Potato chips and fast food arenotpart of this man’s diet.
“You’re not Richard Aster, huh?” I let my head dangle forward, rolling on my neck while my brain slowly takes stock of my surroundings. Stark gray room. One chair. One man, ready and happy to hurt me. “Aster’s your boss?” I swallow to lubricate my throat. “He sent you?”
“He lets me fuck my prisoners.” He licks his lips like he knows it makes my predicament a million times scarier.
It does.
“Turns me on when you scream.” He grunts in the back of his throat. “Sends me crazy when you’re bleeding while I’m doing it. Dunno what that says about me, but I like the taste of your blood on my tongue while I’m fucking you.”
“Probably makes you a vampire.” My voice strains, slurring, as my vision blurs. “There are women out there who kinda like that. Did you consider asking them if they wanna bang, instead of forcing others who don’t?”
Amazingly, he tilts his head the other way, as thoughseriously considering my question. But then he grins. “No. Cos I like it when they say no. Unwilling bitches are so much tastier.”
“Well, that’s deplorable.” I suck on my bottom lip and allow a line of saliva to dribble free.Look defenseless, Nova.If you can’t stand toe-to-toe and whoop his ass, play dead.Or something like that.“Where’s Richard Aster?”
“None of your business.” He wanders forward and lowers into a crouch to get on my level. “Where’s the code?”
Ryan’s chain hangs heavily around my neck, the cold steel pressed against my chest and tucked securely inside my bra. I shake my head gently from side to side. That movement, as minimal as it is, hurts. “I don’t know what?—”
He stands and snarls, “Where’s the code?!”
“I don’t—” That’s all I get out before something hard slams against the side of my head, and it’s lights out again.
Gone.
23
LINCOLN
I DON’T FUCKING FAIL
Anxiety is like a living, breathing dragon, chewing me up from the inside and burning whatever remains to a blackened char, making it impossible for new life to grow. It’s like poison slowly, mercilessly winding through my veins. The noxious spread is a special kind of torture that could almost leave a man wishing for a faster death.
Something more violent, because at least it would be over soon.
I drive through the night and arrive at Aster’s home as fast as I can manage, and for every mile marker I pass, I think of Nova. Of the intel she already had. The lies she’d already uncovered. The traps she set for me when discussing the motor pool, knowing damn well her brother never worked there. Calling me for electrical help, smart enough to know I was the one who fucked with it in the first place.
She let me think I was in charge. Like I had to be gentle andlull her into trusting my motives. She told me about the hidden stashes inside her home, certain I’d go looking for them.
Knowing I would find the letter and discover her deception?
It’s a hard line to tiptoe, being misled by the woman I was attempting to mislead. Betrayed, when I intended to betray. Tricked by the one I wanted to trick. Am I mad? Am I hurt? Fuck me, am I a victim of her lies, or a mere bystander in a war started thirty years ago?
Above all else, I’m terrified of the mission she set for herself and the danger she willingly moves toward. When Ryan would send her to Delaware to keep her hidden and safe, she stayed and welcomed me into her home instead. When she could’ve picked up a new identity and an all-new life, she hunted the hunter instead.
All she needed was a name.
The irony runs deep.
I came to her, intending to seduce and steal. In the end, she was the seductress, and it was she who made away with intel.
Not that it’ll do her any good now that Tank has her.
Pulling into Aster’s driveway and reaching through the window to slap the call button at the security panel, I’m met not with a voice, but with a chiming release on the twelve-foot gates three feet in front of my bumper. The heavy steel rolls backward, making way for my car and granting me access.
He’s allowing me to be a part of this interrogation. Permitting me to finish my role as the villain in Nova’s life. To be present when she admits to drilling a hole through the code, forever destroying the coordinates that would have led him to the man who killed his daughter. He’ll kill her for her actions.
He’s allowing me to be present for that, too.
