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“Let me take care of this before you bleed out.” Seshat pushed me into a chair and sliced the sleeve of my jacket open. She tossed her knife on the table. “I fear this was my fault. My shot hit his arm.”
“If it hadn’t, he may have killed Penelope.”
She nodded and wrapped the area that was still bleeding.
“What have you got for pain?” I asked once everyone else had left the room.
“Sorry. I don’t carry anything.”
I looked up at her and scowled.
“The plane’s waiting. Let’s go.”
When she tried to help me from the chair, I yanked away from her. My eyes rolled back in my head when intense pain shot from my arm throughout my body.
“If you’d let me help you, that wouldn’t have happened.”
“Sod off,” I said under my breath.
“You’re welcome,” she snapped back at me.
“If you’d pulled the trigger seconds earlier, Maximo wouldn’t have had the chance to shoot me.”
She was already halfway down the corridor.
“You all right, boss?” said Blackjack.
“I’ll live.” At least for now. On my way out, I spotted several surveillance cameras. Depending on who had access to the footage, I may be dead before I got out of Italy. While Valerio knew I was with Brand, it was my calling in Nemesis’ team that would be my undoing.
While no one else knew it, the plane we were on was mine. I’d already instructed Angel to fly Brando and Penelope to the States after dropping the rest of us off at the Gatwick airfield.
I rested my head against the seat, dreading reading the message that had come in on the secure app I used only for my undercover work. I groaned as I read the hit order Benito received. Gerlando Battaglia wanted Valerio Scaglione dead. A few minutes later, I received a second hit order, this one from Scaglione on Battaglia.
I doubted either man was truly questioning my loyalty. Even if they were, whoever of them remained alive would immediately kill me.
Once I’d deboarded after bidding farewell to Brand, Penelope, and the others, I got in my vehicle, exited the tarmac, then reentered on the commercial side of the airport. I booked a flight under one of several aliases I used and didn’t much care where it was going. The next place I landed would be where I caught another flight. I sent one message only, and it was to Z.
Deploy Operation Save the Fox.
He knew what to do, and I trusted him to make it happen.
35
ELIZA
When the doorman called from downstairs to say I had a visitor by the name of Archer Alexander and to ask for permission to send him up, I gave it, then fell to my knees, sobbing before I hit the floor.
“Should anything happen, a man named Archer Alexander will contact you. His code name is Z.” I remembered every word Levi had told me, praying the only time I saw the man would be when my beloved husband was with me.
I heard the knock, got to my feet, and opened the door. My arms and legs felt almost too heavy to move as I slowly made my way to the sofa. I fell as much as sat on the cushions. Z sat beside me.
“I have received word from Typhon, asking I escort you to a secure location.”
“Is he alive?”
“As of twenty minutes ago, yes.”
“What’s going on?” I asked.