Chapter 26
NOVA
FROM THE GRAVE
Tank bursts through the door with a vicious, snarling smile contorting his face. His eyes are terrifying, wide and hungry, and when he starts this way, I cry out and tuck Lincoln’s blade back into its handle, the handle into my bra where a coin once rested.
My heart skitters in panic, my arms flailing as I fall, too close to the edge of the mattress.
Lincoln grabs my wrist, painfully yanking me to safety and stuffing me behind his back.
But Tank stalks across the room and latches onto my other wrist, pulling me the opposite way so hard, I fear the bone might simply snap.
“No!” Like a rabid animal, I kick and scream and fight his hold, scrambling back in search of safety. My pulse gallops, and my eyes sting, blurring from tears and exhaustion. When I blink them clear, I find myself looking straight down the barrel of a gun.
Lincoln’s gun.
He nudges it two inches to the right and points it directly at Tank’s face. “Release her.” He tightens his left hand, so I become a doll pinioned between the two. “Now.”
“You and her?” Tank’s devilish stare jumps from mine to Lincoln’s. “You turned, Castro?”
“You’re not taking her.” Caging his rage, he maintains his aim and his hold on me while climbing off the bed and finding his feet.
He pulls me closer until my shoulder strains under the pressure of two powerful men.
“I’ll kill you,” he seethes. “I’ll kill Aster.
I’ll kill your fucking dog if you have one. You’re not taking her.”
Tank turns his amused gaze my way. “He turned for you?”
“No!” Save him. Spare him. “He just doesn’t like sharing. He wants to kill me himself.”
“Last chance,” Lincoln snarls. If he pulls the trigger, the entire household will be alerted to this, anyway. “Release her and tell Aster she’s dead, or I’ll scramble your fucking brains and take her, anyway.”
“The code—”
“She doesn’t know it. Destroying the coin meant destroying the code. It’s gone.” He wrenches me closer, and because Tank still holds me, his arm jerks forward with my movement.
For reasons I’ll never know, in a deliriousness I’ll never understand as two men play tug-of-war with my exhausted body, I drop my eyes to the ink decorating Tank’s forearm and study the ferocious lion roaring from his flesh.
It has sharp, snapping teeth and a luscious, detailed mane.
Deadly golden eyes. And amidst all that, a small, almost hidden compass.
It could be the concussion making me woozy, or maybe I’m already dead. Perhaps I’ve lost my fucking mind. But I twist free of Tank’s grip and lay my palm over his forearm instead.
Ridiculously, I stroke the compass.
The compass.
I’ve seen this compass before.
“Wait.” My stomach lurches. Confusion. Dread.
Devastation. For just a moment, nothing makes sense, and yet, everything does.
My body aches from the abuse I’ve sustained over the last few weeks.
My legs are weak. My head swims. But through it all, I stare at his arm and think back to the last time I saw a tattoo like this.
Ryan.
His playful eyes, taunting me.
The compass on his arm. The one he had penned a few years back while I sat beside him in a tattoo parlor.
It was a promise that he’d always find his way home to me.
Tank’s lips curl into a devious grin. “Heads, I win.”
He releases me, so I stumble back with a gasp and crash into Lincoln’s broad chest, knocking his aim wide and forcing him to catch me as my knees give way.
But then Tank turns and removes a handgun from the holster at his side. “Tails, you lose. Follow me.”
“Woah!” Lincoln wraps his arm around my stomach, lifting me clear off my feet. “What the fuck?”
I drop my weight with a grunt and try to run. To chase. To trust. “He’s on our side. We have to follow him.”
“My side?”
“Ryan’s side.” A wash of giddy hope fills my veins. “He’s… Oh, God. He’s here to help. Come on!” I try again to run. “Lincoln! Let me go. We have to—”
“No,” he snarls. “Explain.” He tucks me behind his back and points his gun at Tank. “You’re on no one’s side except Aster’s. Your reputation precedes you.”
“Kinda like yours?” Tank stalks across the room and closes the splintered door.
Turning, he leans against the wood and folds his arms, tipping his head back in an uncharacteristic show of exhaustion.
“Only one of us is guilty of our crimes, Castro. Now, you get two minutes, then I’m walking out of this room.
If you don’t do as I say, I’ll turn you over to Aster. If you do, I’ll get her to safety.”
“Bullshit!” Lincoln booms. “We’re both on Aster’s payroll. I know who you are, man. I know what you are.”
“You know only what I allow you to know, and hear only the reputation I spread.” He brings his dark brown stare down to mine. “Ryan wrote you a letter. A story of Aster’s daughter’s death. He would have told you about Bastion Conroy and Paul Jameson.”
“How do you—”
“Arabella Aster was in love with a soldier,” he drones, his tone barely more than bored. “Star-crossed lovers. She wanted to be with Jameson, and Conroy wanted money and power.”
“Yes, I…” I shakily step out from behind Lincoln. His grip grows tighter, his fingers, bruising. “You read the letter after searching my home?”
“No. But I looked for it. I wasn’t sure if Nichols had told you, and I needed to know how deep in you were. But you talk a fuckin’ lot while you’re delirious and unconscious, and we had a thirteen-hour drive where my only entertainment was listening to your ramblings.”
“You lie—”
“You spoke her name. You cried in your sleep and raged at Conroy and Aster and even Jameson. You wept for your brother and dreamed of the crash.”
“No—”
“I fuckin’ heard you, Nova! But you spoke his name, too.” He tips his chin toward Lincoln. “And those ramblings were less clear. Was your love a result of his trickery? Or did I have a comrade behind enemy lines?”
“A-a comrade…?”
“The story Ry told you isn’t exactly how things went down.
” Leaning away from the door, he drags it open just an inch and peeks into the hall before closing it again and resuming his position.
“It’s the version he believed to be true, so he didn’t lie.
But the key traveled with a false story, in case its keeper was captured and tortured for information. ”
“Torture.” Hope makes way for reality. For hopelessness. “You are the man who tortures those people. That’s you.”
“I’ve collected the codes,” he concedes. “On Aster’s orders, I’ve hunted men down and reported back with partial coordinates.”
“Exactly! You—”
“But I never gave Aster accurate numbers, and the keepers I supposedly killed are currently chillin’ in Florida or some shit. Aster possesses what he thinks are four of the five codes, and you have the fifth. In reality, Aster has nothing, while I have it all.”
“So, you double-cross your boss and think we should trust you?” Lincoln takes a step forward, shielding me with his stance. “You found out about the money and wanted it for yourself?”
“WITSEC, stupid. Three of the five code keepers are in protective custody. Ryan Nichols wasn’t so lucky, because Aster sent someone else before I could get there.
And the fifth code keeper, Jameson’s son, remains hidden behind a secret identity.
You, being the final, makes you a high-profile trace.
But Aster insisted he’d send—” He tips his chin toward Lincoln. “A fuckin’ bogey.”
“So, you… you…” My concussion is too severe. My brain, too slow. I blink once, twice, a third time, to clear the gray haze blurring my vision, but all I manage is a groan, because a headache pounds at the back of my skull. “I don’t understand. You’re a cop or something?”
“Or somethin’.” He shrugs. “I already know the fifth code, Nova. I just need to be sure no one else does.”
I memorized it. A million times over, I branded it in the recesses of my mind. “If you already know them, then why don’t you just go there?”
“I do go there. Often.” He twists and inches the door open again, peeking into the hall. Closing it again, he glances back. “My job is to make sure no one else can get there without an invitation.”
“You don’t care that Conroy stole all that money?
Or that he disposed of Arabella’s body?” I take another step forward, only for Lincoln to jerk me to a stop and pull me back.
“You say you know where it all is, and you’re not killing the keepers of the codes…
So you’re hoarding the money for yourself? ”
“I’m saying I’m a keeper of something far more precious.” He grins. “Something legions more valuable than a soldier’s supposed buried remains.”
“Supposed—”
“Arabella’s alive, Nova. The money was stolen, but not by Conroy.
She siphoned his accounts. She set her father up to fail.
She faked her own death, and she ran away with her soldier to live a long, happy, abuse-free life, far from the clutches of a man who would have sold her to the highest bidder.
The coordinates were never about hiding money and the body of a traitor. ”
“They were a protective detail,” I whisper. “Shielding Arabella from the life she never wanted…”
“Ding-ding, kiddo.” He clicks his tongue and smiles, despite Lincoln’s rumbling snarl.
“And it was working just fine at first. Aster was ruined, and the secret was safe. But then someone blabbed, and his hunt restarted. Call me a fuckin’ cynic, but I’m at the point where I’d rather be the sole keeper of the codes instead of sharing the load amongst five men. For her safety. For Jameson’s.”
“But why?” I take a step forward. “Why do you care?”
“Jameson’s son,” Lincoln growls, dragging me behind his back and lowering his gun. “You’re Arabella and Jameson’s son. The fifth keeper of the secret.”
“At your service. And since you swear on your fucking life that you destroyed the code and shared it with no one else—” He steps away from the door and gestures toward it in a sweeping motion.
“It’s time for me to do what I do. Get you out, put you away, keep you safe.
It would be far easier for me to shoot you both in your fuckin’ faces and call it a day, but Ry never shut up about his baby sister in all the years we knew each other.
If I hurt you, I’ll never see a moment of peace until I’m dead.
And it’ll only get worse when we meet up in the afterlife. ”
“How do you plan to get her out?” Lincoln stalks forward a half-dozen steps, pulling me along in his wake.
He doesn’t know that my knees knock. That my heart aches, and my head swims. He doesn’t know I’m half a breath away from falling and sabotaging our escape.
“We’re in his fortress, and someone’s gonna take issue with you leading her out the front doors. What’s your plan?”
“We walk.” So simple. So insane. He purses his lips and spies me leaning around Lincoln’s broad shoulders.
“She’s our prisoner. You work for Aster.
Same way we got in here, we get out. Then I’m putting you in a fucking car and bringing a couple of bodies and the fifth set of bogus codes to Aster.
You disappear, get yourself a new name and a cute little house on the river, and I get to fuck the old man over just like Conroy did decades ago. ”
“He’s your grandfather,” I whisper, drawing a long breath and releasing it on a shuddering exhale.
“All this time… hiding Arabella, hunting down the codes… and you’ve been right here under his nose.
” I shake my head. “If she faked her death to get away, there’s no way she’s okay with her son coming back. ”
“We lie to those we love,” he shrugs. “Arabella Aster fought for her freedom, and now I’ll do the same. But you’ve gotta walk.” He lifts his gun higher, racking a bullet and pointing it my way.
Lincoln releases a feral snarl and steps between us.
Tank chuckles. “You’re gonna have to be okay with me poking this in her back, or we aren’t going anywhere.
Aster’s in his private suite for dinner.
We have an hour, at best, to haul ass out of here.
But once we start, we have five minutes to get from this door to the other side of the gates, because once word spreads you’re being moved, he’s gonna get curious. ”
“Why did you bring me here?” I step around Lincoln, swallowing a hiss of pain when his hands squeeze my aching ribs.
Nausea rolls in my stomach, tickling my windpipe.
“If you are who you say you are, and if you already have the codes, why bring me here? You could’ve taken me straight into protective custody.
You could’ve killed me. You could have done literally anything except bring me to this house. ”
“Despite what you think, I’m not actually your friend, Nova.
I’m not even your hero. I’m here for Arabella, which means ensuring that your portion of the coordinates remains safe.
I needed to know if Castro had them, and until I’d secured all five sets, my role within Aster’s world needed to be maintained. ”
“Which brings you back to killing us now.” Lincoln lifts his gun once more. “We know your secret, and if you walk us into that hall, we might start singing. A smart man would neutralize those kinds of threats.”
“Luckily for you, I’m more concerned with the things Ryan Nichols will do to me from the grave than I am with whatever you might say between here and the gates.
After that, it doesn’t matter anyway.” He tilts to the side and meets my eyes.
“He told you to trust me, kiddo. You might not realize it, and you may be really fuckin’ skeptical right now, but you know it’s true.
And if I were a betting man, I’d say he told you not to trust whatever random douchebag showed up at your door after his death.
” He brings fiery, firm eyes back to Lincoln’s.
“If you can stand behind him, confident his affection for you will keep you safe, then you can stand behind me and know my respect for Ry will do the same. If you can’t do that, then you’ll see your brother soon.
He’ll say he told you so. Now shut up, act afraid, and if I hit you again, know it could be so much fuckin’ worse. ”