Page 114 of The Unlikely Spare

Fine is relative. But we’re alive. That’s what matters.

“How do you know how to hot-wire a car?”

“Misspent youth.” I swing the wheel hard into the first corner. I need to focus on driving, on escape routes, on keeping us alive.

“Check the glove compartment. Anything useful?”

Nicholas rummages through it with hands steadier than mine. “Registration papers, a torch, some tissues. Unless you want to navigate our escape by blowing our noses, I don’t see much tactical advantage here.”

Despite everything—the terror, the adrenaline, the very real possibility that we’re not out of this yet—I feel my mouth twitch. In the midst of a kidnapping attempt, Nicholas’s wit remains intact. It’s so essentially him that my chest loosens just a fraction.

I take a sharp turn onto a larger road, putting more distance between us and our pursuers. The speedometer climbs past legal limits, but that’s the least of our concerns.

The New Zealand countryside blurs out the windows. All those picturesque rolling hills we admired on the way here are now just obstacles between us and safety.

If safety even exists anymore.

I do a mental inventory. One stolen vehicle. No backup I can trust. And the Glock at my hip with eighteen rounds total—the diplomatic permit had been a nightmare to arrange, and even then, New Zealand’s restrictions mean I’m carrying a third of my usual ammunition.

Eighteen bullets between us and whatever’s coming.

I’ve been in worse situations, but not many.

“What about the others?” Nicholas asks, and the concern in his voice cuts through my focus. “Blake? Cavendish?”

“If they got out, they’ll contact HQ.” I grip the steering wheel harder. “But we can’t rely on standard protocols now.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Nicholas

“Where are we going to go?” I ask. Eoin’s knuckles are white on the steering wheel, his jaw working like he’s grinding glass between his teeth.

“I’m not sure yet,” he says.

I’m uneasy. Something’s off. And it’s not merely the fact that I’ve been attacked by a terrorist group for the second time in just over a week.

Something else is not quite right.

I study Eoin. His eyes are constantly flicking between the road and the rearview mirror.

“So, how are we meeting up with everyone else?”

“We’re not,” he says simply.

Something cold and slippery coils in my stomach. My fingers curl involuntarily against the leather seat.

“Why are we not meeting up with everyone else?” I demand.

“I don’t trust the other members of your protection team.”

My mind ticks over his words for a few seconds. “You think one of them is compromised.” It’s a statement of fact, not a question.

“Yes.”

The notion that one of my own protection officers might be a traitor settles in my stomach like a badly swallowed oyster. These people surround me constantly, observe my every move. I’ve been irritated by their presence, chafed against their protocols, but I’ve never questioned their loyalty.

How naive of me. How utterly, royally naive.