Chapter 30
JETT
I was desperate to get Locke out of here. That text message hadn’t been from a number I recognized, but I assumed it was from Rocky.
It had to mean she was sending people to the villa, either because she’d accurately connected the dots between my elite vacation buddies and the Kiel Canal blockade and explosion… or because Trevi had tattletaled after I’d asked him for information on Malik Makida an hour ago.
Either way, I didn’t want Locke going down with the rest of them.
“Please, Johnny,” I begged as I rushed after him, reaching for his elbow. “Just go into town with me for the afternoon. Or take a drive with me.”
I was an idiot. As soon as I’d told Rocky who was here, she’d likely started pulling satellite surveillance to pinpoint a location for the elite visitors.
Locke shrugged me off. “I’m not leaving my guests.”
As we neared the front door of the villa, one of the hired guards was letting Liyana back into the house, and both of us stopped short.
Just as Locke had expected, she’d been shopping. She had armloads of packages and bags.
“Ah, Jett,” she said in surprise, handing a big paper-wrapped bunch off to an attendant. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here. You were right about the market stall with the flowers. I brought those as a thank-you for the housekeeping staff.”
I frowned, noticing that the flowers were wrapped differently than the way the flower seller had wrapped them for Zuri and me that first day. Not that it mattered.
“Oh. Well… good,” I said.
Locke seemed surprised when Liyana started to hand some of her shopping off to him like he was one of her servants, but he accepted the bags and played it off with a wry smile. “Jett was worried. Said you might not have been feeling well earlier.”
“Thank you for being concerned. I hope to someday repay your kindness.” Liyana gave me a warm look and patted my hand. “I was feeling a bit off. But all I needed was… retail therapy, I think they call it?” She looked around at the multitude of bags and beamed.
I managed a smile in return, but inside, all kinds of alarms were blaring. There was no way Liyana had had enough time in town to buy all of this. My sister Becca was an Olympic medalist shopper, and even she couldn’t have gotten a haul like this so quickly. Something was off.
I reached for Locke’s arm and pulled him back. “Can I talk to you? I just remembered something about—”
While I scrambled for a cover story, al-Qadiri strode into the entry hall. “Ah, there you are, my beloved. Back so soon?”
Liyana transferred her smile to him and kissed his cheek in greeting.
As her lips brushed his skin, she closed her eyes for the briefest moment, as if memorizing the feel of him.
Then she pulled away. “Saleem! I want to show you a picture one of the girls sent me.” She patted her head and glanced around as if looking for something.
“Oh! Would you be a dear and check to see if I left my glasses in the car?” She laughed.
“I’m becoming as forgetful as you, aren’t I? ”
“I’ll go look.” Locke stepped forward
I tightened my hand on his elbow to hold him in place. Something was wrong. I’d been in the spy world too many years not to feel it. My gut was screaming.
Liyana shot him a smile. “No, dear. Your hands are full. Saleem will get them. Jett, dear, could you possibly arrange for my purchases to be sent to—”
As Liyana chattered about logistics and wandered further into the house, I watched from the corner of my eye while her husband moved out the open double doors toward the sleek black town car on the far side of the gravel drive.
He waved to their driver, who stood close to the house, talking to one of the gardeners.
It struck me as odd that instead of standing to help his boss, he sat and watched—
And that’s when I knew.
“Locke!” I hissed. I yanked him back with as much force as I could, just as al-Qadiri reached for the door handle of the vehicle.
The explosion was instantaneous—a single, concussive bloom of fire and metal that punched the air out of my lungs.
The town car lifted off the ground, the blast folding it in on itself like paper.
Heat slammed into us a half second later, a rolling wave that tore through the entryway and shattered the windows nearby.
Shards of glass and blackened trim arced through the air, the driveway gravel peppering the house like hail.
Locke turned and covered me just as I tried to do the same to him. It resulted in a mini-wrestling match before he succeeded in shoving me under him, wrapping his arms around my head and tucking his face next to mine.
My arms banded around his back to keep him from popping back up and going to investigate.
The only sounds I could hear were muffled shouts and high-pitched ringing. Within seconds, Locke’s face had pulled back enough to look at me, to scan every inch of me for injuries. I could see his mouth moving, his eyes wide and panicked.
Baby, are you okay?
I reached for his face and pulled him down to me to press a firm kiss to his mouth. It was the only way I could think to reassure him. And me.
Dust and smoke seemed to float all around us as my hearing started returning in patches.
“Chiama l’ambulanza!” someone shouted. One of the guards.
Another guard snapped at Liyana in Qadiri, rushing to keep her from running outside to her husband. From what I could see through the open front doors, Saleem definitely hadn’t survived the blast.
Locke climbed off me and pulled me up, moving his hands over me and asking again if I was okay. His expression was so worried, it made my chest ache and my throat close up. I nodded. “’M’okay,” I tried to say, even though it didn’t sound right.
The fear in his eyes as he looked at me was stronger than any declaration. I wanted to cling to it, climb up its length and tangle myself in its vines until his affection and care were a part of me. But as my hearing returned, so did my brain.
“We need to leave,” I said again, squawking like a panicked broken record. “The authorities are coming.”
I could not be here when they arrived, and neither could Locke.
I would lose my job. I would lose the ability to remain anonymous and unattached to an international incident.
Locke… well, he could lose a lot more. If the authorities arrived to find his crew of guests here—including Esteban Alvarado—there was no telling what conclusions they would come to or how long they would hold him.
He was better off leaving, getting back to the States and under the protection of his high-powered attorneys, and then figuring out how to respond to official inquiries.
If he stayed, local and Italian national police would want to investigate him thoroughly, and they might make it difficult for him to leave Italy for a while.
“No, Jett.” Locke gripped my hand tightly as he pulled me toward Liyana.
Her shopping bags and flowers now lay strewn all over the filthy floor. Gravel and broken glass crunched underfoot. The woman herself was remarkably poised, standing calm amidst the destruction while the guards and drivers tried to contain the vehicle fire.
Locke reached for her. “Sheika,” he murmured respectfully. “Are you injured?”
She turned to him with mournful eyes but a determined expression. “My injuries will heal.” She pressed something into his hands. “I will see you at the next game.”
And then she turned around and stepped out of the house, where her driver spotted her and quickly ushered her toward another car further down the driveway.
I followed Locke’s eyes as he held up the small item she’d put in his hand. It was a piece of torn-out notepaper with HELV.HE written on it. The same note al-Qadiri had handed his wife during the game earlier for her to pass to his assistant.
“What does that word mean?” I asked.
“It’s the stock symbol for Helvig. You were right. It was him,” he said in a dull voice, looking from the paper to the destruction outside. “Makani and Kida. Makida.”
I tilted my head in the direction Liyana had gone and raised an eyebrow in a silent question.
He quickly shook his head and said in a low voice while staring out the door, “More likely her father. He would have been the one to arrange her escape, as well.”
“We need to go, too,” I urged, trying to pull him toward the door in the direction Liyana and her driver had gone. “Please, Locke. I’ll explain later. I need you to trust me. We can’t stay.”
He spun me around and kissed me hard, like a punishment. When he pulled away, he shook his face. “I won’t flee my own home. But you’re right. You shouldn’t be here when the authorities arrive. I can handle this myself. I need you to go.”
I’d never been so torn in my life. Stay here and try to make it right, explain to the authorities what I knew about everything—what I knew about Locke?
Or get out of here and protect him by playing stupid with my employer? Acting like I’d never been close enough to the people involved to have more information than I’d already given Rocky?
If I stayed, I’d get caught up in the investigation. They’d learn I was here. That I’d been closer to it than Rocky had thought. Not only would I lose my job, but my connection to Locke and the Paxis tournament would bring a level of scrutiny that Locke himself might not be able to escape from.
I couldn’t see any way of denying a relationship—no matter how innocent—with Locke Maris if I were here when the authorities arrived.
It would be way easier to play dumb to ESP if I could say I’d never even been here.
And if I could play dumb, I wouldn’t be asked to reveal anything else about the Kiel Canal, al-Qadiri, Alvarado, or any of the other suspicious topics Rocky would inevitably ask me about.
The best way to help Locke was to… leave him.
Fuck.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my heart wrenching with uncertainty and helplessness. “I…”
“Go, Jethro,” he said softly. “Give me one less thing to worry about. Please.”
I kissed him again and then bolted through the door. No passport, no money—those were still locked in the suite’s safe, where Locke would protect them from the authorities.
The only thing I carried was my phone.
But I knew it was enough.
All I had to do was hop on a train and pay with my phone. Travel up the coast and make my way to Liorland. Beg mercy from my cousins. Contact Rocky and ask for help repatriating.
The hardest part would be coming up with a story to explain it all. As if I hadn’t been in the thick of it.
As if I hadn’t helped cause it all.