutes left.
Hyland strolled to the laptop, its screen black.Hurry up.He tapped a key. “The password,” he said, “before I give instructions to shoot the trump card.”
Holly’s wide eyes locked on Samira. Samira went to speak but her lungs were sucked hollow. Hyland walked up to her, looking down from his towering height. Then he crouched, eye to eye, and slapped her hard, across her injured cheek.
She gasped, but no air made it in.
You’re not going to die... You can let go of that fear.
