“Doc, take care of Samira,” Rafe said. “We got this.”
Jamie’s gaze snapped to Samira, his eyes creased. He scanned her body, down and up, and zeroed in on her side. He crossed the room in two strides and knelt before her.
“You got shot?”
She touched the wrinkles beside his eyes. “I love those.” Her finger juddered over them. Speed bumps. “They said you were dead.”
He gently pulled her hand from the wound. He twisted to glance at Laura’s bodyguard, the one who’d brought Holly in. “You were supposed to protect her.”
What?
“AndHolly,” Rafe said, darkly.
“Stand down, Rafe,” Holly said. “I knew what I was getting into. Trojan horse, remember?”
Laura’s bodyguard pulled a phone from his pocket and handed it to his colleague. “Call an ambulance.” He glanced at Rafe. “And you were supposed to get here earlier.”
“We got a little held up in the hallway, dealing with your colleagues.”
The bodyguard scanned the four stunned faces on the other side of the room. “Not my colleagues anymore.”
Fitz spit, the phlegm landing on the bodyguard’s arm. “You know what happens to traitors in this operation.”
The bodyguard shook his head. “You’re a traitor to far more than this cluster fuck of a company—ever since you decided to put your loyalty to him above everything else.” He jerked his head at Hyland. “You still gonna be his bitch in prison?” He pulled a pocketknife from his suit and handed it to Rafe.
As Rafe freed Holly, Hyland’s voice cut through the rest, dark and disbelieving. “Laura? Are you involved in this?”
Laura crossed her arms. “I have been for a long time. I’m over living this lie,Pops. I’m over standing beside you, playing the good daughter while you kill and terrorize and blackmail and I don’t even know what else. It’s finished. I’m out.”
“But how—?” Samira flinched as Jamie pressed on her wound.
“Laura was the mystery person in the game,” he said, quietly. “She gave us the log-on, the password.”
“You naive, selfish piece of shit,” the senator spit at Laura, his face beetroot. “You want to destroy your own father, your future, your world?”
Laura’s eyes glassed over. “Myworld? I don’t even know what that is. All I’ve ever done is play a role for the cameras. Now maybe I can write the real memoir of my life, not this fiction you forced on me.”
“I give you everything and you give me this?”
“You only ever wanted to keep me locked up. Your Rapunzel in a tower. But...” She shook her head, resetting. “This isn’t about me. It stopped being about me when Latif discovered your role in the LA attacks.”
Hyland advanced on Laura. “If you’re talking about the conspiracy theory dreamed up by that idiot—” Her bodyguard stepped between them. Hyland looked ready to strike him.
“Oh my God,” Samira whispered to Jamie. “Latif and Charlotte’s source in Denniston. It was Laura.”
For the first time, Laura met Samira’s gaze. “Samira. I’m so sorry for the grief I caused you. I thought I could protect Latif. He was such a good man.”
“You knew his favorite food.”
“We became friends when he was working at Denniston, when my father was still calling the shots there, training me up to one day take over—before it all went to the dogs, before I found out what was really going on. I grew to trust him, and there have been so few people in my life I’ve been able to trust.” She glanced at her bodyguard, who gave a slight, encouraging smile. “Latif had a contact in military intelligence who put him in touch with Tess Newell. We gathered enough evidence to bring down Denniston and most of those involved in the conspiracy but my father slipped from the net. He’d officially sold the company by then, of course. So my involvement had to remain a carefully guarded secret while I kept digging.”
“You little bitch—”
“Shut the fuck up.” Laura’s bodyguard closed in on Hyland, glowering.
“I’m watched 24/7,” Laura continued, lightly touching the bodyguard’s arm. He halted, still glaring at Hyland. “My computer is monitored, my phone calls, everything. I once tried to sail around the world to get some freedom but my father found a way to control even that. So Latif worked out a way we could correspond in secret, even after his snooping was detected and the two of you had to go into hiding.”
“The game,” Samira said. “You communicated through the game. You were Erebus.”
