Page 12
Story: Mr. Nice Spy
If my high school boyfriends had taught me anything, it was that you were supposed to jump apart in moments like these. But Chan simply turned around so he was the one facing Holt, shielding me from the spittle and rage. Xander and Mila trailed in after him, Xander’s expression only a touch less murderous than Holt’s. Mila cowered in Xander’s shadow, keeping to the edge of the room like she wanted to disappear altogether. I ignored her for the obviously more dangerous men who were seconds away from imploding.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Holt practically shouted. I’d never seen someone’s face get so purple before without them ending up in the hospital. Maybe he’d do us all a favor and kill himself off here and now. Then again, Holt hadn’t been mad when he’d shot the man right in front of me. The dead man’s face floated through my mind, contorted in agony. What was Holt capable of if he was actually upset?
Behind Chan, I shivered and attempted to make myself as small as possible. When I’d agreed to this plan with the lab, I’d really only focused on kissing Chan. Who could blame me for my tunnel vision? But now I was beginning to regret that impulsive choice, even if the kissing had been some of the best I’d ever had.
After all, my father had a gun. Several, in fact. Big ones. And if the news stories were right, he wasn’t afraid to use them. Well, scratch that—I didn’t need news stories when I’d seen the evidence firsthand of my father’s murderous tendencies.
Chan leaned back on his elbows, lounging into me like a cat warming itself by the fire.
“What does it look like we’re doing?” he replied. “I’d think you’d be familiar with the concept, but if you need an explanation, I’d be happy to point you to some YouTube videos or get you a pamphlet or something. I’m sure there’s a banana somewhere I could demonstrate—”
The look Holt shot him was so laced with venom that Chan stopped talking, palms face up in the universal gesture of surrender. But his grin spoke volumes.
It was a wonder he could be so relaxed when I could be mistaken for an overly anxious Chihuahua. Then again, the muscles in Chan’s back were flexed so tightly I questioned whether his calm demeanor was simply a facade. But that only made me think he was a really good actor, and I didn’t want to think that. Because that meant everything that had just happened in this lab wasn’t real. And I desperately wanted it to be real despite knowing it wasn’t. Basically, it all boiled down to the fact that I was really good at lying to myself.
Holt ran a hand through his hair and paced the small length of the room, the bright glare of the lights reflecting off the faint sheen of sweat coating his face. Since arriving underground I’d considered it fairly cold, so he had to be pretty bent out of shape to have actually worked up a sweat.
I wanted to wrap my arms around Chan and drink in the support that he would offer, but I also knew that he wouldn’t want anything holding him back if this turned into a physical fight. So I needed to pull up my big-girl panties and let the spy do his thing. He’d demonstrated his abilities by getting us to this point, and now I needed to trust him. Right? Even if it was counterintuitive to everything in my nature to let someone else take the wheel.
So I stayed silent.
Holt looked at the table I was sitting on, with the papers I’d moved that were now only an inch away from Chan’s elbow. My skin went clammy, and I resisted the urge to stare at them, even though it was like a red beacon was going off all around me, proclaiming my guilt. I pressed my fingers into Chan’s back to hide their shaking from Holt’s view.
“Don’t you have any sense of self-preservation?” Holt shook his head. “How do you expect to earn my trust when you pull stunts like this?”
Perhaps sensing that my ability to cope was unraveling, Chan reached over to pick up his shirt from where it’d been discarded on the floor, settling it over his shoulders and bringing Holt’s attention back to him. Or maybe he was reminding him that multiple things were displaced in here, beyond the papers. Maybe he was simply reminding him that he was almost too muscular to fit in the confines of a regular T-shirt. It was hard to tell. But Holt’s eyes turned hard and calculating as Chan crossed his arms in front of his chest.
“Trust?” Chan laughed once, turning his head so he could better hear Holt. “You’re trying to say it’s about trust? Please. You’re giving speeches like you’re some kind of parent, but you weren’t there to raise her, and she’s not your little girl.”
Did Chan purposely misunderstand Holt’s statement? Yes. Did it work? Also yes.
Holt swiped a hand down his face, eventually settling both hands on his hips. Some of the fire had finally left his eyes, and I thought we might get to leave this room alive. He stared at the ceiling without saying a word before glancing back at Xander and giving a shake of his head in some kind of unspoken signal. I’d almost forgotten he and Mila were even there. But at Holt’s sign, Xander’s face lost its tension, and he removed his hand from his belt, relaxing his stance by the door. Apparently all this parenting talk meant we were to be treated as errant children after all.
Holt sneered, coming to stand a foot away from Chan and poking him in the chest.
“If she’s not a little girl, why does she need you to fight her battles?” He raised his eyebrows in a challenge, and I could practically envision him puffing up his chest like some kind of wild animal. The man wasn’t even there for twenty-six years of my life, but he acted like he owned me? Like he could boss my boyfriend around and talk about me like I wasn’t even there?
Fake boyfriend, but still.
I pushed away from Chan and got down from the table so I stood face-to-face with the man who called himself my father.
“Enough,” I said. “Are you going to remove the camera in our room, or not?”
Holt tilted his head as he considered me. I wasn’t sure what he saw there. I’d been drugged, restrained, and kept in an underground bunker before making out with Chan, his hands in my hair for the past ten minutes, so chances were about ten to one that I was one big hot mess. That’s all I was saying.
“So that’s what this little power play is all about?” Holt turned to face me head-on, towering over me with all his bulk and height. I bent slightly so I could see beyond his frame, searching the room until I found Mila, hoping she might be able to give me some sort of guidance on how to navigate this situation. After all, she’d somehow worked her way up into Holt’s good graces after starting at ground zero. But Mila stared at the floor like she’d been broken one too many times. Her hands were thrust deep in her pockets, and I watched as her chest rose and fell with fast, deep breaths. Before, she’d been sassy and full of life. Now I was beginning to see a whole new side to her when she was in front of Xander and Holt, and it made me wonder what on earth they did to her. I returned my attention to the hulking man before me.
“You want the camera gone?” he asked.
What, was that some kind of trick question? I nodded. Holt looked around the room as if all my actions finally made sense. Then he glanced back at me.
“The camera stays up for an extra month.”
I threw my hands up. “I feel like I’m talking to a wall. Haven’t you seen a Disney movie? The Little Mermaid , Finding Nemo , Moana ? Let me spell it out for you. The moral of the story is that there comes a time in every parent’s life when they need to cut their children a little slack.” I paused, collecting my thoughts. “It’s when you don’t that bad things happen.”
Holt raised his eyebrows, then he laughed out loud. “Did you just…attempt to threaten me by referencing Disney movies?” He laughed again, this time looking back at Xander for confirmation. He shook his head. “As far as threats go, that was probably the worst one I’ve ever heard.”
Okay, it wasn’t my finest moment. But at least it dispelled some of the tension in the room. For the first time since arriving, Holt seemed to look around, blinking as he realized the absurdity of the situation.
The atmosphere wasn’t so oppressive, and I found I could finally breathe.
At least, I could until Holt stopped dead at one of the tables, his hand clenching into a fist above a collection of pills, sorted into containers, neatly labeled in rows.
“Why is there one missing?” His voice was tight and vibrating with intensity. I was beginning to recognize the pendulum of emotions he swung between. While most people kept a fairly even keel that only fluctuated in times of extreme stress, my father was a volatile and unpredictable explosive. Here I was standing in the open without any protective gear, holding my hands to the flame.
If push came to shove, there were materials in this lab I could use to make something to protect myself—a flash grenade or something similar. But anything like that would take time, and I didn’t have anything handy now that could protect me from the spitting-mad man before me.
“What do you mean?” I kept my voice as even as possible, knowing he could sense weakness the way sharks could smell blood in the water.
“I mean I was in here yesterday and this entire rack was full.” Holt pointed to the rack of pill containers that looked much like anything I could pick up at the pharmacy on my way home from work. There wasn’t anything to set these containers apart aside from the fact that there weren’t prescription labels on any of them.
Xander had his hand on his gun again, and Mila cowered behind him, her eyes darting between me and the door. I guess I should have been relieved she wasn’t gun happy like everyone else here. But I would have been happier to have someone with weapons on my side for once.
I looked back at Holt. “I don’t even know what those are,” I said.
Holt grasped my chin and tilted my face up toward his aggressively. “Don’t play dumb. Am I supposed to believe you broke into the lab and it’s just a coincidence that a whole container of the finished product happened to go missing at the same time?”
The real question was how Chan had figured out that was the finished “kill pill” product when I didn’t even know that much. There were enough vials and materials in here to make my head spin.
Holt released my chin and stepped back, folding his arms across his chest. “Empty your pockets. Both of you.”
I knew there wasn’t anything in my pockets besides some lint and maybe some lip gloss, if I was lucky. But Chan must have taken one of the pill containers when I hadn’t been looking. The real question was, when?
Ah, who was I kidding? I’d had my eyes closed half of the time, and the other half I’d been reading the papers or been driven half to distraction by the things Chan had been doing with his mouth. He could have paraded a whole herd of clowns through here, and I would have been none the wiser.
But if Holt found the pills in Chan’s pocket, both of us were done for.
What could I do? If I said anything, we’d both look guilty. If I made a run for it, we’d end up dead. My mouth went dry, and I shifted my weight between my feet.
Then I did the only thing I could do—I emptied my pockets. At my side, Chan did the same. First, he revealed the key fob he’d stolen from Xander and passed it back to him with a wry grin.
“Sorry, man, it was nothing personal.” Chan rocked back on his heels and pulled out his pockets until they were inside out like mine.
Nothing.
My shoulders relaxed and I had to bite back the urge to smile.
Maybe Chan knew that magic trick where you transferred things from one hand to another without showing anything to the people watching. It was probably something they taught in basic CIA training, like defusing a bomb with a piece of gum, or opening a lock with nothing but a bobby pin and a paperclip.
But this didn’t satisfy Holt, who stared at our empty pockets with growing agitation. He paced the small room, coming to a stop in front of Xander. Then in one fluid motion, he whipped Xander’s gun out of its holster and pointed it at Chan and me.
“Strip,” he commanded.
I took a step back, and my hips hit the table behind me.
“Excuse me?” I scoffed. “I think everyone would agree that the father-daughter relationship shouldn’t—”
“You heard me,” Holt interrupted. “Strip. Both of you.” He cocked the gun, the click sounding loud in the sudden silence of the room. “I won’t say it again.”
Chan’s eyes cut to mine, and he nodded once.
I didn’t need his permission. I already had the toe of one foot on the heel of another and was taking off my shoes. I didn’t have this on my bingo card for being the first time Chan saw me naked, and, well, hopefully Holt would be okay with stopping at the underwear, but if this was what it took to prevent a bullet from getting lodged in my brain, then I’d do it. I let my clothes fall to a heap on the floor, stepping out of my pants and leaving my shirt on top of the pile until I was standing there in my bra and panties. They weren’t even my cute ones. In my defense, I hadn’t planned on being kidnapped today. No, not today. Yesterday. Today was forever long.
At my side, Chan stood in his briefs, and I tried my best not to stare. A real girlfriend would have already seen the goods by now, so she wouldn’t need to ogle his back muscles or well-defined thighs.
Spoiler: Chan did not skip leg day.
“Search their clothes,” Holt ordered Xander, refusing to release his hold on the gun.
I shivered as we waited, my heartbeat hammering in my ears. That was one thing I’d noticed since coming underground—how quiet everything was. I’d grown so accustomed to hearing sounds that my brain automatically tuned them out. Wind. Cars passing outside my window. Air-conditioning. A dog barking in the distance. There was nothing down here. Just the muffled sound of my own breathing as I waited for Xander to paw through the last of my meager belongings that connected me to the remainders of the life I once had. Shoes and shampoo. What more did a girl need?
“Nothing here, boss.” Xander straightened, placing his hands on his hips. They’d hovered uncertainly by his holster for a second first. Poor man didn’t know what to do without his security blanket. But now he stared at Holt like a faithful hound, waiting for his next command.
His announcement should have made me feel relief. I was prepared for it to wash over me with the certainty that we’d gotten away with this whole charade. But if Chan didn’t have the pills, who did? And an even scarier question—with a name like the kill pill , were we really safe with an entire bottle missing in action?
I waited until Holt nodded before I reached for my clothes. This experience put a whole new meaning to the concept of being exposed in front of your enemies. I’d always thought it referred to a feeling, not literally standing naked in a cold room while someone pointed a gun at you.
I dressed hurriedly, not even caring how scared or desperate it made me look. I was both of those things. And tired. I just wanted to go to sleep and forget the past twenty-four hours had ever happened.
Except for the kissing parts.
“Maybe someone misplaced it,” Xander offered.
Holt didn’t look convinced. He looked downright scary. “I’ll be transferring the rest of the finished prototypes to my personal safe,” he said. “Just to remove the temptation. Trust me when I say we’ll find it.” He took a step away, facing the door. Almost as if he didn’t care.
I wasn’t fooled.
He turned back. “I don’t need to tell you what will happen if it turns up with your things.” Without warning, Holt fired a shot between my feet. I jumped, and the bullet ricocheted, lodging into the wooden door to the lab. Holt looked at it, apparently unconcerned that he could have shot one of his own people or even himself. He really was unhinged. I was shaken, but I didn’t cry, so I deserved kudos for that at least.
Holt’s smile was slow and calculating as he took in my reaction. Finally, he handed the gun back to Xander.
“ That is how you deliver a threat. As my daughter, you’ll need to learn a few things if I’m going to keep you around.”
If . That was an unpleasant thought. I really was running out of time and options to get Chan out of here. I may have been born into this mess of a family, but Chan didn’t deserve this. It was my fault that he was here, and I still needed to find a way to get him out of it.
I shook my head. “You and I both know you don’t really want me here,” I said. “Let’s face it, having a daughter isn’t really conducive to the lifestyle of a major crime boss. But I don’t want to die either, so maybe we could work out some kind of arrangement.” I held my hands out in a pleading gesture. “You can keep your secrets. I don’t need to know what you’re doing down here, and if you don’t tell me, we can do a type of…” I searched my brain for the right word. “Like a split custody arrangement between the tunnels and the real world.”
Holt raised his eyebrow, but before he could cut me off, I kept talking. “You let me return to my life on the surface every once in a while like Persephone in the Greek myths. Away from all the cameras and guns. I’d still visit you on the weekends, or holidays or something. I’d even keep your location a secret from the authorities.”
Yeah, no promises there. In fact, that was probably the line that got Holt to genuinely smile for the first time in his life. Maybe I had a career in stand-up after all.
“Nice try.” He laughed once, then turned like he was going to leave the room.
I should have left things at that.
I should have let him walk away.
Chan saw my intake of breath and placed a hand on my arm. But I shook him off. Because it didn’t matter whether he was a spy or not—he didn’t know my father any better than I did. We were all guessing here. And I was trying to help Chan too, and my opportunity was about to pass us by.
“You could try being a little less controlling, you know,” I said.
Holt whirled and stepped forward until he was only a few inches from my face.
“You want to see what a controlling father is like?” He was no longer smiling. Or yelling like when he’d first entered the room. He’d gone cold and hard, his eyes narrowing to slits as if he was preparing for battle. The change was disconcerting, and I felt a prickle of dread snake its way up my spine.
“I let you explore the tunnels before, even visit the cafeteria with an escort. But now?” Holt turned to Xander, his expression cold as he issued his command. “Take them back to their room. And this time, they stay there. Indefinitely.”