Chapter Thirty-Nine
Erin
The soft hum of the office is the only sound I can hear as I finish typing.
Every lead, every crumb I’ve found about Manticore is bundled together in one data packet.
Including the coded message leading back to Matteo’s server in The Bastion .
A week has passed since I’ve let myself unravel in his arms at the club, and I am done keeping secrets from him.
I’ve decided that I will tell him everything after lunch, when he is back from his meeting outside.
Hence, I am leaving him an encrypted folder on his PC desktop so he can have a look while we talk.
I know that he won’t be pleased that I’ve kept this from him, but I will explain, make him understand why I had held back the information.
I save the file on his home-screen, naming it something boring just in case, then I gently close his laptop and sit back, heart pounding. I exhale to steady my nerves. I know that I am taking a risk by entrusting Matteo with this information, but I hope that I am not mistaken.
A knock on the door pulls me out of my thoughts. Dave leans in with a grin. “You still glued to that screen, or do you want to try that Thai fusion place I was telling you about?”
“Sure,” I say, standing. “Let’s go.”
I send Matteo a quick text.
Going out to lunch with Dave, be back in a bit .
I don’t sign it, because I still don’t know what we are to each other.
We haven’t talked about this…relationship, whatever it is, and we certainly haven’t given it a label.
That’s why I don’t feel comfortable signing with an endearment or any other assertion.
Maybe this is also a subject I should broach with him.
So many things remain unsaid between us and I wonder where this is going.
I only hope that in the end I will not be left brokenhearted.
I push the thought down for now and stash the phone away into my desk drawer, then follow Dave into the elevator.
Chip and Dale, as I’ve dubbed my two silent bodyguards, fill up the rest of the space as we ride down to the main floor.
There, Dave and I head to the break room while my two shadows take position in front of the door.
But we slip to the kitchen door and out through the back exit.
We have been sneaking out like this every time I need to take a breather away from surveillance.
Matteo would be absolutely livid if he found out.
But then, he didn’t leave me any other choice.
I shouldn’t be the one feeling guilty , I remind myself and decide to savor my freedom for the time being.
The sun is bright and warm despite it being late fall, and the street is busy with people milling around. We’ve barely made it out a few steps when a cold voice behind me makes me freeze.
“Ms. Skye.”
No .
I slowly turn around to watch Agent Rourke make his way toward us.
“Mr. Rourke,” I reply as calmly as I can. “What can I do for you?”
Next to me, Dave stiffens.
Rourke is on me now, grabbing my arm so fast I don’t have time to react. It’s when I hear the click that I register the cold metal of the handcuffs around my wrists. “Erin Skye, you’re under arrest for obstruction of justice.”
I gasp, my mind spinning out of control as I am dragged away to a black SUV.
Dave shouts something behind me and I twist to look at him. “Call Matteo!” is all I can shout before I am shoved into the back of the car. After slamming the door shut, Rourke rounds the car and settles behind the wheel.
It all happened so fast that I am only now realizing what happened. I have been arrested! Panic claws at my throat. I claw at the door handle as best as I can with my hands cuffed behind my back, but the lock won’t budge.
“Let me out, this is a mistake, I haven’t done anything wrong,” I shout, willing him to listen, to believe me.
But Agent Rourke never looks at me, nor acknowledges that he has heard me.
He drives silently, not sparing me a glance.
After several minutes of unsuccessful attempts to reason with him, I lean back in defeat and look out of the window.
I frown. I don’t know where we are driving, but it doesn’t look like we are driving downtown to the FBI office.
“Where are you taking me?” My pulse spikes with fear.
I force myself to breathe. There must be a plausible reason, maybe there’s another office down south. But the longer we drive, the more run-down the neighborhood becomes. This can’t be right .
By the time we pull up to a red-brick building that looks more like an abandoned warehouse than anything remotely legal, I am yanking at the door handles hard enough to bruise my palms and crack my nails.
Rourke drives through a large garage entrance, and the sudden darkness is disorienting. The curtain-door slams shut with a loud screech and he cuts the engine. Then there is silence. My heart is a drumbeat in my ears.
Where is this place? What are we doing here?
The right passenger door is yanked open and I am grabbed by a pair of big hands and tugged out of the car.
I thrash and scream, but Rourke merely drags me after him into a dirty hallway.
He stops by a metal door and opens it. Then he pushes me hard against the wall to prevent me from running while he unlocks the handcuffs.
Once done, he unceremoniously shoves me inside the room.
I hear a loud clank and the click of a latch.
I swirl around and pound at the door, yanking the handle hard.
But it’s locked. My heart sinks, there is no way out.
I step back and look around and freeze.
I am not alone.
* * * *
Matteo
I wrap up the meeting, letting my legal team handle all further negotiations.
Time to go back to my little ghost. I’ve only briefly seen her this morning and I can’t seem to go too long without being near her.
I power up my phone to see a text from Erin and several missed calls. I tap her message first.
Going out to lunch with Dave, be back in a bit.
I glower at my phone and grit my teeth. That goddamn fucker. But I had promised Erin that I wouldn’t interfere in her friendships. And I also had a little talk with him, making it clear that a friendship was all there was going to be between them.
I push down my jealousy and open the call logs.
Twelve missed calls. Dave .
My blood turns to ice.
When I step into The Bastion , Dave and Allan are waiting for me in the lobby, as are the two guards I tasked with watching over her.
“Where is she?” I bellow from the doorway through the space. They all jump.
“M-Matteo…” Dave stutters. “The FBI, th-there was nothing I could do…”
I freeze. No… “Who?” My voice is deadly.
“Erin seemed to know him, she called him Rourke.”
I already have my phone to my ear when I give the two techs instructions to go up to the ops room and pull up the camera footage. I located her phone, but she must’ve left it behind because it still pings from The Bastion.
D picks up at the second ring.
“We’ve got a problem, the FBI took Erin.” I don’t waste words or precious time. “I’m calling Luc now.” I hang up to call him.
Ten minutes later, they are both in my office on the third floor, sitting at the conference table, faces grim.
“I’ve called the office of the special agent in charge of the Boston Field Office. They’ll call back,” Luc says without preamble.
I nod, trying to breathe. Trying to stay sane.
She needs me .
D is on the phone with his lawyers.
Luc frowns at me. “Is it him? Rourke?”
I nod again, because my throat is too constricted to let out a sound.
“Haven’t you…?” he trails off.
“Yeah,” I rasp. “I got him on forced leave. Wanted him fired, but they didn’t have any valid reason to do that, so they gave him some fucking vacation.”
“Doesn’t make sense,” D chimes in. He’d just hung up.
“None. He shouldn’t be working.” I reach out to my tablet and tap the screen.
The surveillance feed plays on the big screen.
D and Luc watch Erin being taken away with somber faces.
Me? I can’t look because every time I see her face when she is being dragged into that car, a piece of me is fucking dying.
Luc curses at the end of the footage. Then his phone rings and he picks up. He is listening intently. Suddenly he jumps up and bellows, “You better fucking have an explanation about what happened and where they are by the end of the hour or I’ll be coming by personally.” He hangs up with a curse.
Dark, vicious dread coils in my gut.
I watch Luc’s livid face as he sits down again. When he raises his eyes to mine, I already know. She’s not there. It wasn’t an official operation. It wasn’t the FBI.
With a guttural cry, I jump up and hurl my chair through the office.