Chapter 9 #2
Asher headed for the adjoining door. Stopped. Looked back at her.
“For what it’s worth,” he said quietly, “I meant what I said. I’m not going to betray you. I would never hurt you. You can trust me.”
Daphne met his eyes, her throat filling.
She wanted to believe him. Wanted to trust him. Wanted to go back to tonight when dancing with him had felt safe and real and right.
“I’ll take first watch,” she said. “Get some sleep. I’ll figure out our next move.”
Asher held her gaze for another moment. Then nodded and went into the other room, closing the door quietly behind him.
Daphne stood. Moved to the window. Checked the parking lot. Two cars. Theirs and one other. No movement. No threats.
She pulled her weapon. Checked the magazine. Chambered a round. Set it on the nightstand within easy reach.
Then she settled into the chair by the window. Watch position. Clear view of the door. Clear view of the parking lot. Clear view of any threat that might come.
This, she knew how to do.
Behind her, Destiny’s breathing slowed. Evened out. Sleep finally claiming her.
Daphne sat in the darkness. Watching. Waiting. Protecting.
Rebuilding the walls, one breath at a time.
Asher should have told her everything last night. But maybe it didn’t matter. Destiny and Roger were still alive.
And he meant to keep them that way.
Sitting in his motel chair, on watch with morning light spilling in past the curtains and Roger snoring and his ribs screaming, Asher needed this to be over.
Draven wasn’t going to wait for him to take out Roger and Destiny.
Which meant that Asher needed to take out Draven.
Asher stared at water stains on the ceiling—brown rings shaped like continents on yellowed plaster. Knotty pine paneling. The smell of must and pine cleaner and antiseptic. Dawn light filtered through thin curtains, casting everything gray.
His ribs pulled with every breath. His forearm throbbed. Probably, she was right about the superglue. His head pounded from adrenaline crash and blood loss and too many hours awake.
But physical pain was nothing compared to the memory of Daphne’s face last night.
Tell me you’re not the reason they found us.
The suspicion in her eyes had burned through him.
And he’d wanted to tell her everything. Right there. While she was threading needle through his skin and her hands were steady and her eyes were guarded.
I’m not dirty. I’m undercover. I’ve been undercover for eighteen months, and Dmitri isn’t my contact—he’s my target.
Asher wasn’t the reason that the syndicate found them—that, he hadn’t lied about.
He shifted in the chair. The movement pulled stitches. Sharp pain radiated through his ribs.
Roger snored in the other bed. Deep. Rhythmic. The bed springs creaked every time he changed position.
Her words that had been circling all night wouldn’t stop.
There’s a mole. Someone knew where we were. Someone with access to operational details. Someone on the inside.
Someone knew where they were. Had access to their location. Had watched long enough to know the house would be empty tonight. To know they’d be at the dance. Dmitri’s tip had made the same thing clear.
Internal leak.
Patterson? His handler. The man who’d recruited him eighteen months ago. Patterson had access to everything. Could have leaked the safe house location.
But why? Patterson had built this case. Had spent three years investigating the Shadow Syndicate.
Unless that was the cover.
Michael Martinelli? Detective. Friend. Michael knew where they were. Had been coordinating with local PD.
Michael’s mother had been murdered while investigating the syndicate.
Michael had motive to want the syndicate destroyed. But rage could be manipulated. Could make someone vulnerable to offers they shouldn’t accept.
Asher knew that. He’d killed a man for his sister. Crossed lines he’d sworn he’d never cross.
Maybe Michael had crossed his own.
Dani Kim? FBI. Sharp. Part of the task force. She’d been at the safe house.
But Dani was new. Six weeks in Renegade. Before that, Baltimore.
Unless she’d been placed specifically to protect the syndicate. To monitor the investigation.
Anyone could hide anything for six weeks.
Or maybe it was someone Asher hadn’t considered. Someone administrative with access to files but who wouldn’t be suspected.
The problem was, Asher didn’t know. Couldn’t identify the threat.
Which meant he couldn’t protect Daphne. Couldn’t trust anyone.
Which was why he’d lain awake all night thinking about the ranch.
He checked his watch. Five thirty a.m.
Dawn bled further through the gap in the curtains. The heater under the window clicked on with a rattle, blowing lukewarm air that smelled of dust.
Asher stood. Moved to the window. Pulled the curtain back slightly—just enough to scan the parking lot. Their car and one other. Highway in the distance, where an early semi rumbled past. Creek rushing over rocks. Pine trees dark against lightening sky.
No movement. No threats.
Yet.
But the syndicate would find them, he knew it in his bones.
Unless…unless they made the syndicate think they were already dead.
Asher turned from the window. His bare feet crossed the worn carpet, thin enough he could feel the concrete underneath. Moved to the bathroom. Flipped on the light.
The harsh glare did nothing to help his cause. He looked…haggard. Dark circles carved deep under his eyes, his chest still bare. He reached for his Henley—still damp. Cold. Nice.
He splashed water on his face. Cold. Sharp. The pipes groaned.
Then he checked the bandages. The one on his ribs was clean. No bleeding through. The one on his forearm had a small red spot—penny-sized—but nothing concerning. Daphne had done good work.
Asher grabbed the hair dryer and poured heat on his shirt, then finally worked it on.
Everything hurt, but everything worked. So he should probably be thanking God for that.
Weird—he hadn’t thought about God in years. He blamed the conversation with Daphne from that first night. For a while, believing that God cared helped. Until my sister died. And that sort of felt like a betrayal…
It was possible he’d betrayed God right back, so maybe they were even.
Except…these past three weeks had felt a little like a fresh start. Or at least a truce. A sort of sunshine had poured into his life, chased away a few shadows.
Like God might not have forgotten him.
Or even, maybe, had forgiven him.
Until last night, of course.
A knock on the adjoining door.
Asher moved to it. “Yeah?”
“It’s me.” Daphne’s voice came through the thin door. Soft, and his stupid heart kicked up. “I have a plan.”
He opened the door.
Daphne stood in the doorway, dressed in black tactical pants and a black Henley. Hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. Eyes alert, despite the early hour—and missing nothing. She’d probably been awake all night too. A thermos of coffee sat on the dresser behind her, steam rising from the open top.
“Morning,” Asher said. “Where’d you get the duds?”
“Go bag, in my trunk.”
“Smart. I left mine in the closet.”
She nodded. “We’ll get you new clothes. Can we talk?”
He stepped aside. She moved past him, her shoulder not quite brushing his—careful, deliberate distance. The smell of coffee and soap followed her in.
Behind her, through the connecting door, Destiny stood by the window in the other room. One hand braced against the wall. Her bathrobe hung loose on her frame, posture weaker than yesterday. Shoulders sagging. Skin pale, even in the dim light. Dark circles under her eyes matched everyone else’s.
Roger picked then to get up and head to the bathroom.
Daphne kept the door open and turned to face Asher.
“We need to fake their deaths. Stage something convincing. Make the syndicate think they won. Buy ourselves time to figure out who the mole is and get Roger and Destiny safely to testimony.”
Asher blinked at her. “I was…I was thinking the same thing.” He’d even run through a few scenarios. Logistics. Problems. “How?” he asked.
“A car accident. Mountain road. Vehicle goes over a cliff. Burns. Bodies too damaged to identify immediately but dental records confirm later.” She took a sip of coffee, made a face. “This is tar.”
He wanted to smile, but it felt too much like stepping over a line. “The syndicate will want proof.”
“Right. The fire department finds the remains. We work with a medical examiner to confirm identities. Everything goes through proper channels, just in case the mole is paying attention.”
“That’s a lot of moving parts.”
“We’ll need help. But we choose who to trust.”
“And if they want visual confirmation?”
“Medical examiner’s report is what matters. And I have a contact in the coroner’s office who can help with that.”
“Who?”
“A friend of my dad’s. Works as a forensic pathologist.” Daphne crossed her arms. “It’ll work.”
Asher studied her. Gaze steady. Jaw set. She’d clearly been planning this for hours. “Walk me through it.”
“We get two vans. Identical. We’re seen getting into one and leaving the motel with Roger and Destiny. We drive into Renegade. Somewhere along the route, we switch vans. They stay in the second van with me. You continue in the first van with dummies positioned in the back seats.”
“Where do we switch?”
“Service station. Gas stop. Somewhere with enough vehicles that one van blending in makes sense. The second van is already there. We make the switch in under two minutes.”
“Then?”
“You drive the first van up to Blackwater Pass. Isolated stretch. Rig it so you can control it remotely. Position the dummies. Send it over the cliff. Detonate on impact to ensure fire.”
Blackwater Pass. Asher knew it. Narrow mountain road twenty miles west of Renegade. Switchbacks. Steep drops. Sheer rock face on one side, nothing but air on the other. Remote enough that no one would witness, except whoever you wanted there.
“That requires a little technical finesse.”
“You have that?”
Asher nodded. “Yeah. I have that.”
“Good. I’ll switch Roger and Destiny to a third car, pick you up, and we’ll head to wherever we’re hiding.”