Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
SYLVIE
Iblinked into the dark, not registering how my eyes could be open, but I couldn’t see a thing. My lashes brushed whatever was covering my eyes, and instinctively, I went to reach for my face. My hands were stuck. I tried to turn and look, but I couldn’t move.
Panic washed through me. I sucked in a breath, jerking, turning, twisting—nothing. I had a few inches of give as my clothes slipped over my skin, but something was holding me still. A chair. Was I in a chair?
I tilted my head, trying to brush my cheek against my shoulder to see if I could dislodge whatever was obscuring my vision, but I didn’t have enough range of motion.
“You’re not going to get loose,” a voice said—familiar, but not that familiar. A man. My age? Not much older or younger.
It all came flooding back. The friendly smile and dark curly hair. The guy who’d reminded me of a real estate agent and an office with paper over the windows. The offer to let me look at the security cameras.
The one I’d gotten the bad vibes from, seconds before he attacked me.
Fuck.
“Did you tase me?” I managed to say, my voice rough.
“Pressure injector. Low dose of ketamine. It was the most efficient way to deal with you at the time. Your head will clear in a minute or two.” How could he sound so pleasant while apologizing for tasing me?
A chill slid down my spine. “Why?” I asked, not sure what kind of answer I was looking for. There couldn’t be a good one.
“Loose ends,” he answered conversationally.
I blinked against whatever covered my eyes. “Am I blindfolded?”
There was a rustle of fabric. I imagined him shrugging. “It’s more fun this way. For me, obviously. Not for you.”
“Why—”
“We don’t have a lot of time for whys,” he said, his voice growing louder as I caught a footfall on the floor. It sounded like concrete, tile—something hard, not the carpet there’d been in the office. The air here was cold, damp. A basement?
He hadn’t looked like a big guy. How far could he have dragged me? How long was I out?
“Why don’t we have a lot of time?” I asked, focusing on the thing that seemed to matter the most. I wished I could see his face. His tone didn’t tell me enough about whether the time comment was meant as logistical or a threat.
“My guess is the Creed Global team never wanted you out of their sight. They’re probably coming for you.
I was sloppy getting into your website from here, even with a VPN.
I should have known they’d track me back.
I got a little cocky. Now this location’s burned.
” He paused. “On the upside, I have you. Once we’re finished, I’m just down to Silas. ”
Fear curled in my stomach at his calm. Even without the loose-end comment, this guy was surprisingly chatty. That didn’t bode well. People only gave up their secrets when they had good reason, or when they had nothing to fear because they were about to silence the person they were talking to.
I pushed down the panic. I had to stay sharp, use what I could to stay alive.
Keeping him talking worked in the movies.
In the back of my mind, I filed away that Silas must still be alive. If I got out of this, Eli would want to know.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Why did you need to kill Emily Shaw?”
He ignored my question, the scuff of his shoes, and the direction of his voice telling me he was pacing in front of me.
“I was hoping that scene I left at Janus Vault’s hideout would motivate his team to do the work for me, but they’ve been useless, spending more time looking for me than Silas. Where’s the loyalty?”
We’d thought the way the files were dumped out looked staged. Now I knew they had been. I tried another question. “What does Silas have to do with Emily?”
“They haven’t told you much, have they?” he asked, sounding amused at my ignorance.
I was going to kill Eli. Except I probably wasn’t going to get the chance. I didn’t answer.
“How about we play a game?” he said. “They may not have let you in the loop, but I’m guessing there’s a good chance you’ve got some information buried in your head that could help me.
This job is more complicated than I expected.
I want to finish up and get paid. Things are becoming messy. I don’t like mess.”
“You blew up my van,” I said. “That was pretty messy. Ditto for Emily Shaw.”
“Bombs aren’t messy. Bombs are beautiful. Fire and noise,” he said, and I thought I could sense a smile in his voice. “Blood and body parts are not my thing. Fortunately, by the time you explode, I’ll be long gone.”
I wanted to snap back with another sarcastic comment to show him I wasn’t afraid, but at the casual mention of me blowing up, my throat went dry.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, breathless.
“I need to sanitize this location and neutralize you, and I need to do both quickly. But I could also use some answers. So, I strapped a bomb to your chest. It’s on a timer.”
His voice got louder. Air moved against my cheeks, carrying a woodsy scent that could be cologne. A slight pressure on my chest, and a beep, like he’d pushed a button.
“There,” he said, satisfied. “Now the timer’s started. Ten minutes. Ten minutes for you to answer some questions. If I like the answers, maybe I’ll turn off the bomb, and we’ll do this a different way.”
“But you’re going to kill me,” I stated flatly. “Even if I talk.”
“It’s my job,” he said easily, clearly not bothered by my objections to my coming death.
“Your job is to kill people?”
“My job is to clean things up, and the people running Ghost Trace left more loose ends than they’d planned. They didn’t think it would matter. Emily and Silas were bad enough, but then you stumbled into the mix. So now I have to get rid of you, along with any evidence you’ve left behind.”
More than anything, he sounded irritated at the additions to his to-do list. My death was an irritation.
Fuck this guy. I might be ten minutes away from death, but I wasn’t going to make it easy for him.
“What’s Ghost Trace?” I asked, mentally sifting through everything the team at Sinclair Security had let slip. I was sure I’d never heard the words Ghost Trace.
“Jesus, they really did keep you out of the loop. You don’t need to know about that.
We don’t have time to waste with explanations, and that’s a complicated one.
I don’t even know all the answers. But I know enough to know that Emily Shaw needed to go, and so does Silas Creed.
And you, for getting in the way, collecting all of your evidence. ”
Ghost Trace might be what Eli and his team needed to figure out where Silas was. And it was going to die with me. What a waste.
“This is a first,” he went on. “A podcaster stumbling into an assignment. You’ll probably go to number one after you get murdered on the job.”
He wasn’t wrong.
“What do you want to know?” I asked, wondering if there was any merit in keeping him talking, considering the timer on my chest.
He assumed someone was coming after me. But Eli thought I was researching in the apartment.
He probably wouldn’t even check. I hoped he didn’t.
If the building was going to explode in less than ten minutes, he’d never get here in time.
Even if he did, he wouldn’t know about the bomb.
He could get caught in the blast. I should have told him I was leaving.
I should have talked to him. I should have?—
Something beeped from my chest.
“Thirty seconds down,” he said. “Tick-tock. Question time. Where was the last place you traced Silas to?”
I gritted my teeth. I didn’t have an answer, and even if I did, I wouldn’t give him one. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t believe me if I told him I didn’t know.
As far as I knew, we hadn’t traced Silas anywhere. That was the problem. But it looked like one of us was going to get away, and it probably wasn’t going to be me—in which case, I wasn’t sending him out there with any more information than he’d come in with.
“Not talking?” he mused. “Let’s see if this helps.”
Two cold points jammed under my chin. I heard a click and fire burned across my nerves, down my spine, up into my skull as I felt myself sliding into unconsciousness.
I fought to keep my eyes open, though I couldn’t see through the blindfold.
I wasn’t going to pass out—I couldn’t let that happen—but goddamn, that hurt.
I remembered every other time I touched a loose wire or got a random shock, and how I’d thought that was painful.
Ugh. This—that fucking taser—was so much worse.
“I don’t know anything about Silas,” I ground out as soon as I could make my mouth work again.
“I don’t think I believe you,” he said. “I think you’re just being obstinate. I’m going to ask again. Where was the last place you traced Silas Creed to?”
I shook my head slowly.
“How about we play an answer for an answer?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“Because you don’t know anything, or because you’re stubborn?”
“You’re not offering me much of a reward,” I said. “If I tell you what I know, do I get to leave?”
“No, I’m afraid you don’t.”
“Well then, why would I talk?”
“Because I can make the last nine minutes and three seconds of your life incredibly painful. Trust me, nine minutes can be a very long time.”
I believed him. Even more when that cold, sharp metal jammed into my shoulder and the fire spread across my skin again.
I screamed. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t stop it. The burning. It hurt. Fuck.
I let my head loll forward, sucking in air, trying to get my thoughts straight. I didn’t have anything to tell him.
I thought of the post office box, the letter.
Miss Carmody. No. I wasn’t sending this man her way.
I wasn’t even sure whether the letter or the existence of the box was useful.
On the chance it was, he wasn’t getting it from me.
Maybe if I thought I could bargain with my life. But he was going to kill me anyway.
I didn’t give a shit about Silas. I didn’t know Silas, but I wouldn’t betray Eli. Not like that.