“Like I said…”
“I’ve biffed nothing. She was eating out of my palm andtelling me her secrets. She’d already told me where she hid things around her home and had come to rely on me when she needed help. Not only didn’t I fail, but I also had her falling in love. You jumped the gun a day early. Some could sayyoubiffed the mission.”
He glances back, so I force my sneer into a smile.
“Have you considered what’ll happen when Aster realizes she won’t talk and, because ofyou, my cover’s blown? I could’ve asked her anything I wanted twenty-four hours ago. She’d have tripped over her feet to tell me. That’s gone now.”
“He sent me in.” He stops by another door, this time inserting a code—875975—before pressing his palm to a screen and allowing it to scan his digits.
I tuck those tidbits of information away and watch warily as the scanner dings with confirmation, then a heavy steel door releases with a gasp.
Air-locked room.
Not fuckin’ ideal.
Tank crosses the raised threshold and waits for me to do the same. As I do, I peek back and check the controls on this side to see if they match the other.
A keypad and a scanner.
Worse, he pushes the door closed and brushes his hand over the screen until the locks reengage.
“We headed into the President’s fucking bunker?” I force a sour smile and pretend I’m not planning to escape this concrete jungle.
Ignoring me, Tank continues his quasi-tour.
“How long’ve you been working on her?” I follow him through a broad sitting room, dread growing heavier in mystomach the deeper we go, and Ryan’s letter plays on repeat in my mind.
Aster already had his kingdom, and the men he trusted fucked him over.
A guy like that learns from his mistakes. If he has snakes in his grass now, there will be no deals struck, no promises of returning another day. And if his captives must run, the chances of escape are damn near zero.
Which means Nova and I will die with bullets in our backs, and our bodies dumped in an unmarked grave.
If we’re lucky, maybe they’ll bury us together.
“Tank?” I quicken my steps and smack his arm, grabbing his attention. He’s bigger than me. He’s bigger than André the Giant. But we’re on the same team, as far as Aster is concerned. We’re on the same fucking side of this war. “Aster been with her for long?”
“An hour.” He leads me through one last door.
I could wonder if there’s more to go. I could ask how much longer until we arrive. But the moment I cross the threshold and emerge into a room of tile and a masculine wooden desk, I hear her.
I fucking smell her.
I turn my nose to the air like a wolf in the wild, brutally aware his mate is nearby. But unlike the wolf, I fight my instincts and stay put. I grit my teeth and search for the source of her cries, but all I see are more bookshelves. A couch. A couple of chairs on one side of a desk, a leather wingback on the other.
This is where he sits when he calls me. This is the room hesucks on those cigars and coughs up a lung because he’s too stupid to understand correlation and causation.
“Where is she?” I don’t even pretend to be subtle anymore. I stalk halfway across the office and turn a full circle in search of another doorway. A window. A secret fucking wardrobe. “I hear her. I smell her. But I don’t see.”
“This way.” He moves to the middle of three side-by-side bookshelves and taps the Bible on the third. Ironic, really. He releases the book and steps back as a lock releases and a secret handle reveals itself. Then he drags the heavy shelf inwards, revealing a stark gray room with polished concrete floors and the distinct tang of blood in the air.
I don’t wait for him to lead the way. Instead, I push past and stalk into the new room that’ll probably become my prison. It’s where I’ll die. The last place I’ll know before my body is dumped and I’m never spoken of again. My sister will miss me, but she knows to hide. My texts will ensure she knowssomethingis going down, and though she’ll never learn the details—the what, the where, the why—at least she’ll understand I never willingly abandoned her.
I follow the sound of Nova’s labored breathing, my heart in my throat, and my rage roaring hotter when skin slaps against skin. Stepping around a tight corner, I discover the room is larger than first implied, windowless with concrete walls and sparkling concrete floors. My pulse skitters when I find Nova tied to a fucking chair. Blood pours from her brow. From the wound the doctors already stitched once. From her neck, as her healing injury tears open once more. Her cheeks are deathly pale, and her body slumps forward.
She remains uprightonlybecause of how her arms are bound behind the chair.
“I’m asking you nicely,” Aster snarls.Not so nicely. “Give me the code, and you can leave.”
