Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Darkness. One moment, the lights were on in the elevator, and Delaney could see Nash’s handsome, betraying face perfectly. And then…
Black. Everything around her went pitch black, and there wasn’t even any emergency lighting. Before she could ask what in the hell was happening, the elevator dropped.
She felt it. A sudden, sharp drop, and her body flew up in response. Her feet left the floor, and a horrified scream broke from her. This couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t possible. This couldn’t happen.
But her body was now hurtling toward the floor, and Nash was grabbing her, trying to twist and pull her against his bigger form. Trying to shield her, but there was no time.
The cables must have snapped. She’d seen something like that in a movie once. The cables snapped and the elevator plunged down but…but they hadn’t even been that high up and—
She hit. Landed on top of Nash. Sprawled over him. Her heart raced in her chest. Her hands slammed against him as she shot up. “Nash!”
“Fuck me.”
Not the time or the place. “Are you okay?”
“No, I’m fucking furious.” His hands locked around her waist. “How are you?”
Terrified. Shaking. Alive. “I’m not dead. So that’s a win.”
“Yeah, baby, let’s keep up that winning streak of yours.”
Darkness was all she saw. Her head whipped to the left and the right as she continued to straddle him. “Why are there no emergency lights?”
“Better question. Why the hell did our elevator just fall?”
Yes, that was an extremely good question. “Maybe…” She swallowed to ease the dryness in her mouth. “Logan Sterling has shoddy safety standards?”
“Or maybe he sold us out to Kurt Wellington.”
She still straddled him. Her dress had hiked up. Her knees shoved into the floor of the elevator, positioned on either side of Nash’s body. Delaney was sure the skin had been ripped off her knees because they ached and throbbed. Her hands pressed to his chest. “We didn’t fall far.”
“Lucky for us, there wasn’t far to fall.” He lifted her up. Off him. But his hands remained around her waist.
One shoe had fallen off. She didn’t bother searching for it in the dark. She just kicked off the other shoe.
“You’re okay?” Nash’s gruff voice. “You’re sure?”
Her body wouldn’t stop trembling. “Well, other than the fact that you knew my grandfather killed my dad, that you hid that important news from me, and, oh, yes, you knew my grandfather was Typhon—”
“Typhon is like a freaking title. The mantle went to someone else when Carmello died. The CIA suspected it had gone to Kurt, we just couldn’t conclusively prove it, so that wasn’t a lie. What I told you about Kurt wasn’t a lie—”
“Did you ever even love me?” A desperate cry that broke from her as she tore through his words.
Except she should not have let the cry out.
Wrong time. Their stupid elevator had just plummeted.
She was probably lucky to be alive. This was not the time for her to be raging at him and asking if he’d ever loved her.
Did she even truly want to know the answer?
“Forget it. Let’s just find a way out of here.
” Since it was so dark, the doors had to be shut, but maybe they could pry them open and get out.
His hold on her waist tightened. “I have never loved anyone the way I love you. Doesn’t matter if it was eight years or eight days or eight minutes ago. I love you the same now as I did before. I will love you until I die.”
The elevator groaned. A hard, heavy sound. Fear raced through her.
“The doors are opening,” Nash rasped as a sliver of light cut through the darkness. “I dropped the damn gun.” He let her go. He bent down.
She started searching frantically in the dark.
The doors cracked open more, sending a bigger stream of light inside the darkness.
“Get me a picture!” Jezebel yelled. She grabbed for her phone. “I’m calling in backup, now—”
“No, you’re not.” A gun muzzle pressed to the side of her head.
Jezebel knew it was a gun because she’d had a gun pressed to her head three other times in her life. Three other, very unfortunate times. You never forget the feel of a gun muzzle pressing into your skin. Especially when some bastard is threatening to blow your brains out.
“You’re not calling in backup.” Dom stood beside her. Several inches taller than her and with his gun at her head. “You’re not calling anyone. Nash and Delaney are vanishing.”
Her gaze cut toward him. “Dom, you don’t do well with field work.” A gentle reminder. She could practically smell his fear. Plus, the gun was trembling against her.
“I’m doing just fine.” His voice cracked on fine. “Will be doing even better when I get my payday.”
The first time that a gun had been pressed to her head, she’d pulled a hidden knife on her attacker. She’d driven that knife into his throat before he’d had the chance to pull the trigger.
“They are going to disappear from this building.” More cracking in his voice. This time on disappear. And more trembling of the gun. “Nash will never be seen again.”
The second time a gun had been pressed to her head, Nash Quinn had come rushing in to take out her attacker. Interestingly enough, that had been Nash’s first kill. He’d still been a green agent at the time. He’d tried to save the creep that he’d been forced to shoot.
“I’m assuming Nash will die quickly?” Jezebel’s voice remained calm.
“I don’t care if he dies f-fast or if he dies slow. I get the same amount of money either way!”
The third time a gun had been pressed to her head, a lover had been the one holding the weapon.
A man she’d never fully trusted. She’d known all of his weak spots, so she’d been able to take him down.
He was still rotting in a prison cell. Every few months, he would request to see her.
Every few months, she’d refuse that request.
“Nash dies.” Jezebel kept her body relaxed. Unthreatening. “And what of the woman? What’s gonna happen to Delaney?”
“I guess she’ll be a widow.”
A soon-to-be dead widow. That gun still pressed against her. Still trembled. “You’re the leak at the CIA.” I knew there was one. I just had to get the mole to show himself. “You told Kurt Wellington that Nash and Delaney would be at the Love Heart Chapel, didn’t you?”
“Oh, I told him plenty more than that.” Smug. “His team has pics of every agent here. Your little trap is going to explode in your face. I know all the players. Kurt knows all the players. You are screwed.”
The hotel room door opened behind him. A door that should not have opened because only Jezebel and Dom had keys. But the door swung open, and, as Jezebel cut her eyes in that direction and Dom partially turned toward the door, Ryan Quinn strolled inside.
“I will not be benched,” Ryan began.
Shock flashed on Ryan’s face as he took in the scene before him. Then, in a heartbeat’s time, he was reaching beneath his coat and grabbing for a gun that she knew had to be there.
Dom wrenched his weapon away from her head and aimed it at the new threat.
Jezebel grabbed one of the computer screens that had been set up on their table. She slammed that screen into Dom’s head as hard as she could.
Dom didn’t get off a shot. The traitor lost his grip on the gun. It skittered across the room even as he slammed toward the carpeted floor. Groaning, Dom shoved his hands against the carpet and started to lever himself up.
Only for his eyes to lock on the gun that Ryan had pointed dead-center at him.
“This is why you aren’t cut out for field work,” Jezebel crisply informed him. She dropped the screen. Deliberately let it slam into Dom’s back. “You are such a disappointment.”
“Jez…” Ryan’s voice held worry. “Tell me what’s happening.”
“Dom here sold us out. I think Kurt already has a crew in the building, and I think they are making a move against Nash and Delaney right now.” A fast exhale. “I’ll contact all of our on-site agents. They’re wearing earpieces, and I’ll get everyone to swarm—”
Dom’s laughter drowned out her words.
Ryan crouched before him. Put his gun to Dom’s forehead. That move stopped Dom’s laughter. “What did you do?” Ryan asked with zero emotion in his voice.
Ryan was an agent who happened to be made for field work.
“I cut the comms. No one will be communicating through those links.” A smug response from Dom. “She can’t reach any of the agents here. They can’t reach her. Nash is alone in the dark. That’s how he’s going to stay. That’s how he’s going to die.”
The hell he was. Jezebel grabbed her phone and sent out frantic texts. So the comms didn’t work. Freaking normal texts did.
“He’s not alone,” Ryan responded in a voice layered with ice. “Delaney is with him.”
“Then he’ll die in front of her.” Still so smug.
“If my brother dies…”
From the corner of her eye, Jezebel saw Ryan’s finger tighten around the trigger.
“Then you die, Dom. Only your death will be a thousand times more painful. So you had better start talking. Now. Who is here? What’s the plan?”
Dom opened his mouth and laughed again.
Ryan shoved the muzzle of his gun into Dom’s open mouth. “I’m sorry.” Not a real apology at all from Ryan. “Did I stutter?”
“Ryan.” She rushed at him.
“I don’t think I stuttered. And I don’t think you fully understand the situation. Your brains will be all over the computer screens in this hotel room if you don’t talk.”
Tears leaked from Dom’s eyes. Someone wasn’t smug any longer.
“He can’t talk with the gun in his mouth,” Jezebel pointed out.
“Right.” Ryan eased the gun out of Dom’s mouth, but he kept it pointed straight at Dom’s face. “I love my brother. I will do anything for him. Including torturing you until you beg for mercy.” A tense beat. “You are now properly motivated to talk, aren’t you?”
Yes, he was. Dom started talking. Every secret he had spilled from his lips.
That was the thing about Ryan. People didn’t understand quite how deadly he was, not until it was too late.