52. Gwen
Gwen
My pulse hasn’t dropped below combat tempo since we rolled into the hangar.
It doesn’t help that Carter’s prowling alongside the jet, stalking back and forth and barking out orders to his captain to “check everything again.” Condensation ghosts from his breath with every clipped word.
I think he’s having flashbacks to Thailand, when our plane would have crashed had Julian not anonymously warned us The Collective planned to take us out.
And now Julian’s in trouble. They switched targets from me to him, but how’d they even know he’s alive? If it wasn’t Elaina’s mobile they were monitoring—and it appears it wasn’t—then how do they know so much?
My gaze floats to the vapor curling from the vents beneath the aircraft as Easton secures his hand around my waist, keeping me tight at his side.
“I checked three times, sir. We’re solid. A fourth is overkill,” the captain bravely challenges Carter. “Easton and Nash did their own checks as well.”
Carter faces off with his captain. He’s not one to become unhinged, but we’re living in déjà vu territory. Old enemies right along with new ones. “Once more for my jet and Sebastian’s, then we depart,” he says decisively, then gestures to Nash to join the captain on that final pre-board check.
“What are you thinking?” Everything echoes around us, even the silence between Easton’s words.
Carter pivots, midnight eyes shooting to Easton’s warm brown ones. “They want you dead, not just in custody. They must’ve changed plans when they discovered Julian’s alive.”
“So we let them think we died back there. Buy us time so we have the element of surprise on our side.” Easton’s hand is now under my hoodie, resting on bare skin above the waistband of my jeans.
His fingertips press into my flesh, holding me tight, like he’s worried some invisible force will sweep through the hangar and steal me away.
“From guilty to dead after all.” I think back to that hallway conversation with Dad, which feels like a week ago, not this morning.
“Guess we’re back to my first bad idea.” I take a second to scan the hangar, crowded with operators, landing finally on my dad who’s getting his mild wounds treated as Natasha protectively hovers over him.
“Gideon said the footage at his hotel and the surrounding area was nuked. That’s why he can’t figure out how they got to his brother and Zoey while they were working in Julian’s suite,” Easton says. “There’s something important in that CCTV footage they don’t want us finding out.”
“And it’s worth them changing their plans from pinning their crimes on me to ensuring I can’t expose the truth,” I murmur in a bit of a daze.
“Jezebel and Molly—or whoever is running the show—now have Julian in London to blame for the cyberattack and future ones they plan to commit. Once they clone Julian’s rig, they’ll also discover the antidote to the nuked footage exists. ”
“And you kept that on your main PC not on your laptop, so they have no clue you have access to that,” Easton notes, and I quietly nod, my head still spinning. “But they’ll assume if you had the nuke program, that you must—”
“Know about the antidote, too,” I finish for him.
“All the more reason we let them think the Swiss killed us today.” Carter checks our surroundings again, then faces us, his jawline steel-cutting sharp.
“Now the question is, can you recreate the antidote so we can look at the footage they destroyed before we make it to London? We don’t have time to head to The Sapphire first.”
“London,” Easton repeats like it tastes bitter on his tongue.
He doesn’t want me going to the very place these arseholes tried to bait me to in the first place, and I get that, but we have no choice. Not with Zoey and Julian being held hostage.
“I can recreate the program in the air, yes,” I confirm with as much confidence as possible.
“But we need to buy Julian and Zoey time for us to get to them. We want these bastards feeling safe and relaxed, thinking they outsmarted us.” I shift my weight from heel to toe to heel, rocking in place a touch, trying to forge a path to calmness so I can code our way into saving Zoey and Julian and ending this madness once and for all.
“I’ll have Gray and Natasha talk to the secretary and POTUS. See what they can do about getting the Swiss to confirm our ‘deaths.’” Carter palms the back of his neck, rotating his head side to side before he goes for his mobile.
“Maybe ask Gideon to help ensure our flight plans into London are kept hidden? So no one at Heathrow will know it’s us flying in,” Easton suggests. “He helped out with the Brits back there, and—”
“Agreed,” Carter cuts in, then turns to the side, and I look past him and toward my dad. “If you want to come with us to London, you better convince your father of that first,” he adds.
Not an easy ask. Not after what just went down. Dad’s going to be dadding on a whole new level after today.
“Well, there’s no way I’m going into hiding, that’s for damn sure.
I’m our best hope of finding them, and you know it.
So do the bad guys.” I roll my shoulders, working out the stiffness in them to prepare myself for what’s coming next.
“One thing I hate to admit is Julian has to be right. Someone deep on the inside of our circle of trust is helping these arseholes out.”
Easton’s palm leaves my side, and he reaches for my hand, shifting so he’s partially facing me as well as Carter. “She’s right. They’ve turned our trust into a weapon by getting to someone we’d never think would betray us.”
“My mother-in-law doesn’t know Julian’s alive, and she doesn’t know anything about the CCTV nuke,” Carter adds tersely, ruling her out once and for all from the sounds of it. He turns to face us directly. “And like hell is your grandfather behind this.”
I’m with him on that.
“All I know is Julian went to London for me. He faked his death for me. And now he could actually die because of me. I just can’t handle—”
“Not letting that happen,” Easton cuts me off, voice tight and authoritative.
I bury my face at the base of his neck. I want to clutch hold of his back, but the memory of the lashes Jezebel inflicted on him surfaces, strong and ugly, and I hold on to his arms instead.
The sounds around us become background noise as we stand like this, connected by so much more than physical touch.
I’m fairly certain Carter has left our sides to give us time alone.
I look up into his eyes. “E?”
He brushes his knuckles along the contour of my cheek. “Yeah?”
The words, I love you, climb up my throat and stall behind my teeth. I can’t say them like this, can I? He may think they’re only coming from a place of fear, when in reality, I nearly spilled them back at Sebastian’s before we were interrupted.
“What is it?” he asks when I continue to sit in silence.
“You’re just amazing, you know that, right? Going back for my dad and pulling him out from the rubble.” I lean into him, drawing my hands to his chest. The feel of his heartbeat helps steady my own. “I’m just so lucky to have you as my protector. As my best friend.”
He drags his thumb along the seam of my lips, and in a husky voice, his next words burn hot. “Now you know damn well I’m a lot more than those two things.”