Chapter 23 #2
“He sent me in.” He stops by another door, this time inserting a code—875975—before pressing his palm to a screen and allowing it to scan his digits.
I tuck those tidbits of information away and watch warily as the scanner dings with confirmation, then a heavy steel door releases with a gasp.
Air-locked room.
Not fuckin’ ideal.
Tank crosses the raised threshold and waits for me to do the same. As I do, I peek back and check the controls on this side to see if they match the other.
A keypad and a scanner.
Worse, he pushes the door closed and brushes his hand over the screen until the locks reengage.
“We headed into the President’s fucking bunker?” I force a sour smile and pretend I’m not planning to escape this concrete jungle.
Ignoring me, Tank continues his quasi-tour.
“How long’ve you been working on her?” I follow him through a broad sitting room, dread growing heavier in my stomach the deeper we go, and Ryan’s letter plays on repeat in my mind.
Aster already had his kingdom, and the men he trusted fucked him over.
A guy like that learns from his mistakes. If he has snakes in his grass now, there will be no deals struck, no promises of returning another day. And if his captives must run, the chances of escape are damn near zero.
Which means Nova and I will die with bullets in our backs, and our bodies dumped in an unmarked grave.
If we’re lucky, maybe they’ll bury us together.
“Tank?” I quicken my steps and smack his arm, grabbing his attention. He’s bigger than me. He’s bigger than André the Giant. But we’re on the same team, as far as Aster is concerned. We’re on the same fucking side of this war. “Aster been with her for long?”
“An hour.” He leads me through one last door.
I could wonder if there’s more to go. I could ask how much longer until we arrive. But the moment I cross the threshold and emerge into a room of tile and a masculine wooden desk, I hear her.
I fucking smell her.
I turn my nose to the air like a wolf in the wild, brutally aware his mate is nearby.
But unlike the wolf, I fight my instincts and stay put.
I grit my teeth and search for the source of her cries, but all I see are more bookshelves.
A couch. A couple of chairs on one side of a desk, a leather wingback on the other.
This is where he sits when he calls me. This is the room he sucks on those cigars and coughs up a lung because he’s too stupid to understand correlation and causation.
“Where is she?” I don’t even pretend to be subtle anymore. I stalk halfway across the office and turn a full circle in search of another doorway. A window. A secret fucking wardrobe. “I hear her. I smell her. But I don’t see.”
“This way.” He moves to the middle of three side-by-side bookshelves and taps the Bible on the third.
Ironic, really. He releases the book and steps back as a lock releases and a secret handle reveals itself.
Then he drags the heavy shelf inwards, revealing a stark gray room with polished concrete floors and the distinct tang of blood in the air.
I don’t wait for him to lead the way. Instead, I push past and stalk into the new room that’ll probably become my prison.
It’s where I’ll die. The last place I’ll know before my body is dumped and I’m never spoken of again.
My sister will miss me, but she knows to hide.
My texts will ensure she knows something is going down, and though she’ll never learn the details—the what, the where, the why—at least she’ll understand I never willingly abandoned her.
I follow the sound of Nova’s labored breathing, my heart in my throat, and my rage roaring hotter when skin slaps against skin.
Stepping around a tight corner, I discover the room is larger than first implied, windowless with concrete walls and sparkling concrete floors.
My pulse skitters when I find Nova tied to a fucking chair.
Blood pours from her brow. From the wound the doctors already stitched once.
From her neck, as her healing injury tears open once more.
Her cheeks are deathly pale, and her body slumps forward.
She remains upright only because of how her arms are bound behind the chair.
“I’m asking you nicely,” Aster snarls. Not so nicely. “Give me the code, and you can leave.”
“I don’t know,” she whimpers weakly. Lisping. Dizzy. “I don’t have a code.”
Aster flicks a blade free of his knife, the steel fin a glittering threat under bright overhead lights, then he stalks closer and settles the tip at her jugular. “You’ll tell me, young lady, or I’ll—”
“Richard?” I surprise the old man until his blade jerks and a bead of crimson bursts from the tiny cut he pokes into Nova’s skin. Straightening his back, he turns and faces me.
Behind him, Nova’s eyes whip open, stunning me with how focused they become. How determined she is. Her perfect rainbow gaze has been wrecked by swelling tears, whites that are pink, and pupils too large to not indicate a concussion.
And yet…
“I’m here.” I harden my expression as Aster slips his knife back into his pocket, and the small sliver of hope in Nova’s eyes turns to desolation. “You said you’d wait for me. You promised not to hurt her until I arrived.”
Desolation gives way to suspicion, and suspicion turns to anger.
There it is, pretty girl. Hate me.
Loving me is how you got here in the first place.
“She woke,” Aster answers casually, as if we’re discussing nothing more important than the weather. “Claiming ignorance for now. But everyone crumbles eventually. It’s a matter of finding the right pressure point.”
“You killed my pressure point,” she garbles, her voice no surer than that of an inebriated man stumbling home after a long night.
“For no reason. My brother is dead, and I don’t know what you’re asking for.
So I…” She slumps again, noisily exhaling.
“I don’t know what you want. But it doesn’t hurt anymore. Doesn’t matter what you do.”
“There are different kinds of hurt.” Aster turns again with fresh energy for a woman who finally speaks. “I can kill those you love, Nichols, and that’s one kind of pain. I can slice you up and break your bones, and that’s another.”
“You already did that,” she mutters. “It’s done.”
“But there’s a third. A special kind few survive.” He snaps his fingers. “Tank.”
“No!” I slam my hand to Tank’s broad chest, only to rearrange my expression as Aster turns. “I mean…” I swallow and calm my face. Calm my whole fucking soul. Dropping my hand, I start forward instead. “Let me try. Let me speak to her.”
“You can go to hell, too,” Nova mumbles, dribbling blood onto the dress she wore last night. The one she peeled off before climbing onto my bed. “You’re a traitorous bastard. You lied to me.”
You know I did! I admitted it. And even before then, your brother wrote you a fucking letter.
“You wormed your way into my home.” She groans, dropping her gaze and allowing her head to loll. “You took me to dinner and visited my work. Romanced me, and for what? I don’t even…” She sighs. “I don’t even know.” Lazily, she looks to Aster. “I don’t know what code you mean.”
“It’s on her coin.” I play one of the… zero cards I possess. I have no fucking clue what I’m doing. But I know I can’t get her out yet. So, time. I buy us time. “The code is on her coin. I found it last night.”
Delighted, Aster spins and slips his hand into her dress, yanking the chain free until her head jerks forward and a cry of pain follows.
“You didn’t say anything!” Elated, he presses the coin to his palm and desperately searches for numbers on one side before flipping it over and scanning the other. “I spoke to you last night. You didn’t say—”
“Because the code’s incomplete.” I lock in on a vague—shitty, but it’s the best I’ve got—plan.
She has the code in her head. She memorized it—maybe.
I don’t even know! But if her brain is the only remaining record of those missing numbers, then she must live.
“She was unaware of the coin’s significance when she received it with her brother’s belongings.
He sheltered her from whatever he knew, so when she got his things, all she knew was that it was special to her.
To the family. She didn’t know it was special to you. ”
“It’s incomplete?” Enraged, Aster grabs Nova’s hair and tears her head back until the click of her neck becomes audible, bouncing from wall to wall. “You destroyed it!”
“She didn’t know.” I take another step forward, controlling every fucking muscle in my body.
Every bone. Every instinct to swoop in and snap his neck before he breaks hers.
“She wasn’t told what it meant, Richard.
She just knew her brother was dead, and, in her grief, she punched a hole through the steel and hung it around her neck. ”
“The code’s gone,” she mutters, her head turning limp and her eyes falling shut.
She’s unconscious. Too scared. Or too hurt.
I refuse to consider that she might’ve fucking died.
“Let me try.” I carefully extract her hair from between his fingers, gently laying her head forward until her chin rests on her chest. If I’m not fast, she’ll die from that, too. “Give me time with her. She was falling in love, Aster. She was putty in my hands.”
“Doesn’t count anymore,” Tank rumbles. “She knows you’re her enemy.”
“She’s hurt and scared. Desperate.” I speak only to Aster.
He’s who I need to convince. “She’s dizzy.
Low blood pressure. She had no clue this war even existed twenty-four hours ago.
She just knows that, yesterday, she was in my bed.
And she fucking liked it. Leave me with her, and I’ll continue what I started last night.
I’ll get the code and end this for you.”
“If it’s gone…” Richard’s voice is both furious and horrified. Wary and vengeful. “If she doesn’t know the numbers, and never wrote them down…”
“She can’t think when she’s hurt, and the last thing you need is to scare her into making some up. Give her a room and something to eat. Give her a minute to rest, then I’ll convince her it’s in her best interest to tell you the code.”
“You had a week,” he sneers. “You already had your shot.”
“To find a thing,” I counter through tight teeth.
“To search an entire home for something you couldn’t describe, that may be a phone or a photograph or a letter or,” I gesture her way, “a lucky coin. Six days to find something, which I did, in fact, find. She was talking about the numbers, and how she’d punched a hole through the coin after her brother died.
It’s just an heirloom to her.” I lick my dry lips and search his eyes. “She couldn’t have known, Richard.”
“Let me try my way.” Tank steps closer. He wants to fuck, and Aster wants revenge. Meanwhile, I just want Nova to live. “I have a good fuckin’ success rate for this shit, Boss. I’ll have the numbers by the time you’re done with dinner.”
“No.” I step between Aster and Nova, forcing the old man to give Tank his back. “You let him hurt her, and she’ll take those numbers to the grave.”
“You care for her?” His brows pinch together, his head tilting to the side. “You care for the girl?”
“That bitch?” I hook a thumb over my shoulder.
“No. I care for a complete mission. I’ve spent time with her.
More than either of you combined. I know her, Richard.
She needs calm, not chaos. Comfort, not coercion.
She will remember the numbers once she’s eaten and caught her breath.
Her memory sure as fuck ain’t gonna get better while Tank is tying her to his bedposts. ”
“I’m hungry,” she mumbles sleepily, slouching in her chair until her shoulder blades risk popping free. Her hair dangles forward, concealing portions of her face, but she dazedly looks up through puffy eyes. “Wanna go to bed.”
“See?” I bring my focus back to Aster. “She’s wrecked. You gave me a seven-day deadline to complete my mission, but you robbed me of the last day. You owe me, Richard. She’s not your enemy. She’s just some dumb bitch who got swept up in whatever problem you have with someone else.”
Your daughter! Your entire empire, brought down by greed and power.
But I’m not supposed to know those things, so I shut my mouth and say nothing at all.
“Let me try first.” Tank grabs his crotch. “It’ll be faster and a helluva lot more fun. If that fails, we try his plan.”
I stare over Aster’s shoulder and swear to myself he’ll die before this is done.
To save his future victims. To avenge those he’s already hurt.
“Give me a day,” I grit out, bringing my icy stare back to Richard.
“We’re in your house, Boss. We’re not going anywhere.
She needs rest, not to be fucking raped. ”
“Fine.” He takes a step back and snaps his fingers. “Unbind her. Carry her to the guest quarters.”
“I’ll carry her.” I swoop in just as Tank slices her bindings, and her weak body slumps forward. I scoop her into my arms and don’t press a kiss to her brow. Though fuck knows, I want to. My entire soul begs to bring her comfort.
Tank marches around the chair, his arms outstretched to take her, but I stride away and make a beeline for the door. “Lead the way,” I command. “I’m gonna finish this fucking mission and get that code for you, Richard. I don’t fucking fail.”