6. Gwen
Gwen
After my ankles are freed from the ropes, I’m manhandled outside and over to a dirt path that runs parallel to the runway.
Rain starts to fall, a gray curtain that fits the mood. I want to look back, to pretend Easton’s here, but I don’t. I’d rather hold on to the image of him inside that hangar as I walk straight toward what feels like my death.
Up ahead is a concrete complex half swallowed by the jungle. Mud sucks at my sandals with wet pops, as if the earth herself wants to hold me back.
Yeah, I know, I know. I’m in danger. Not helo-crash-in-a-storm danger, either. This may actually be worse.
Just thinking about that mission when the bird went down . . . Easton remained so steady and in control, and that helped keep me calm.
Now I may never see him again.
Never catch the pop of the gum he’s always chewing while thinking—like his mind is working overtime and his jaw barely keeps up.
Or drink from his favorite U-M mug.
Find excuses to argue with him just because I enjoy the way he looks at me when we do.
Never again witness his poker face. That half-smile as he tries to hide the fact he’s figured out an answer before me but won’t admit it.
I mean, I wasn’t sure I’d ever see him again after he left last month, but now it’ll be a for-sure thing.
That thought worsens the tight band of pressure in my chest, and it pushes a lump into my throat, making it hard to breathe.
Shit, I’m going to cry. Pride—and straight up fear—kept the tears at bay on the plane. Pretending to be Natasha in the hangar enabled me to stand up to that woman. Now, here I am, unable to control it from happening.
I’m only granted a minute or so to stumble through my emotions before we come to a stop.
There’s an armed man waiting outside a door. He’s not wearing a mask, and he tugs at the brim of his hat, which shields his face from the rain. He looks me up and down before redirecting to the daft idiots on each side of me.
“Who’s the girl?” he asks.
“The girl has a name, a life, and a whole family,” I bite out, sniffling.
The guy at my left snickers. “Boss wants her in room nineteen for questioning.”
The unmasked douchebag (that’s being polite, in my opinion) snatches his radio. “This is Talon Three. I have—”
“Room nineteen,” someone cuts him off. Sounds like the woman I talked to in the hangar. “I’ll be right there.”
“Copy that.” He steps aside and lets us into the building. “Have fun,” he mutters as I’m dragged through a corridor, ominous fluorescent lights flickering overhead.
I lose count of how many armed men we pass, and how many turns we take before I’m forced into a room. The door seals shut behind us with a hydraulic hiss.
I’m greeted by bare cinderblock walls and harsh lighting. A metal table and chair are anchored to the floor, and the stench of bleach clings to the air.
The contrast from the hot, rainy outdoors to the air-conditioned inside has me shivering. I’m completely naked beneath this jumpsuit. I was checked thoroughly for trackers before the flight, and apparently, they didn’t even trust the fabric of my bikini not to transmit a signal.
My teeth start chattering as one of the guards shoves me into the only chair in there, then crouches to cuff my ankles. When his fingers skim above the cold steel, I snap out, “Get your bloody hands—”
“Relax, darling.” He rises slowly, his blue eyes glinting through the eye holes of the mask. I think this is the same son of a bitch who hit Juliette in the lift, and if I ever get free, so help me . . . “Just checking your pulse. Seeing if it skipped a beat for me.”
He winks, the bastard. I know exactly what he wants. He said as much on the plane while forcing me to strip. I was just too doped up to acknowledge his disgusting remarks.
Before I can tell him off, the door scrapes open.
The woman from the hangar joins us, tossing a duffel bag on the table as she begins speaking to the men in another language.
I don’t recognize the dialect, but based on the Aussie accents, the humidity, and the fact it’s summer in January, I must be somewhere south of the equator.
Maybe an island off the coast of Australia or New Zealand?
The men leave as she unzips her bag, and what she produces and sets in front of me snatches the breath from my lungs.
That’s why I’m here? But also . . . did they turn it on? Are we connected to a network here? Hope bubbles up inside of me, because Dad might be able to track me.
“It’s not online. I’m not stupid,” she remarks dryly, reading my thoughts—or probably the hopeful look on my face. “I do need your password, though.”
I stare at the familiar stickers, landing lastly on: F-A-F-O. This woman is about to understand the full weight of fuck around and find out, but I’m not sure I’ll be alive to see it.
“I don’t have time to try and get through your firewalls and break in,” she admits, sitting on the edge of the table, resting one forearm across her lap.
“No one’s capable of getting into my rig.” Okay, maybe there is one person, but he’s on Team Good Guy, and Julian will never help her. He’ll also be too busy searching for me.
No chance will I give her access. It’s far too dangerous for any of my programs or secrets to fall into this woman’s hands. But I’d love to get online so I can get a signal out to Dad.
“You might as well just kill me,” I say, unwilling to sacrifice others to save myself, “because I won’t help you.”
The side of her mouth catches, a smug expression sitting there I’d give anything to slap off her face.
“You can torture me all you want, I won’t—”
“I’m fully aware that torture won’t motivate you.” She quietly stares at me, and a strange sensation of darkness drops into the room. The air feels heavier and charged, like something unseen has joined us.
Chills prickle my skin, and water droplets from my hair roll down my face, hitting my lashes, forcing me to blink.
“You may not be an operator, but you’ve got spunk. And a spine. Believe it or not, I admire that about you. I’d expect nothing less from someone Carter Dominick trusts.” She’s talking so casually, like this is a job interview.
She sets her mobile in front of me, and acid pushes up into my throat at the sight of a zoomed-in timer before me.
“I couldn’t get to your little sister. She’s too protected.
So, I went with my second choice.” She nudges her mobile closer to me.
“The hotel you were staying at has enough C4 inside to take down the entire building. Your friends may have already checked out, but there are plenty of other guests there.”
She swipes through different surveillance camera views of the property, before landing on one of the familiar suites like the one I’d been in. Explosives, as promised, are waiting inside. She zooms in on the timer again.
“I will destroy this hotel,” she says firmly. “After that, a hospital. Maybe not in Dubai, but how about in London. Your half brother is an intern at—”
“Stop. Please.” The words rattle loose with desperation as tears well in my eyes. “Why are you doing this? What do you want?”
“I told you, I need your password.”
I grit down on my back teeth. “My team knows I’ve been taken with my rig. You really think they haven’t started containment protocols by now?”
She stares at me, a viciousness there that’s more unsettling than what she’s asking me to do. “Password,” she prompts again.
I close my eyes and slump forward as it hits me. “You’re going to remove the SSD. Work on it offline in a controlled lab. Clone everything without ever connecting it to a network.” This has always been my worst fear, leading me to be uber protective of my hardware, and now . . .
“Your team can’t nuke it if I don’t connect it to a network.” She pauses, and I feel her breath hit my skin. She’s leaning in. Close to me.
Defiance stirs inside me. “I can’t help you, and you know it.” I shake my head. “I’m not giving you the password.”
Once her minty breath is gone, I open my eyes and find her scrolling on her mobile.
“Let’s see here . . . London born. British nobility.
” She makes a tsk sound, the bitch. “Naughty girl, though, weren’t you?
” She glances at me. “At sixteen, you hacked your school to expose their corruption. You continuously embarrassed your uptight parents with all the trouble you kept getting yourself into. So, after secondary, you took off for uni in Montreal.”
My nails bite into my palms, and my stomach cramps from hunger at the worst freaking time.
“Arthur died when you were nineteen. Cancer. But two years later, you learned he wasn’t your biological father.
” She angles her head, brows drawing together.
“Wyatt Pierson, a decorated Navy SEAL, is your real dad. The one I presume is currently losing his mind trying to find you.” A smile comes and goes.
She’s loving this, the psycho. “You decided to move to the US to go to uni to be near him, but eventually you dropped out. You’re not great at sticking to your commitments, are you? Must be why you can never keep a man.”
I blink, shock laced with a heavy dose of horror temporarily immobilizing my ability to offer any comebacks.
“You’ve been working for your father, the secretary of defense, and Falcon Falls Security ever since you left uni.” She taps a red nail at her mobile screen. “Carter purchased The Sapphire along with Sebastian Renaud a few years ago, and you reside there.”
Lots of people know about the hotel, but—
I drop that thought when she begins to list off every operative working at Falcon Falls, including their loved ones—from spouses to children. Oh God . . .
The room spins, and I shut my eyes again.
“Stop, please,” I beg, opening my eyes.
But of course, she doesn’t.
She keeps going, killing me with every word.
“That hotel has a revolving door of operators coming and going. Though, I heard one left not too long ago.” Her mouth tips at the edges. “Where is that pilot now? Thought he was supposed to protect you.”
She sets her mobile down and dips into her bag for something. Duct tape and a set of handcuffs appear on the table. “If you don’t want any blood on your hands, you won’t fight me while I tie you down to that chair. Understood?”
I nod. What other choice do I have?
She unties the rope from my hands, then tethers one wrist to the chair with it. Slapping a cuff around my other wrist, she secures it to the second chair arm, effectively restraining me.
“Money,” I offer up, my voice weak. “Carter will pay you whatever you want. My parents, too. Just name your price.”
“What makes you think I need their money?”
“Isn’t everything about money?”
“Not always.” She picks up her mobile and studies it for what feels like the longest minute of my life, before turning it around to show me something.
My pulse pounds in my ears so loud it drowns out everything else.
The timer blinks: 00:03.
Air rushes from my lungs.
00:02.
The world tilts—
00:01.
—and fire fills the screen.
I yell out, jerking from side to side in desperation to get loose from the chair, but I’m anchored to the floor.
“Soundproof room, and who do you think is going to save you anyway?” She swaps her mobile for my rig. “Password. Or Arthur Junior’s hospital is next. I have eyes on him now. He’s working a shift in the ER.”
I can’t process this.
Not any of it.
She’s not human. She can’t be. She just killed all those people and didn’t even blink once.
“What’s the password? I won’t ask you again.” She unclips a radio from her side and transmits, “Talon Six, I need you. Room nineteen. Now.” She hooks it back to the waistband of her jeans, then goes for the duct tape.
Shit. “How am I going to answer you if you do that?” I protest, but she ignores me and places not one, but three pieces of tape over my lips.
“We’re about to have company. I can’t have you running your mouth when she’s in here.” She tosses the roll of tape on the table and tucks my rig into the duffel bag, zipping it up.
Tears fall fast, but the sob I unleash is muted. All I can do is tremble in place. So many people are dead because of me. This can’t be real.
After a few painstakingly quiet moments, the door clicks and slowly opens, revealing . . .
Zoey?
For a second, all three of us just breathe. The only sounds come from the faint whir of the AC and the buzz from the overhead lights.
Now I know why my mouth is covered—so I don’t warn Zoey that she’s compromised. I don’t know what games this woman is playing, but if she knows so much about Falcon Falls, she knows who Zoey really is.
And wait.
That was Easton.
Oh my God.
I wish I knew Morse code so I could blink a message to her. Instead, all I do is yell against the tape, “She knows who you are!” But only garbled sounds come out.
“You needed me?” Zoey leans against the door, folding her arms. She’s calculating risks, I can see it in her eyes. Formulating a plan. But she has no idea her cover is already blown.
“I wanted you to meet the package you’ll be delivering. You’ve been asking for an introduction to the boss. You finally get your wish.”
“Really?” Zoey raises her brows. “And who’s the girl?”
“Someone special, so take good care of her. I’d bring her myself, but I have somewhere else I need to be.
” She lifts her chin toward the door like a directive.
“Go find your husband and let him know you’re going with him.
He’s piloting the flight, and three of my men will also join you.
You’ll be leaving earlier than originally planned. ”
“Which is when?”
She checks her watch. “In two hours.”
“Anything else?” Zoey asks, and I can tell she doesn’t want to leave me in here, but what choice does she have? Even if Zoey’s armed, I doubt we’d make it far in that maze with so many guards.
“Yeahhh.” The dragon lady drags out the word. “Do what I already ordered your husband to do tonight.”
“Which is?”
“Release that pent-up tension you two have before you’re wheels up.” Her gaze slides to me, and oh this woman is pure evil.
I squeeze my eyes closed until I hear the door click shut.
“Not jealous? Really?” It’s just the two of us now, and she rounds the table and violently rips the tape from my mouth. “It doesn’t bother you at all that Derek is fucking her?” She tosses the tape onto the table. “Excuse me, I meant to say Easton.”
Tears continue to battle their way forward as I try and wrap my head around everything that’s happened in the last few minutes. “Please don’t hurt either of them,” I beg, no point in pretending I don’t know them now.
I still can’t believe Easton’s here. That it was him in the hangar.
“Seeing as though you’re now properly motivated”—she leans in and cups my chin—“you’re going to do exactly what I say. Or more strangers, along with everyone you care about, will die.”