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Holt pulled out his gun, but Chan raised his hands in surrender, stumbling until he was standing.

“I’m unarmed.”

“You’re unarmed?” I asked, pulling myself up from the floor into a sitting position. What kind of CIA agent knowingly broke into an arms dealer’s secret lair without some kind of weapon?

Maybe Chan was too nice. I mean, if any time called for him to come in with guns blazing, this was it, that’s all I was saying.

“You wired?” Holt still hadn’t lowered his gun, aiming it with deadly accuracy right at Chan’s heart. Now there were two people I cared about in this room, and while I knew I hadn’t taken the kill pill myself, I was pretty sure I might have a heart attack any second from the sheer pressure of it all. I’d done everything I could to keep Chan safe. Now he was here, and worst of all, he didn’t even have a weapon?

“No. I came alone. I’m unwired.” Chan pulled up his shirt to emphasize his point. “Mendez and his men are tracking the car down to the docks, where I’m assuming you have one of your men leading them on a wild-goose chase. They didn’t think you’d come back here.”

Holt wasn’t taking Chan’s word for it. He strode forward, roughly searching Chan’s clothes for bugs, turning out his pockets and shoving him until he fell forward on his knees. He grabbed the scanner he’d brought with him from upstairs and waved it around Chan’s body for good measure. It beeped around his ears.

“My hearing aids always set off electronic scanners,” Chan said. “Do you want me to remove them?”

“No.” Holt leaned in close to Chan’s ear. “Because I want you to hear every word, every cry that Andee makes. Every time she whimpers, you’re going to hear it. You’re going to feel it in your gut and know that there’s nothing you can do to help her.”

A muscle in Chan’s jaw clenched, and I swallowed hard. I’d known my mom was in danger. Imminently so. And I’d known my time would come. But for some reason I’d thought it would be later rather than sooner. Like maybe I could talk him into giving me another chance if I could convince him I’d seen the error of my ways and I was ready to play nice or, well, bad. He wanted me to be a bad girl? I had actual incentive this time. My mom’s life in exchange for mine. I just needed to show Holt I meant it.

But something told me Holt wouldn’t buy it, even if he’d been willing to overlook my flaws before.

I mean, it wasn’t like Holt was a shining example of love and forgiveness. The guy had threatened to kill me on multiple occasions. The only reason he hadn’t followed through was because he wanted me to take over the family business and aerosolize his pill. There was no fatherly affection there, just him looking out for his own self-interests.

But now I’d crossed a line, and I could just as easily end up like the scientist Holt had killed when she’d served her purpose. He no longer thought of me as his succession plan. I was a loose end.

Everyone knew what happened to loose ends.

My eyes danced around the room, frantic for anything that might be able to get us all out of here alive. But nothing had magically appeared between the time I’d entered and now. Besides Chan.

Why would he walk into a death trap, unarmed, without backup, and no hope of escape?

There was only one answer: me.

Warmth bloomed in my chest and spread to the tips of my fingers. Maybe he’d been around enough hopeless situations and come out the other end unscathed to still believe in happily ever afters.

Holt was back at the machine, taking the second vial from the internal compartment and palming it. He put both of them on the table. The vials seemed to gleam with a neon glow in the dim light of the catacombs.

So close. But so far.

While Holt’s attention was on the vials, Chan slowly moved over to my side, keeping an eye on Holt.

“I’m sorry I ran,” I whispered. “I didn’t see another option. He had my mom and a sniper trained on you.”

Chan kept his voice low. “No time for that now. While I was in the vents I overheard Holt say that he gave your mom the pill.” He angled his body so his mouth was near my ear. “Our first priority is getting her out of the cell so we can get her the antidote.”

Holt turned and pulled out his gun. “Stop talking. Move away from her.”

He only put back his gun when Chan fell silent and moved five feet away from me. Then he returned his attention to the items on the table, rearranging them and caressing a beaker with its liquid like it held something precious.

Chan didn’t talk. He signed. My hearing aids are Bluetooth.

He might as well have been speaking another language, and not just ASL, because I had no idea what he was talking about. I couldn’t ask though because at that moment, Holt turned back around, holding the beaker.

“Your jailbreak gave me an idea.” Holt swirled the liquid inside the beaker, its clear contents not making any kind of drastic reaction. I mentally calculated the number of compounds I knew that might remain stable like that, despite physical stimulation. Then again, there was a stopper at the top, so it wasn’t exposed to the air. But it did look familiar.

The realization hit me at the exact moment Holt said the word.

“Chloroform.” He smiled. “You mixed some up to take me out, and I had one of my chemists make a batch so that I can put your mom to sleep right now. She’s proving to be quite resistant to the drugs in her system, and now that you’re here, I’m impatient to get this all over with.”

Panic hit the back of my throat, and I lurched to my feet. Faster than I would have thought possible, Holt pulled out his gun. But he didn’t point it at me. He pointed it at Chan.

I stopped in my tracks.

Holt tsked. “Your weaknesses are so predictable.”

My eyes cut to Chan, who nodded encouragingly. Holt’s attention was now on me, so he didn’t catch it when Chan signed, Keep him talking, draw it out .

But I didn’t want to draw it out. Couldn’t Chan see my mother was falling asleep before our eyes, even without the chloroform? She had the kill pill in her system already. If things took any longer without getting her the antidote, she’d die. Our only hope was to take care of Holt now so we could get my mom free and get the antidote in her system pronto.

Still. Doing things my way hadn’t exactly worked out in my favor. It was a pattern I was all too familiar with in my life. I’d burned the bridges at my work for being a one-woman team. Maybe I should let someone else call the shots. Someone who had the experience and the skills to back up the requests he was making. Someone like Chan, who got us out of the underground bunker even when it was my fault he’d gotten stuck there in the first place. Someone who managed to get us to backup, and follow me here despite me leaving him with no breadcrumbs to track.

Chan knew what was at stake. He wouldn’t ask me to draw things out if it put my mom’s life at risk. Well, more at risk. It was time I trusted someone other than myself for once. So I stayed silent and let Holt have his moment, even if it was killing me.

“Have I taught you nothing?” Holt’s voice got louder. Never a good sign. “You can’t rely on anyone but yourself. That only leads to disappointment.”

His motions became rougher, the chloroform in the beaker sloshing to the side.

My breath caught as I watched the beaker. “That sounds lonely,” I said.

“It’s not lonely to be at the top.” Holt’s eyes had that feverish cast to them I’d begun to recognize. “I can’t be manipulated. I don’t have to share my power with anyone else.”

I spared a glance for my mom. Her head dipped down before jerking up again, and my heart fell along with it, like we were on some kind of roller coaster together, inexplicably joined by an invisible string.

My eyes skimmed over to Chan, who was inching toward the air canisters, and I swiveled toward Holt. “What happened to you that you don’t have any moral compass?” My hands clenched into fists. “Were you dropped as a baby? Did you not have a positive male role model in your life?”

“What happened to me?” He loomed in my field of vision, bringing his face down to mine. “You think I was given any handouts? Any favors? No. I made myself what I am with sweat and backbreaking labor. And your mother? When she decided she couldn’t stand the heat, she stole eight hundred grand from my hard-earned stash in unmarked bills to start her shiny new life. She’s paying for her actions now. So don’t think you grew up the way you did because your mother was some kind of saint. She never was, or she wouldn’t have ended up with me in the first place.” He looked me dead in the eyes, and a cold vise gripped my spine. I’d learned I couldn’t always trust what my father told me, but I also didn’t know why he’d lie about that. Had my childhood really been bankrolled by an arms dealer?

Holt sneered. “You know it’s true. You just don’t want to believe it.”

Honestly? I didn’t know whether I cared. If he’d put her through half the things I expected, she’d earned that money, fair and square. It probably was laundered anyway and she was doing her best to stay alive and off his radar.

He kicked my shoe hard, and a jolt of pain shot up my leg. Still, I didn’t give him the satisfaction of a reaction. Holt was still pointing the gun vaguely in Chan’s direction, but with his attention focused on me, he didn’t realize that Chan was now halfway to the air canisters.

“I gave you a chance to see how the real world worked. The people in power don’t care about the little guys, Andee. So stop pretending like playing by their rules is going to get you what you want. If you want anything in this life, you have to take it, and it’s time you learned the hard way that no one’s looking out for you except yourself. I tried to help you see that. To let you into my circle. But you wouldn’t listen. I’m done trying to help you. Now it’s time you pay for double-crossing me.”

This time, it was obvious his threat wasn’t just going to be empty words. Holt swung his arm, and Chan leapt for the canisters. I wasn’t clear what he was going to do with them, because all I could think of doing was throwing myself back with as much force as I could while protecting my face with the crook of my arm. Holt’s fist came down on empty air the same second Chan made his intentions known. The carefully built-up tower of air canisters came crashing down, rolling out along the floor like a clanging beast intent on eating Holt alive. Holt turned, the gun flying in the air as one of the canisters hit him in the leg and rebounded into his arm.

Another canister hit me in the stomach, but if it separated Holt from his weapon, I’d gladly take the hit. But then my stomach fell for another reason.

Holt dropped the beaker he’d been holding. The one with the chloroform.

If the glass broke and exposed the liquid to the air, we’d all fall asleep.

Sure, I’d like to fast-forward through this moment to when the CIA cavalry arrived once they realized the port had been a ruse and Chan had been onto something all along.

But I knew the reality of our situation.

If my mom fell asleep—she wouldn’t wake up again.