Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Griffin and Jack helped Nick into the safe house that the two MI6 operatives had set up, and at the sight of Savanna jumping up from the couch, he faltered, nearly losing hold of Nick.
“Griffin,” Savanna cried out, and he’d been expecting her to call out Nick’s name first. “You’re okay. I mean, they said you were, but I just needed to see . . .” She was visibly shaking and on the verge of tears. He wanted to drop Nick and throw his arms around her, just as relieved to see her without a scratch, even though he knew Oliver had kept her safe.
“Savanna?” Nick slowly said her name, his tone one of disbelief, before he went down like a sack of potatoes, nearly taking Griffin and Jack down with him. With him on his knees, both Griffin and Jack were forced to release their hold of him. Unable to stop himself, Griffin moved around Nick and pulled Savanna to his side.
She remained quiet while leaning into him, and he wrapped an arm around her back, setting his palm on her hip as he held her pinned to his side, her focus planted steadily on Nick.
Carter and Gray entered the house next with Stefanos bound and gagged, then shoved him to the ground not too far away from Nick.
The two MI6 operatives, who’d said everyone could call them Jane and John Doe for all they cared, followed Jesse into the room a few seconds later.
They’d sent the AISE agents an anonymous tip that there’d been an exchange of gunfire in Stefanos’s home just after they’d left, which gave them probable cause to enter and handle any other armed men who may have tried to rescue Stefanos.
Thankfully, the mission went down perfectly. Too perfectly, though? he couldn’t help but wonder, but Savanna was safe, and Nick was alive.
“You good?” Jesse asked, eyes on Savanna, but she didn’t budge from Griffin’s iron grip.
She also didn’t fall to her knees and throw her arms around Nick, which was what Griffin had expected her to do. After all, he was Marcus’s brother, and even though she didn’t exactly know him, she’d gone to bat for him.
“I don’t understand why Savanna’s here,” Nick said around a cough, then turned his attention to the two MI6 operatives. John Doe tossed his jacket on the couch and began rolling up his sleeves as if preparing for an interrogation.
“You involved her,” Griffin told Nick. “They either discovered you were at her house recently, or they tried to use her to draw you out,” he said while peering over at Stefanos on the ground. “Either way, you put a target on her head.” His tone was rough and cutting, but ultimately, Savanna had been in danger because of him, and he should have felt guilty for that.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that,” Nick apologized, his shoulders sagging.
“Get Stefanos into the other room,” Jane instructed her teammate. Once John had taken Stefanos away, Jane turned and angrily said, “Did you double-cross us? What happened?”
Double-cross MI6? Griffin almost lost his hold of Savanna at the accusation.
“What do you mean?” Savanna spoke up, freeing herself from Griffin’s hold and taking a step closer to Nick and the operative.
“It’s okay. You can talk in front of them,” Nick rasped. “I assume you all worked with Marcus when he was alive?”
“No, but we’re friends of Marcus’s, um, team,” Gray responded, sounding a bit uneasy sharing that information when they still didn’t have a handle on what was going on.
Jane stood and shifted her dress back in place, turning her attention on Carter. “Sorry we didn’t tell you before, but Nick was undercover for us. We’ve been trying to infiltrate Stefanos’s operation in order to take down some of his clients. Mostly terrorists.”
“What?” Savanna gasped. “I don’t understand.” And yet, Griffin heard that familiar hope cut through her tone.
Nick crossed one arm over his abdomen and sat back on his heels. “I didn’t double-cross you,” he told Jane. “I had no choice but to run after this last job.”
“What were we supposed to think?” She folded her arms across her chest. “You didn’t reach out. Why not? We have protocols.”
“It was complicated. Sydney Archer is involved, and we don’t have much time. She’s in danger. If they got to me, then it won’t take them long to find where she’s hiding,” Nick said, nearly choking on his words.
“Sydney?” Gray prompted, stepping forward, his arms falling to his sides. “Tell us what happened.”
Nick grimaced as he held his ribs, which were most likely broken. “I was sent to break into a vault at the Archer Group. Third time this year. Like the previous times, once inside, the others on my team would take photos, and then we’d leave without anyone knowing we were there.”
“You allowed Nick to steal for Stefanos?” Jack spoke up, directing his comment to Jane.
Griffin assumed John was already interrogating Stefanos in the other room, and Griffin noticed Oliver was MIA, so he was probably assisting.
“The last two sets of blueprints Stefanos sent Nick to copy from the Archer Group were sold to the company’s rivals. Projects that were never put into operation. It’s shitty, yes. But ultimately, there’s a greater-good thing at play. Nick has been feeding us names of terrorists that have hired Stefanos for other jobs. He’s been helping us take down those threats this year,” she explained, her tone casual, as if this was all par for the course.
Carter didn’t seem surprised, and Griffin had to assume the CIA employed similar tactics.
“But this time was different,” Nick rasped. “This time, I was tasked to steal the blueprints for the Elysium Project, one I recognized as being fully operational. Allowing Stefanos to hand over the blueprints to the terrorist who bought them would breach our national security and risk a lot of lives . . .” His voice trailed off. “Marcus was murdered by terrorists. I couldn’t just hand over the plans for the greater-fucking-good this time and let more people die the way he died.”
Griffin lost his hold of Savanna as he tried to wrap his head around the overflow of information.
“What about Sydney?” Gray pressed.
Griffin pushed both hands through his hair as Nick continued, “The other reason I ran was that I didn’t know until the last minute the three men working with me had been tasked to kill Sydney Archer. Stefanos timed it so we’d arrive at the same time she did that day. He seemed to know her patterns, and that she always went to the office an hour or so before it opened.” Nick shook his head. “We were to kidnap her and make it look like an accident.”
“And that’s when you killed the men?” Gray quietly asked.
“Sydney helped me, actually. She’s more of a badass than I am, to be honest,” Nick responded, eyes shifting over to Savanna once again.
“Why not alert us?” More like “Jane Bond” than Jane Doe in Griffin’s eyes.
“After we took out my team, Sydney explained that she’d gone to Sicily because she suspected there was an insider leaking intelligence. She believed she was close to discovering the truth, and the insider found out. That it’s either someone at the DOD or in her office who ordered the hit on her. Once I confessed that I was working undercover for MI6, Sydney asked me to help her,” Nick quickly explained.
“Why hide the plans you stole that day in the safe-deposit box, though?” Carter asked. “Why not destroy them to avoid the risk of them falling into the wrong hands?”
Nick looked his way. “We did destroy those copies. I never went to Greece after Sicily. That safe-deposit box was for MI6,” he said while angling his head to Jane. “Inside it is intel I’ve been collecting on a different terror suspect working with Stefanos. Everything was stored on a USB and hidden in that box in Santorini.” He pivoted his one good eye to Jane. “When I ran off with Sydney I couldn’t drop the key at our designated place, so I took it with me Stateside. I hid the key where I thought it’d be safe, planning to let you know about it once Sydney was taken care of.” He shook his head. “I thought I was careful. I’m so sorry, Savanna.”
“A Ring doorbell camera and fender bender,” Jack told him. “That’s how you were caught.”
“But they would have come after Savanna to get to you anyway, from the looks of it,” Jesse noted.
Savanna crouched before Nick, mindful of the dress she was still wearing. “Everything happens for a reason. I-I forgive you.”
Of course, she would. She was a saint. A living saint.
But maybe everything did happen for a reason.
“Do you know who the Elysium Project was sold to?” Carter asked.
Nick shook his head. “A terrorist group, that’s all I know. A different terrorist than the one you’ve been chasing,” he tossed out toward Jane.
“Do you have the key?” Jane turned to Carter, but Carter’s eyes thinned as if not ready to shove aside their mission for the sake of hers.
“First, you need to save Sydney,” Nick responded, opening his one eye to see Savanna there. “She’s outside New Orleans, and whoever asked Stefanos to kill her won’t stop until they find her.”
Griffin peered at Gray, who’d tossed his tux jacket and was in the process of yanking off his bow tie at the mention that Sydney was still in danger. “Why’d you go there?”
“Because the man she believes might be the traitor lives outside the city, and we’ve been monitoring his movements. I was captured when I was heading back from his estate to where Sydney and I had been working,” Nick slowly explained.
Griffin was still struggling to wrap his head around how Nick, the thief, was now Nick, the undercover agent and hero.
“Who does she think is the mole?” Gray asked in a rush.
“The chief engineer, the main architect of all the plans. She said he had a beef with her father last year and wanted to quit but couldn’t because of a non-compete clause in his contract,” Nick shared. “She thinks he’s the one after her.”
“Then we better make sure we get to her before he does.” Carter twirled a finger in the air. “Let’s get to the jet.” He looked at the female MI6 operative. “I’ll give you the key after we handle our business.”
The woman stared at him for a moment, contemplative. “Fine. We’ll handle Stefanos. But if you don’t deliver, I’ll track you down, and you know it.”
Carter simply winked, and it was one of the first times it didn’t look out of place for him.
“I’m coming with you,” Nick said, struggling to stand. “I put you all in this mess, and I have to see this through. Plus, you won’t be able to find this place without me. It’s not on the map.”
“You did the right thing. Marcus . . . he’d be proud,” Savanna added in a strangled voice, and Griffin’s heart squeezed.
“I’ll always be a criminal in Marcus’s eyes,” Nick whispered. “He died before he knew I changed, that I changed for him.”