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The laptop was not where Mila said it would be. So that was great. A wild-goose chase was exactly what we wanted when time was of the essence and our very survival was at stake.

Xander’s room was barely bigger than a closet. Maybe it’d originally been part of the tunnel and Holt had simply blown a bigger hole into it to create this place that Xander called his room. But perks of being the right-hand man, I guess?

During our lessons, I’d seen how the others slept. Practically on top of each other, in bunk beds that were blasted into the wall, prison style. Mila had the only other space that could be considered a room, and I knew it was hardly bigger than this. Maybe Xander spent most of his time there.

I felt a little guilty. By comparison, I’d received a larger room, an actual mattress, and a connected bathroom. It looked like my father was actually…trying? By his standards at least. Then I had to shake my head and remind myself that he’d literally kidnapped me and threatened my life on multiple occasions.

That wasn’t love. That was abuse. Just because his employees had it worse didn’t mean I had to accept the cards my father had dealt me.

Xander’s hole-in-the-wall was pitch black. In our own room, Chan let me keep a small battery-operated nightlight on the dresser that one of the guards brought me, because sleeping this far underground gave me nightmares. Then again, that could have just been because of the situation we found ourselves in, but who was I to judge?

Xander’s “room” had no sources of light whatsoever, like we were willingly burying ourselves underground for Holt’s sake—a madman on the run from the law and his minion Xander, who liked living in his shadow. Chan carried a small penlight he’d taken from Mila’s room, which he now used to search for the computer. A foot away, Xander slept on a military cot surrounded by clothes and food wrappers, one arm thrown over his face while he snored lightly.

I didn’t move. If I did, I’d make noise, and with Xander so close, he’d surely hear it. Chan slowly shifted clothes around and looked under them with his penlight, until he finally found the laptop near the head of Xander’s bed. He brought it to where I was standing, and motioned for me to sit down with him, angling the computer away from Xander’s face as he opened it, so the light wouldn’t wake him. I sat down and folded my hands in my lap, trying not to disturb anything.

This was it. This was the moment that could finally set us free from this nightmare. If Chan could get a message to the CIA, and if we could stay alive for however long it took them to get us out of here, we’d be safe and my father would be back in prison.

I held my breath as the screen flickered to life. Before it could pop up with the password requirement, Chan held down some buttons, prompting the computer to enter the kind of reboot phase I’d only seen when I had to take my laptop in for repairs. After that, he lost me, typing in things I was unfamiliar with as he attempted to jailbreak Xander’s computer.

I watched his face, furrowed in concentration, as he typed in various commands. He certainly looked like he knew what he was doing. But his eyebrows dipped down farther, and the computer still didn’t unlock. Xander turned over, and my heart froze until he settled back down facing the opposite way a moment later.

I’d had my fair share of stressful moments since coming to the catacombs. But none of them had been so momentously pivotal while being so monotonously boring.

Nothing was happening, yet everything hinged on it staying that way. We sat, with nothing but Chan’s fingers moving and a bead of sweat that ran down my back. Still, my pulse was dancing a tango so fast I worried about cardiac arrest.

It was all quiet…until it wasn’t.

One moment we were alone in the tiny closet that was Xander’s room, and the next, Holt was there, roaring and swearing so loud it was like an explosion had gone off. The door swung back behind us so that light spilled in from the hallway. I fell backward, staring up at my father’s face, his jaw tight and the vein in his temple bulging to the point where I honestly thought it might burst.

A scream lodged in my throat, and despite every instinct telling me to get out while it was still possible, I couldn’t move. Every muscle in my body froze, useless and unresponsive.

Holt lunged forward, hands outstretched like talons.

I wanted to run. I needed to run. But all I could do was stare, wide-eyed, as Holt charged into the room.

Chan dropped the computer and threw himself over my body, shielding me with his own.

But it wasn’t me Holt was after. It was Chan.

Holt attempted to yank Chan from the floor, but Chan kicked him in the knees so Holt fell forward, crashing onto Xander’s cot so hard it nearly folded in half.

Xander was already awake from when Holt stormed through the door, but was still pulling himself up onto his elbows, bleary eyed and half-asleep from being woken up in the middle of the night. Now an enormous man had barreled into him and he fell back with a grunt, his head cracking into the wall.

This room was too small for four adults. Everything was a mess of elbows and limbs, everyone fighting for dominance as they attempted to get up.

With just one glance, it was apparent Holt was no stranger to hand-to-hand combat. In the time it took me to struggle to my knees, Holt was already on his feet, which was saying something for a man of his height and size. I had to give him kudos for that. He didn’t waste time turning around, he simply smashed his elbow into Chan’s face, using the momentum of his drive to carry them both back down to the floor like wrestlers.

I scrambled out of the way, heading for the door only to be yanked back by my foot. I kicked, but Xander grasped my ankle so tightly I could feel the blood draining out of my toes. Chan came to my aid. Despite his upper body being pinned to the ground, he managed to raise the heel of his boot high enough to slam it down on the hand that held me back, releasing me from Xander’s grasp.

Holt had Chan pinned to the floor and had straddled him so he could easily rain down blows like Chan was a punching bag and Holt was determined to get a workout in. But in a move so fluid it could have been choreographed, Chan pulled Holt’s head forward and wrapped one leg around his so Holt couldn’t move, then Chan rolled him over so their positions were reversed.

Perhaps sensing that this time was different than the others where we’d been threatened, Chan didn’t shut up and take the abuse. He put up a fight. We’d already been caught where we weren’t supposed to be, so Holt had to know we’d taken out his guards. Or, correction: Chan had taken out his guards. We were in trouble either way, with a laptop that wasn’t ours, doing something Holt obviously wouldn’t approve of. There was no point in trying to talk our way out of this one.

Holt headbutted Chan so he stumbled back, releasing him from his position on the ground. He attempted to sweep Chan’s legs from under him, but Chan grabbed his shoulders and kneed him in the jaw instead of falling down. Holt’s answering roar could have woken the dead. Any minute now, more of his men were sure to wake up, despite the closed-off corridor and stone walls that were probably a foot deep.

The laptop got kicked in the mayhem, skidding to a stop just beyond my reach. I lunged for it, but Xander was there first, his hand scraping against the floor as he pushed it back into the corner. If only I could unlock the computer with his fingerprint—most secure laptops had that kind of access, didn’t they? We should have considered that earlier. Maybe we could have done it while he slept. Then again, Mila had said he was a light sleeper. Maybe the only thing that would have accomplished would be him sounding the alarm that much earlier.

Xander didn’t stay close enough for me to test out my theory. Instead, he joined in to fight what he saw as the bigger threat.

They’d all managed to bring themselves back to a standing position, so now Chan was facing off against two assailants. Xander and Holt seemed to forget about me entirely, and I was torn between keeping it that way—hello, survival instinct—and doing something to help Chan. But what? I wasn’t trained for this kind of thing. Besides, Chan seemed to be doing well enough on his own.

Xander moved in front of Holt, but Chan delivered a chopping blow to his throat that sent him back to his knees. In the tight space, all it took next was for Chan to kick Xander in the face, pushing him into Holt and sending them both sprawling into the stone walls. Xander dry heaved in the opposite corner from me while Holt shoved him out of the way, attempting to pick up the pieces of the cot. There was a metal tube sticking out one end that could have been used as a bat—if Holt could detach it from the rest of the frame, which he couldn’t. For one glorious moment, it looked like Chan had the upper hand.

There was only one problem.

They had guns and we didn’t.

When it became obvious Holt couldn’t win this one with brute strength or technique, he fell back on his favorite trick: weapons.

Maybe he’d waited until now because he’d wanted to make Chan suffer. Or maybe he’d wanted to prove he could take Chan on with his bare hands. Whatever the reason, I was glad he hadn’t shot us outright when he had the option all along. But he was done playing around.

He drew a gun, and I shouted a warning to Chan, who ducked and threw a hand out in a swinging motion, aiming for Holt’s hand. Holt’s grip was strong, but he wasn’t prepared for Chan to go on the offensive. The gun flew from his grasp and clattered to the ground, unfortunately in the opposite direction from where I was crouched. The room was small, but that made it even more difficult for me to reach it without putting myself directly in the path of the men fighting.

Chan had successfully stopped one gun. But Xander had one too. And he was farther away from Chan, with Holt blocking the way between them for Chan to try the same thing twice. Xander raised his arm, gun pointed at Chan, and I stopped breathing.

“That’s enough now.” Xander released the safety, voice still raw from when Chan had hit him in the throat.

Everything was finally quiet.

My heartbeat thrummed in my ears as I debated my options. Physical force wasn’t my strong suit. If I kicked Xander’s knees from the back, could Chan wrestle the gun away from him?

I didn’t get a chance to find out.

In the time it took me to think, Holt had already picked up the second gun. This was why spies had to have the reflexes of a ninja and the problem-solving skills of a world-class chess player. I simply wasn’t cut out for a life in covert operations. That much was painfully obvious.

With two guns now trained on him, Chan finally raised his hands in surrender. I squeezed my eyes shut, not wanting to see what was going to happen next. I already knew my father was a bloodthirsty man with zero remorse and no qualms about murdering people. But I knew I’d never be able to live with myself if Chan died because I’d encouraged him to take this risk tonight.

A risk that might not have even paid off.

With a start, I realized I still didn’t know whether Chan had been successful at contacting the CIA. Judging from the blue screen that sat in the corner, its cursor still waiting for a string of commands, all this might have been for nothing.

A pit formed in my stomach, and my hands trembled at my sides. If I could reach it and finish what he’d started, maybe I could, I don’t know, hit enter on the keyboard so the laptop would come to life, or something. I could send out an SOS email and the CIA would trace the IP origins, or whatever it was they did with their top secret spy stuff.

Everyone else was focused on Chan. They weren’t watching me. And the computer was so close—only two feet away. It was worth the risk.

I moved forward slowly.

Until I heard the sound of someone else cocking their gun. Someone behind me.

I stopped midcrawl, one arm outstretched in front of me like I was doing modified planks.

Barely daring to breathe, I looked back over one shoulder.

Mila stood, backlit by the light from the hallway. Hands free from any rope, she had one hand on her waist and the other on her gun—which was pointed directly at me.

I didn’t know exactly what had happened in the past five minutes between when Chan had left her in the room and now, when she had obviously alerted Holt to our escape and brought him here to catch us red-handed. The only thing I knew for certain was burning like acid in my mind, dripping with a cold resolve that penetrated every fiber of my being.

Mila had betrayed us.