Chapter 2
ISABELLA
Remy drives like he's being chased by the devil himself. Which, technically, we are—maybe not the actual devil, but someone who works in close concert with him. Right now, a supernatural deity is easier to accept than my former mentor hunting me through Prague's streets.
I clutch my messenger bag against my chest and watch Prague blur past the window.
Cobblestone streets. Gothic spires. A city I chose for its anonymity, now burning behind us in the rearview mirror.
Smoke rises from the warehouse district, thick and black against the night.
Emergency vehicles will be there soon, if they're not already.
Questions will be asked. Bodies will be counted.
My stomach turns.
He takes another corner without slowing, tires protesting against wet pavement. His jaw is set, eyes constantly moving between the road and mirrors. Every movement precise despite the way he's favoring his left side.
He's hurt worse than he's showing.
When he ran toward me from the collapsing building, his stride hitched. He protected his ribs when he yanked the messenger bag's strap over his head. Blood on his neck where the scarf didn't quite cover. Burns, maybe, from the heat and debris.
He dove through a window and walked away.
He ran away, actually. Then drove.
My hands should be shaking. Most people's would be. I've just watched a man—this man—infiltrate a burning chemical plant, detonate enough explosives to level the building, retrieve my research data, and escape a structural collapse that should have killed him.
Instead, I'm watching him work. Using one-way streets and foot traffic. Matching the speed limit on main roads, then accelerating hard through side streets. Every choice deliberate.
You could watch the world burn and take notes on combustion patterns. My thesis advisor said that once, shaking his head.
He wasn't wrong.
"You're bleeding," I say.
Remy glances at me, just for a second, before returning attention to the road. "I'm aware."
"How badly are you hurt?"
"I'll live." He takes another turn, this one onto a quieter street lined with apartment buildings. Glances at the mirrors. "You?"
"Uninjured." A miracle, considering. "Where are we going?"
"Safe house. Just a little bit further."
A safe house sounds absurd. Nothing about the last hour has been safe. Nothing about the next hour will be either, given that people apparently want me dead—or worse.
The people I worked for want me dead, preferably before I can tell anyone what I know. They already have my research, already have what I helped them build. What they don't want is my testimony.
This Lazarev person wants Remy. Or so I gather from what he said.
And I'm caught between them because I was naive enough to believe my aerosolized delivery system would save lives instead of ending them.
Guilt rises sharp and bitter. I force it down. Later. When I'm not running for my life.
Remy pulls into an underground parking garage, the kind that services multiple buildings. He drives past the first levels before parking on a lower floor, backing into a spot that gives him clear sight lines to both elevators and the exit ramp.
Parking with purpose. Of course.
The engine dies. He sits for a moment, listening. Windows down despite the cold. He's evaluating threats before moving.
When he does move, it's fluid. Out of the truck, scanning the garage, one hand hovering near the weapon holstered at his hip. His other hand gestures for me to follow.
I grab my bag and comply.
Across the garage, through a service door that he unlocks with a key he retrieves from above the frame. Up stairs—he takes them faster than I'd like given his injuries, but I keep pace. My feet are bare against cold concrete, shoes lost somewhere in the chaos.
The safe house sits on an upper floor. Industrial space, exposed brick and metal beams. Remy unlocks multiple locks before pushing the door open.
He pulls me inside, closes the door behind us, and positions me with my back against it. "Stay here." Then he moves deeper into the apartment, weapon drawn, clearing it room by room.
I stay put, listening to him move. Closets opening. Furniture shifting. The thorough search of someone who knows what to look for and doesn't take shortcuts.
"Clear," he calls from inside.
I throw the deadbolt and step away from the door.
Sparse. Functional. A main room with kitchenette, one bedroom visible through an open door, bathroom presumably attached.
Furniture that looks comfortable but generic—nothing personal, nothing that couldn't be abandoned at a moment's notice.
Large windows overlooking the street, currently covered with blackout curtains.
And weapons.
A locked cabinet against one wall opens to reveal an arsenal that makes my stomach clench. Long guns. Pistols. Ammunition. Things I don't have names for but recognize as instruments designed to kill efficiently.
He selects items, checks mechanisms, loads magazines. Each movement economical.
I set my bag on the small table and watch him work.
Watching him is becoming a problem.
In the warehouse, survival instinct overrode everything else. Run. Trust. Follow. Don't question the man who's keeping you alive.
Now, in this temporary sanctuary, details emerge that survival buried before.
Remy is a large man. Not bulky, but solid. Built from functional strength, not aesthetics. Tactical gear emphasizes it—vest, holsters, and the utility belt with its various tools of destruction. Dark hair cropped close. Strong jaw. Dark eyes that miss nothing.
Hands that handle weapons like extensions of his own body.
He moves to the windows, adjusts the blackout curtains. Then to the door, reinforcing the locks with additional hardware from a drawer. Every action has purpose.
"Exits?" I ask.
He glances at me, something that might be approval flickering across his face. "Fire escape outside the bedroom window. Service stairs we used to come up. Front entrance downstairs has two routes to street level."
"You've used this location before."
"Cerberus maintains safe houses in major cities. This one's been active for a while." He finishes with the door and turns to face me fully for the first time since the warehouse. "You should clean up. Shower's through there. I need to make a call."
I look down at myself. Soot-stained. Disheveled. Blood on my sleeve that I think is his, not mine. Probably smell like smoke and chemicals.
"Will the water be hot?"
"Should be. Building's on municipal system, no reason it wouldn't be." He moves to the bedroom, gestures inside. "Check the closet. Should be something that'll fit. Shoes too."
A hot shower and clean clothes sounds like heaven. Also like a dangerous illusion of normalcy.
"What about you?" I gesture to his neck, where blood has dried in a dark streak. "You're hurt."
"I'll manage."
"You're injured," I correct. "At minimum burns or at least blisters. Possibly cracked ribs given how you're breathing. That needs to be treated before infection sets in or—"
"Later." His tone brooks no argument. "Call first. Then we assess."
I want to argue. The scientist in me sees a problem requiring immediate solution. But the woman who just fled a burning building recognizes priorities.
Information first. Medical care second.
"Fine." I head toward the bathroom, then pause at the doorway. "Thank you. For going back for the data. For..." I gesture vaguely, encompassing the entire disaster of the evening. "All of it."
Remy's expression doesn't change. "That's the job."
Right. The job.
I turn back. "Who hired you?"
"Can't say."
"Can't or won't?"
"Both." He moves to the window, adjusts the blackout curtains. "You can shower or you can ask questions I can't answer. Your choice."
"What is Cerberus?"
"Private military contractor. We handle situations governments can't or won't touch." He doesn't look at me. "Someone paid us to extract you. That's all you need to know."
"Someone." I cross my arms. "That's not particularly reassuring."
"It's not meant to be reassuring. It's meant to keep you alive." Now he does look at me, and there's something hard in his expression. "You want reassurance, I can't give you that. What I can give you is a safe house, clean clothes, and enough time to figure out next steps. Take it or leave it."
I study him for a long moment. He's right—I don't have better options. And whoever hired Cerberus could have let me die in that warehouse if they wanted me dead.
"Fine." I head into the bathroom.
I'm cargo. A mission objective. The fact that he risked his life to retrieve my research doesn't make this personal. It makes him professional.
I close the bathroom door and lean against it. My hands are shaking now that I'm alone.
The bathroom is nicer than I expected. Clean white tile, decent fixtures, soft lighting instead of harsh fluorescents. A first aid kit mounted on the wall above the toilet—industrial sized, meant for serious trauma, not scraped knees.
I strip off my ruined clothing and turn on the shower. The water pressure is good. Temperature climbs quickly to scalding.
Under the spray, I let myself have a moment of reaction. Muscles trembling from exertion and fear. The sound that escapes my throat is something between a sob and a laugh.
I'm alive.
Despite every probability, I'm alive.
Because an American demolitions expert with apparently no sense of self-preservation pulled me out of hell.
Get it together, Isabella.
I wash quickly, efficiently, using the generic soap and shampoo stocked in the shower. My hair will be a disaster without proper product, but vanity seems absurd given the circumstances. Clean is enough. Alive is enough.
When I emerge, wrapped in a towel I found in the cabinet, I can hear Remy's voice through the door. Low. Clipped. Reporting to someone.