CHAPTER 44
Luna
My hands tremble as I pull on the door handle.
I am so tired of shaking.
And vomiting.
And crying.
But I’m still alive and I have options. A lot of them. The fact that I even made it to this door is…extraordinary. I never use that word. But it fits.
Maybe someday I’ll feel proud of myself. Happy that my plan worked. Maybe someday I’ll feel something other than terror, anger, sadness. And smug that I outsmarted what has to be the most powerful shadow organization that’s existed in a couple hundred years.
I mean, damn.
The intel Quinn had on that computer…my father…
Quinn…no, Van. Of course none of this was real. It was an arranged marriage, for shit’s sake. He was just using me to get to Papa…Papa…Mama…
Not now Luna! You can have a grade-A level-one nuclear mental breakdown later!
I square my shoulders, act like it’s totally normal to walk into a high-end spa wearing a hoodie and sunglasses with a backpack that has a tiny dog’s head sticking out of it.
I just look down my nose at the front desk girl when her brow raises.
I act like I’m normal and everyone else is weird. Like a real New Yorker.
I whisper and lower my voice as low as I can at the same time when I command, “Tell your boss I’m here to see Vix.”
Man, I hope the rumors are true about this place. If not, that one sentence could be enough to flag voice recognition software.
“Um, no one named Vix works here…sir?” she adds the word with caution. I get it. I saw myself in the hand mirror in the woods.
“Trust me, go to your boss and tell them to tell their boss to tell their boss that I am here to see Vix. Now.”
She leaves behind a security door. Minutes tick by like decades. She said Vix’s name loud and clear. No one’s come out. There are probably three cameras in here. I’m dead.
I’m fucking dead!
“Right this way,” I hear finally. I force myself not to sprint up to follow her behind the front door. There’s a lock and a security guard. So I was probably right. This is a Russian front.
“You can wait in here,” the receptionist says awkwardly as she opens the door to a small office.
“Thanks,” I say.
When she closes the door I hear it. The door doesn’t snick closed, it sucks.
This is not an office. It’s a safe room. Or a holding cell.
Either way, I’m locked in Russian territory with no way out.
Damn it!