"Don"t you think I"d have sold it by now if I did?"
"I don"t know. Would you?"
"Why do you care so much?"
"I have nothing and no one because I tried to protect it. You know this." She sc.r.a.pes her teeth over her lips. "Fine. Don"t tell me. Just answer this. Did you mean it when you said you"d do anything for money? When you said you"d do anything for a price?"
"Why? Are you offering?"
"Don"t keep playing word games with me. You said you"d do anything for money, but you also said you turned down five hundred million because this was bigger than the money." Her voice is quavering, laced with some mix of emotions-anger? Fear? "Which is it?" she demands.
Fear and anger. Yes. That"s what I see in her, but there is pain, too, heartache, like what I"d seen in her face when we talked about children. Whatever is going on here is far more personal than she"s letting on.
"Gia," I murmur softly. "Put down the gun."
"Answer me, Chad!"
I close the distance between us and cover the gun with my hand, aiming it past my body. "Gia."
"d.a.m.n you. I just want an answer."
"Tell me why this matters to you," I order.
"I told you-"
"The real reason, Gia. The reason I see in your eyes, in the shaking of your hand. The reason that you gave up everything. The reason those men were after you."
She releases the gun and sinks onto the bed. I go down on a knee in front of her, and set the gun on the ground, out of her reach. "Talk to me," I order softly.
"I"m not a secretary."
"I knew that."
"I was working on a top-secret project, which I destroyed before I helped you escape."
"Re-creating the cylinder?"
"Yes."
"How"d you get on that team?"
"I won awards and trained with some cutting-edge chemists in the field of clean energy. It was a topic that my father . . . lectured on frequently. It was his pa.s.sion. Now it"s my pa.s.sion, and my way to stay connected to him. The idea that an oil company would want to change the world, to be a part of the change they usually stifle, however naive it obviously was, appealed to me."
"How close was he to creating a new cylinder?"
"It could have been a year or decades, but I thought we had a seed of something that felt special. It wouldn"t come together, though."
My hand closes down on hers where it rests on her knee. "Did you really burn your work, or did you take it with you?"
"I burned it."
"Would you tell me if you had it?"
"You didn"t even know about this when you said you"d sell me to the highest bidder-so no, I would not make myself sound more valuable to you or anyone. For what it"s worth, though, I didn"t keep it. There wasn"t time. But anyone on that team has knowledge that Sheridan doesn"t want shared with others. So this isn"t just about me betraying him. It"s about what he thinks I took, and can give to someone else. Ironically, if you give him what he wants, I won"t matter anymore-but that defeats the entire reason I did this. It would make an evil man the most powerful person on this planet."
"If I were going to do that, I would have done it six years ago."
"Did he think you sold it to someone else? Is that why he killed your family?"
"I told him I couldn"t find it, but he said that someone inside The Underground-the group of treasure hunters I worked with, men who were supposed to be like blood family-had betrayed me and told him I had it."
"Do you?"
"You"ve asked that over and over, and each time, I don"t answer. Let"s break the perpetual cycle. Right now, we need to deal with your hand, and Jared has information on my sister that I need."
"I can wrap my hand," she insists, and I should let her, but I"m already leading her to the bathroom, and for reasons I can"t explain, I need more from her. Something. Anything. Just . . . more.
We enter a room where steel sinks and a sunken tub are enclosed by brick. Everything about this place is a modern money tank that is part of a ma.s.sive portfolio I"ve stockpiled.
"Chad-"
I cut her off by turning her to face the counter, cranking the water and unwrapping my shirt from her hand to stick it under the flow. I"m aware of my body wrapped around hers, of how small and feminine she is. When our eyes meet in the mirror, the connection I feel jolts me beyond reason. I don"t know what it is about this woman. Maybe it"s timing, maybe it"s some good in her that I sense when I"m simply so d.a.m.n bad, but she gets to me in every possible way.
"I need to know," she whispers.
"You don"t need to know," I insist, turning off the water.
She grabs a washcloth and turns to face me, her uninjured hand branding my chest. "I . . . do . . . I . . ."
Her objective is lost as somehow my wet hands settle on her waist and our mouths are far too close. The air thickens around her, the heat between us burning with demand. I want to kiss her, to strip her naked and escape this h.e.l.l, if only for a few minutes. But I fight the urge, trying not to muddy the waters that are already thick with sludge. This can"t happen. We can"t happen.
"No," I say, to this, to us, and to her need for answers I won"t give her.
"Just no? That"s not a good enough answer."
"It"s the only one you"re getting." I step away from her, feeling the ache of not touching her far too deeply, and reach inside a steel cabinet, setting a medicine kit in front of her before moving to the sink beside her to clean up my bloodied chest.
Silent seconds tick by, and I am far too aware of the intimacy of our sharing the bathroom, quickly wiping down my skin and walking to the closet to grab one of the T-shirts I have hanging inside. I return to the bathroom, still pulling it over my head, to find Gia standing in my path, arms folded in front of her.
"We aren"t staying here," I announce. "My sister"s in New York."
"That"s good, right? She"s safe?"
"Depends on how you define good. In the short time I"ve been away, she"s managed to get engaged to some billionaire architect."
"Do you think he"s a setup by Sheridan?"
"I"m sure he is. That"s why we aren"t staying. I"m going after her."
"Am I going with you?"
"Yes."
"And the man downstairs?"
"Jared," I say. "Yes. He"s going with us."
"Who is he to you?"
"He looked after Amy while I was gone. He"s also probably one of the top twenty hackers in the world, and the entire reason we were able to manipulate death certificates and records to disappear six years ago. He"s been close to Amy and her fiance the past few months, and at this point, she doesn"t even know I"m alive."
She blanches, holding up her hands. "Wait. Your sister thinks you"re dead? Why would you let her suffer that way?"
"Because Sheridan will use her against me if he gets the chance, and together we"re a bigger target. It had to be this way."
"Are you going to tell her now?"
"I"m going to do whatever I think keeps her safe. Right now, we"re going downstairs to connect a few dots with Jared and make plans. Don"t tell him about the cylinder. I"ll tell him when I"m ready."
"How can he not know about it if he helped you hide Amy?"
"I had no reason to tell him why we were in trouble. Amy and I were dead to Sheridan. He was out of this and safe, just monitoring pings with certain keywords for me from a distance. I"m going to have to tell him the truth, but right now I want him focused on Amy, not on a million questions about the cylinder. I"ll tell him the truth before he has time to hack your personnel file."
She studies me a moment. "What happens when you get your sister back? Does he make everyone disappear again until Sheridan finds one of us and kills us? Because Sheridan will keep coming for us-and now that he knows you"re alive, it won"t take six years for him to find you, or us, this time."
I grab her and pull her to me. "I told you. No one else dies because of me. He"s not going to have time to hunt me down. I"m hunting him down this time, and I won"t settle for anything less than his total annihilation."
"If that"s a promise, I"ll take it."
"It"s a promise, sweetheart." And before I can stop myself, I seal it with the intense kiss I"d denied us both only minutes before, tasting her deeply, pa.s.sionately, and telling myself it will be our last. Finally, I force myself to set her aside before I make that one last time really d.a.m.n unforgettable. "Jared is waiting on us downstairs."
We stare at each other, the heat of that kiss burning around us like d.a.m.ning flames, ready to consume us. We can"t happen, I remind myself, grabbing her hand, the touch scorching my palm, but I don"t let it stop my progress forward, leading her to the hallway and down the stairs.
Entering the kitchen, we find Jared standing at the stone island in the center of the room, a coffee cup, a laptop, and a file sitting in front of him. "I see you found the coffeepot," I comment, my hand protectively at Gia"s back.
"The beer was older than the coffee, so coffee won," he says, but it"s not me he"s focused on. It"s Gia. "And you would be?" he asks, giving her a once-over.
"Gia," she supplies, and rather than avoiding him, she leans on the counter across from him. "And you"re Jared. I"ve heard all about you."
"And yet I"ve heard nothing about you," he counters. "How"d you end up with an a.s.shole like Chad?"
"The same way she ended up with an a.s.shole like you," I a.s.sure him, claiming the spot next to her. "She was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"I was working for Sheridan"s company," she supplies. "I overheard Sheridan talking about Chad and something he wanted from him. Next came the order to torture him, and I just . . . acted."
His gaze flickers between us. "Did you know each other before this?"
"No," she says. "I acted in the heat of the moment, without thinking about the consequences."
Jared"s brow furrows. "If you thought he was in trouble, why not call the police?"
"Sheridan"s very powerful. By the time the police came and investigated, Chad would have been moved, and I would have been fired and probably called crazy."
"It"s complicated," I a.s.sure him, spooning a s.h.i.t-ton of sugar into my coffee. "And we don"t have time for me to explain it to you right now. Bottom line, Gia made decisions, and Sheridan thinks she knows more than she does. Right now, I"m focused on Amy and getting her away from Liam Stone."
"That"s no easy task. He"s possessive, and protective, and keeps her guarded. Add to that the fact that she"s in love with him and won"t walk away, and you have a problem."
"She"s not staying with Liam f.u.c.king Stone. For all we know, he"s holding her for ransom, like bait, and I"m the fish."
"That might be true," he says, "but you aren"t going to convince Amy of that easily. She"ll fight leaving Liam. And she knows you"re alive, Chad. Or, she knows you were a month ago. I had to play your voice mail to me to get her to trust me. You can"t just leave her a note and a warning this time."
Gia"s hand comes down on my arm. "She"s going to be hurt," she warns. "You need to tread cautiously, because she could withdraw from you rather than welcome you. That could push her closer to Liam, and give him more control over her."
The idea of hurting Amy, of her hating me, continues to tear me to pieces, but I will endure her wrath to save her. To know she"s alive and well. "Her safety has to come first. I"m going after her. Now, tonight."
Gia turns to me, gripping my arm tighter. "Sheridan will expect you to go after her. You can"t just charge in and grab her."
"I told you. I always have a plan."
" "Grab her, run, and deal with the aftermath later" is not a plan."
"It will be if I say it is."
TWELVE.
TRYING TO ARRANGE A FLIGHT that I can be certain won"t make it onto Sheridan"s radar turns into a nightmare and uses a s.h.i.t-ton of resources. Aside from cash, I end up calling in a favor from someone who had dirt on someone who had dirt on the pilot. It"s nearly five in the morning when we reach the private airstrip a good hour outside of Denver from which we"ll take a private jet to New York City.
With a computer case on my shoulder and the folder of Jared"s notes and photos inside it, I follow Gia inside the luxury plane with leather seats, a lounge area, and televisions. To say I"m irritable and tired is an understatement, but after hours of grilling Jared about Liam Stone and everything he"s witnessed these past weeks, I can come to only one conclusion: I need to get to my sister now, not later.
My hand comes down on Gia"s back and I direct her to a seat by the window, quickly joining her. We"re both buckling up when Jared stops in front of us. "If you"re done grilling me, I"m going to the back to try and get some sleep."
"We"ll have in-flight internet. I"m going to dial in and do some research, but I"ll save the questions until after you get your beauty sleep."
He holds his hands out to his sides. "What can I say? I hack better when I"m beautiful. And seriously, man. You need rest. When was the last time you slept?"
"About four hours in two days," Gia answers for me, "and before that catnaps while tied to a chair for I don"t even know how long."
"Go away," I order Jared.
Jared laughs. "Night-night, Prince Charming." He gives Gia a sympathetic look. "You"re welcome to join me in the back of the plane if he gets intolerable."
He disappears and I grimace at the empty s.p.a.ce he occupied moments before and say, "You aren"t going anywhere with him."