Page 19

“It’s not that I want to hit you,” I said after quickly explaining my plan. Maybe Chan hadn’t left me with one, but necessity was the mother of invention and all that. “But I don’t want you to get in trouble either—”

“Don’t be a baby,” Mila said. “Just hit me. And no offense, but you look weak, so give it all you’ve got.”

I knew that realistically only a few minutes had elapsed from the time Chan had first opened our door. But it felt like time was slipping through my fingers.

“No offense taken,” I muttered. Okay, a little offense taken.

Then, without waiting any longer, I decked Mila as hard as I could.

I was pretty sure it hurt my hand more than it hurt her. No one warns you about that. They don’t say it’ll reverberate down your arm and make your fingers feel like they’ve been hammered by a meat tenderizer.

But I didn’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I had a fake boyfriend to save.

While she was still reacting to my weak attempt at a punch, I reached out and snatched the gun from Mila’s holster, making sure I took the one stored at her side and not the one at her back.

Two guns. Ridiculous. There were too many weapons down here by half. Strike that—by double. There should be no weapons. But of course, my father had to be a weapons dealer. I ached for the good ol’ days when I naively believed my dad was Keith Huxley-Beck, because I bet his kids never had to put up with this kind of thing. Although, celebrities had stalkers and personal bodyguards too, so maybe I was dwelling on things I knew nothing about simply to keep my mind off what was happening farther down the hall. Or what was about to happen.

I turned and ran, skidding around the bed and out of the room as fast as I could manage in the dim light. Mila tore after me, faster than shoppers at a Black Friday sale, causing a real spike of fear to shoot down my spine. Had she changed her mind? Or had she been playing me all along, hoping to gain my confidence and learn the true nature of my plan so she could go alert Holt herself and claim all the credit for taking us down? The more I thought about it, the more I realized this was a really bad idea. Trusting Mila, involving her in all this—she was literally one of the bad guys. If Chan knew what I was doing—

Chan and the other guard were a ways down the hall, both of them looking like they’d gone through a trash compactor. Several times. Mostly the guard though, I was impressed to notice. But I didn’t wait to see who had the upper hand at the moment. I raised the arm that held the gun, hating that it shook about as much as if I were in the middle of an earthquake.

Chan glanced my way. “Andee, behind you,” he called. His voice was still low enough that it barely carried to where I was standing, but I heard it all the same, full of urgency and warning.

Too late.

Mila came up a second later, slamming into me from behind as she fought to reclaim control over the gun I’d taken from her. Her hand closed around the handle, and her finger slid in front of the trigger.

Mila pulled my arm to the right, and I had no choice but to be directed like a puppet. She wasn’t lying when she said I was weak.

I squeezed my eyes shut. Mila squeezed the trigger.

I opened one eye in time to see the other guard slap his neck. Then his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed on the stone floor.

“Nighty night,” I whispered, too stressed out to care that Mila and I were practically holding hands. I was simply relieved my plan had worked. That Mila hadn’t lied when she said this had been a tranquilizer gun and that she could make it look like I’d been the one to shoot him in case the guard saw everything. Mila would have an unblemished record for Holt, and Chan—

Chan wouldn’t have a clue what was really happening, as was evidenced by the way he was charging down the tunnel, fists pumping like he was ready to take down Mila whether he had to go through me or not.

Mila dropped the hand that was holding the gun in mine and took up a defensive stance. Honestly, that didn’t exactly help matters either. Chan was upon us in two seconds flat, lifting Mila by the lapels of her shirt and slamming her into the tunnel wall. She let out a soft whoosh of surprise, but I was glad to see that at least she hadn’t shot Chan too.

“Stop,” I told him, attempting to put my arm between him and Mila. “She’s on our side.”

I watched as Chan’s chest heaved up and down, but he didn’t let go of Mila, so I kept going. “She took out the other guy. Please don’t make her regret that choice.”

He shook his head. “You’re the one who pulled the trigger, Andee,” Chan said, his eyes darting between Mila and me. “She was trying to get the gun back from you.”

“That’s what we wanted it to look like,” I said, moving to his right and putting my hand on his shoulder. “But do you really think I could hit anything, let alone a moving target?”

A corner of his mouth lifted up, and he finally loosened his grip on Mila’s shirt, putting her feet back on solid ground. Mila let out a shaky breath, dropping her cool for the first time since I’d seen her that evening.

“Good shot.” Chan stepped back, giving her some space.

She snorted. “You’re lucky he’s such a big target.” She picked up the tranquilizer gun that had fallen to the floor and put it back in her holster. “I’ve not been training long. If he weren’t so hard to miss, this night could have gone a lot differently.”

We’d made it through the last couple of minutes with no one dying and with Mila being able to show Holt that she was still a loyal employee when he grilled her later.

That was a win.

But despite the victory, it felt an awful lot like losing.

Mila looked down the hall. “You’re also lucky this tunnel is isolated from the others and the walls are so thick that sound doesn’t carry,” she said. “But still, aren’t you in a hurry?”

“Right.” Chan ran a hand through his hair. “Where does Holt keep his communication equipment? Any cell phones, computers, even a ham radio will do.”

Mila chewed her lower lip. “Xander has a laptop that he keeps in his room. He’s the only one who’s allowed any electronics.” She coughed and raised an eyebrow. “Though I’d dearly love to see you operate a ham radio.”

I wasn’t sure what her story was exactly with Xander, but if they were together, she sure did flirt a lot with Chan. Was it just my imagination, or was she upping the charm even more now that she knew he wasn’t officially my boyfriend?

Chan shook his head. “Unfortunately, if you want to keep your participation a secret, you won’t be seeing anything.” He held out his hand for her tranquilizer gun. “But hey, think of it this way. You have my permission to sleep on the job.”

“I’d rather not get knocked out, if it’s all the same to you.” Mila winced and rubbed at her shoulder where Chan had pushed her into the wall. “I’m already going to wake up sore all over. I don’t need a killer headache on top of everything else.” She pursed her lips. “I have some rope in my room. Would tying me up work instead? You could use a sock or something as a gag.”

Chan hesitated, but from the way he squinted his eyes, it was clear Mila was fighting a losing argument.

She turned to look at me. I hated that it was only when she was searching for a weak link that she remembered I was part of this team too.

“Please?” she asked again, swallowing hard.

I sighed. Despite all my jealousy, the fact of the matter was, I still liked Mila. I was jealous because I liked Mila. I wouldn’t be half as upset about her flirting with Chan if I didn’t think she was kind of awesome.

Plus, she deserved our gratitude after helping us. Plain and simple.

“She’s already proven we can trust her,” I said.

“It’s not that,” Chan said folding his arms across his chest, putting action behind his words. If he didn’t trust her, he’d have kept his hands ready for anything. “Why would Holt think we tied her up when we could have tranqed her? I’m only thinking of her cover story.”

“Easy,” Mila said. “I only had two ketamine darts. Use the other one, and Holt will believe you had no other option. You can either give another dose to Booker to ensure he stays out since he’s such a big guy, or shoot a dart into the floor and we’ll say it went wild during the fight with me.”

Chan rubbed his face, then seemed to realize we were wasting time and nodded. I was still stuck on the fact that the Hulk guy sleeping peacefully on the floor had a name as innocent sounding as Booker.

I shook my head and realized I’d missed a whole part of the conversation where Chan had asked Mila about ketamine dosages and she’d responded with something I didn’t understand. It seemed strange to think that only a few months ago, she’d been a relatively normal girl like me. A chef, doing normal things. Then she’d come down here for…who knew what reason, and now she knew all kinds of things about ketamine darts and shooting handguns.

Was that the future Holt saw for me? I already knew more about espionage and the dark underbelly of crime than I wanted—was hand-to-hand combat next? Holt wanted me to take over as his protégé. He’d said as much whenever he’d taken me out of my room for our daily lessons. But I’d never seen the future he’d envisioned so clearly as when I looked at Mila.

I still remembered the feel of the cold metal sink against my cheek and the way she’d twisted my arm behind my back as she’d slammed me into it.

“Where’d you learn to fight like that?” I asked, already dreading her response. If we didn’t make it out of here, I did not want to go head-to-head with Booker in some kind of sadistic hazing ritual that masqueraded as training, no thank you.

Mila raised her eyebrows. “Boxing class, back home. Three times a week for the last eight years.”

My shoulders relaxed without me realizing it was happening.

“The more important question,” Chan interrupted, turning his good ear to Mila, “is when are the next guards supposed to take over your shift?”

She glanced at her watch. “You have another forty-three minutes.”

Chan’s lips compressed into a tight line, obviously not liking what he heard.

She shrugged. “I’d be more worried about Xander. He’s not exactly a deep sleeper.”

Chan nodded. “Where does he sleep?”

He and Mila discussed it while getting the rope from her room across the tunnel. I waited where I was, watching Booker out of the corner of my eye like he might shrug off the tranquilizer dart and come after me as suddenly as an enraged grizzly bear. As much as I didn’t like the tunnels, I found I didn’t like being alone in the tunnels even more. Add a beaten, drugged-up man to the mix, and I practically jumped out of my skin by the time Chan returned a minute later, alone.

“Mila taken care of?” I asked.

He nodded. “I left her on the bed so she’d be more comfortable.”

I knew he didn’t mean for it to sound kinky, but my brain conjured up all kinds of images with a bed and ropes, and I did not like Mila in the same room as Chan in any of those scenarios.

Chan walked over to Booker and unhooked his key fob from his belt, pocketing it in one smooth motion. I stood awkwardly to the side like a nerd at a homecoming dance, unsure of where to go or what I needed to do next now that we were actually out of our room without any guards to say no. I knew Chan wanted to move quickly. But forty minutes still seemed like an awfully long time to shoot off an email with our coordinates, so I wasn’t sure why the huge rush.

Chan straightened from his crouch and turned to face me. “Mila said the hot spot range doesn’t extend beyond Xander’s room. And we’re not exactly surrounded by cell service down here. So we can’t take the laptop out, and we won’t be able to talk once we get in the room either.” He wiped his palms on his pants. “I don’t know how long it will take me to hack his laptop though. Mila thinks there are more security measures than a standard passcode. So once we’re in there, you’ll need to be patient.”

Oh. That explained the time crunch.

“Holt might have a phone or laptop too, but that’s the riskier path. His would have the same protections. I say we stick with Xander’s even if he is a light sleeper. I just wish we had Dove with us. I’m not a hacker.”

“Who’s Dove?” I asked. And why was there distinct affection in his tone when he said her name?

Chan was already moving down the hall, so I stepped quietly after him.

“You know Mendez? The senior officer on your case?” he answered, leading me down a tunnel I hadn’t been down before. He turned his head toward me so he could still hear while we talked quietly. “Dove is his girlfriend.”

That stoic CIA agent has a girlfriend?

Miracles happened every day, I guessed.

“How’d you know Mila could be an asset?” Chan asked, breaking me from my internal musings. He kept his voice low, so I matched mine to his.

“Instinct, I guess.” I chuckled. “And a healthy dose of self-preservation. Plus the inability to do any physical harm.”

We stopped at a corner for Chan to check that it was clear, and I paused before continuing my thought. “Sure, I didn’t want to hurt her, but also, I couldn’t . I mean, have you seen the guns on that woman? Both metaphorically and literally.”

He smiled and I tried not to stare. The dim light cast shadows on his face that made him look both sensual and dangerous. It was a look I could get used to.

“And how’d you convince her once you determined she could be turned?” he asked. “You had to think fast.”

I swallowed and focused on where we were going. The cafeteria was off to the right, along with the lab. We took a tunnel to the left. A crossroads—both in our physical direction and in what I chose to tell Chan.

I didn’t have to tell him that Mila knew he worked for the CIA. Chan might hate me forever. It wasn’t my secret to tell, and technically, we weren’t out of the woods yet.

But I was so tired of doing things my way only to have them blow up in my face later. I wanted us to have a partnership. It was time I learned to have real conversations, even if they were uncomfortable or made me look bad.

“I told her I didn’t want her to get hurt, and we could reach people on the outside who could help.” I sucked in a breath. “But the biggest thing is, she knows you’re a spy. I told her you could reach your team.”

I pulled at the neck of my shirt and darted a glance at his face to see if he wanted nothing to do with me now. Guilt made my stomach turn over, and for a second, I was actually grateful for the distraction. It let me think about something besides the imminent danger we were walking into.

Chan didn’t say anything for a solid ten seconds. Yes, I counted.

“Risky,” he finally said. “Let’s just hope it doesn’t come back to bite us.”

I let out a breath. He stopped and pointed to a door. “We’re here.”