by Linzi Baxter
“What’s going on?”
“There’s been an accident,” Antonio gritted out.
The only way Antonio would be this upset about an accident was if it involved someone close to him. Otherwise, he would have told everyone what happened the second he got off the phone. Instead, he pulled me into his arms and kissed the back of my neck.
“Was it Sophie?” I choked out.
Antonio gripped my waist tighter.
“Was it Sophie?” I yelled.
Guests turned our direction to see what was happening.
Antonio moved me off his lap. He stood up, looked at Asher, and nodded. When he looked toward the back patio doors, there was a mixture of weariness and remorse in his eyes, and I hated it. I needed him to say the words. His shoulders slumped, and he ran a hand across his brow.
Asher and CJ were on their feet. Everyone seemed to be on high alert, and Antonio still hadn’t told me what had happened to my sister.
“What happened?” I demanded again.
His eyes shifted to the side of the crowd. Asher must’ve picked up on the cue, because he took off in the direction Antonio indicated. I didn’t pay much attention to where Asher was going. I just wanted to know what happened to Sophie.
Antonio’s eyes pinned me, making dread come to the forefront.
“There was an accident.”
It was bad. Whatever had happened was really bad, and it was about me or Sophie, or he would’ve told me the second the phone call ended.
“Please tell me,” I begged.
“You’re going to be mad at me for what I’m about to tell you,” he whispered.
“Fucking tell me!” I needed the words to be said out loud. I needed Antonio to tell me what had happened. If the accident was bad, he would have led with that.
“Sophie was killed in a car accident.” Antonio spoke each word slowly so I could process it.
From the look on his face during the call and afterward, I had been prepared for him to tell me something had happened to Sophie. But when the words hit me, the hot, humid Florida air left my lungs. Sophie had become my best friend again. Who was going to be Ant’s aunt? Zane would be devastated. I needed more details. “How?”
“She and Zane were driven off the road. She died on impact, and the paramedics pronounced her dead moments ago.”
My knees went weak. It took everything in me to stay standing. Nausea rolled around in my stomach.
“Antonio, what are you doing?” CJ asked. “This isn’t the place to tell her something like that.”
Antonio said something, but my mind couldn’t comprehend the words. The only thing my mind could do was recall pictures of my perfect sister. She hadn’t deserved to be killed.
Juan needed to be destroyed. I would draw his death out for days and make it painful and cruel.
The one man I counted on as I grew up was coming after me and everyone that meant something to me. He’d never given me a chance to live a happy life. The instant I started to see what happiness was, Juan ripped it from my grasp.
Who would he go after next? Antonio or Ant? Nausea rolled through me again at the thought of someone hurting my baby. A sob caught in my throat. What if Juan went after more than my close friends and family? Daisy and Neal could be in danger just for being near me. The women at the shelter might be on his radar. Was anyone near me safe? Sophie was already gone. I couldn’t lose anyone else.
The only way to stop Juan was to turn myself over to him. I couldn’t stand for anyone else to be hurt because of me. I was never meant to have the “happily ever after” I’ve seen on TV or read about in books.
At least Ant would be happy with Antonio. They would miss me for a while before they both moved on.
With the decision made, a calm settled over me. I had already lost my sister. I couldn’t lose anyone else. Hopefully, Juan would be happy with me and leave my remaining family alone. I turned toward the exit. It was time to confront my uncle.
“Kat?” Antonio’s voice rang out. But I didn’t stop. He wouldn’t have understood what I needed to do.
A shiver went down my spine as I thought about what Juan might do to me. I planned to contact all his known associates, letting him know I was ready to come in. Would he take me out with one bullet, or would he make me go back to work for him? If it kept Antonio and Ant safe, I would do anything. I had experienced true happiness for the past two months with Antonio. Maybe that was all I could have.
“Katherine!”
I turned and headed for the car. The mass of bodies caused my anxiety to spike. I took a deep breath to stay calm. I needed to stay calm. The parking lot was in sight. Antonio kept speaking to me from behind. When I made it to the car, I would head north and talk with anyone I could find in New York. Someone had to know where Juan was.
“Kat, you need to stop.” Antonio wrapped his muscular arms around my waist, stopping my progress to the car.
“Let me go!” I screamed and kicked back.
The only thing I cared about was keeping Antonio and Ant safe. I needed to stop Juan, and I was the only one that could do it. He wanted me.
“I can’t.” Antonio swung me over his shoulder. “You’re my everything, and I won't let you sacrifice yourself.”
I couldn’t hold back the sob. “He wants me. Let me save everyone else from getting hurt. You have to let me go.”
“You are not going to sacrifice yourself, damn it.” Antonio ignored my protest. He walked toward the door and looked back at Neal. “Find Asher and CJ and have them meet me in my father’s study. I want you and Daisy in there too.”
No matter how much I wiggled and moved, I couldn’t break free from Antonio’s hold. “You have to let me go, Antonio. I can’t stand the thought of something happening to you or Ant. What happens if he goes after our friends or Asher? Do you want to lose your brother?”
“Nobody’s going to take Asher or me out. You need to trust me.” Antonio continued in the direction of the office in the Ross mansion.
“It’s too late. He already got my sister. How can you just stand here and do nothing? He killed my sister, my last living family member. Don’t you understand why I need to do this?”
Antonio walked into his father’s office and set me down on the brown leather sofa. When I went to say something, he put a finger over his mouth, motioning for me to stop talking. “Stay put.” He leaned in and whispered in my ear. “I will explain everything soon.”
He pulled a device out of his father's desk that looked like a walkie-talkie and switched the device on. He didn’t look my way. Instead, he walked around the office, waving the device over every square inch.
When he waved it over his father’s desk, it made a loud beep noise. Antonio flipped the laptop over and unscrewed the bottom panel. From underneath the panel, he pulled out a device the size of a dime and stomped on it.
His father’s office was bugged. Juan had been in here.
Antonio made a couple more passes through the office. He looked like he was ready to tear someone apart.
Antonio joined me on the couch and pulled me into his arms. “I’m sorry. I need you to forgive me.”
“You couldn’t stop Juan. Why are you sorry?” Tears started to run down my face. The shock from earlier was dying down, and my emotions were going all over the place.
“You need to forgive me, Kitty Kat. He was watching. Zane and I needed your emotions to be believable. I didn’t want to do it this way, But Zane and I needed to make a quick decision.”
Why did he say “believable”? Did that mean Sophie was okay?
“I need you to spell this out for me, Antonio.”
“I had to lie to you. Juan was on the other side of the fence, watching. Asher and CJ went after him.”
“Lie? Sophie didn’t get into an accident?”
“Yes, Sophie and Zane got into an accident, but Sophie didn’t die in the crash. When the paramedics came, Zane decided to fake Sophie’s death and send her to a safe house. He couldn’t handle
her being in harm's way again. I’m sorry I lied to you, Kitty Kat. It ripped me apart to see you cry. But Juan was watching.”
I didn’t have time to ask more questions, and I didn’t know how I felt about Antonio lying to me. Asher, CJ, Neal, and Daisy came into the office. Asher's face was red with anger.
“That fucker had a helicopter!” Asher yelled. CJ had taken a seat at Mr. Ross’s desk, and his fingers were flying across the keyboard of the laptop.
I felt as though it was all too much to take in, and I wanted to see Sophie. I needed to see her with my own eyes.
“I want to see Sophie now,” I said to the room.
Antonio frowned. “Kat, she’s at a safe house.”
“I don’t care if she’s on the fucking moon. I want to see her now.”
I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to forgive Antonio for playing off my biggest fear.
12
Kat
I looked around Sophie’s room in the safe house. Zane had whisked Sophie away to one of the numerous houses he owned under different shell companies. It wasn’t the largest home he owned, but it wasn’t your house next door.
The house had to be close to six thousand square feet and sat on ten acres. When I walked up the marble-tiled grand staircase to Sophie’s room, I passed a surveillance room most techies would drool over. Every square inch of the property was under surveillance. Zane had lasers programmed to detect the slightest vibration in the ground.
Three men I had never seen before manned the computers in the surveillance room. Zane and Antonio sat at the conference room table in the room, going over Juan’s last move.
Of course, even with all the technology in the world, no one could make the worry in my stomach go away. I thought I had lost my sister again. It had been three days since she and Zane had been run off the road and Antonio had told me she died. Deep down, I understood why Zane and Antonio decided to lie to me, but that didn’t mean I agreed with them. Antonio hadn’t needed to listen to Zane when he asked Antonio to fake Sophie’s death. He could’ve told me something else that would’ve made me cry and put on a scene.
As I walked across the plush carpet, Sophie's head turned from the TV mounted on the wall in the bedroom. “When are you going to forgive him?” she asked. Wow. No “Hi” or “How are you doing?” Just straight to the point.
I reached the king-size bed and sat next to Sophie. “Sophie… I don’t know. Those two made a choice that devastated me. They told me you died. Could you forgive Zane if he told you I died to put on a show?”
Her frown deepened, and she leaned over to grab a pint of ice cream she had been eating. “I was in on the decision. Are you angry with me?” Sophie had a cut under her eye from when the glass shattered in the accident. Her movements were stiff from the seatbelt bruise.
I took a second to think about it before answering. “I should be, but I was so happy you were alive that I didn’t care. It hurts that the people I love most can wound me like that. He could’ve told me someone else had died to make me cry. Fuck, Sophie, I thought I had lost you and that Juan was coming for everyone I care about.”
“I’m sorry.” Sophie let out a sniffle. “We weren’t thinking about what it would do to you. Zane and I looked at it as a way to get something over on Juan. Did you see Zane’s black eye?”
It was the first thing I’d noticed when Zane answered the door. “Was that from the accident?”
Sophie flipped through a few more channels before landing on an old episode of House Flippers. “No. Antonio punched him when he showed up to work yesterday. He said that was for upsetting his wife. Have you looked at your husband? He looks like someone killed his puppy, ran it over, and set it on fire.”
What she said was true. Antonio had tried everything to make me speak to him. Being angry with Antonio was hard, and I missed his touch. Without Antonio by my side, I tossed and turned all night, wishing Antonio had his arms wrapped around me, letting me know everything would work out. His touch helped soothe the anxiety that coursed through my body.
If anything, the incident with Zane and Sophie should have made me want to be around Antonio more. I could lose him any day.
I had gone years with no close family around. My sixteenth birthday was the last time Juan and I had spent a holiday together. He took me to a nice restaurant and informed me that I would be moving to a new school. I was devastated to learn I was going to have to leave the life I was used to.
A limousine picked us up from the restaurant, and in the back sat two of my suitcases. I recognized them the second I got in the car. Juan directed the driver in the opposite direction of his mansion in Dulles, Virginia. The car took us to a remote airstrip. Juan didn’t even exit the car. Two men in black suits opened the door and asked me to step out. That was the last time I saw my uncle for two years.
The men led me to a helicopter as tears streamed down my face. I didn’t understand what was happening. Later, I learned “the Farm” at the CIA’s Camp Peary was to be my new home. Camp Peary got the name “the Farm” during World War II when the War Department commandeered a few farms to make a facility to train officers.
It should’ve been called Camp Hell. The CIA used it to develop the next generation of agents. The first year, when I was sixteen, I learned to speak Madarin and Arabic. Instructors at the farm taught me how to pick locks and change my identity. That was the year I homed in on my sniper skills. Even though I was the youngest agent, I had the best shot.
In my second year, everything changed. I was taught how to withstand torture. One of the training exercises I would never forget was called “stress position.” My instructor handcuffed my feet to an eye bolt in the floor and my hands above my head. They made me hold the position for over forty hours. When I was released, I collapsed to the ground from muscle failure. I went through things no sixteen-year-old should ever have to see or endure.
Sophie pushed me to get my attention. I had been so lost in remembering that dreadful time that I hadn’t heard anything she was saying. “Sorry. I was lost in the past.”
“You know, we’ve never really talked about what you had to go through. The stories about when you were an assassin are interesting, but what was it like when you were younger?”
“I missed my family. Juan hired people to take care of me.” I took a deep breath. “When I turned sixteen, he turned me over to the CIA.”
Sophie sat up and gave me her full attention. “How could someone do something so evil to family?”
“He knew his stepsister had two genius kids. Juan played the long game and did pretty well for quite a few years, if you think about it.”
Sophie frowned and handed me the tub of chocolate chip ice cream. “I can’t wait until he’s underground. Did you make any friends through the process, or were you alone for all those years?”
I had lived with Juan for ten years before being shipped to the CIA. He hadn’t let me leave the house except for school. I had friends at school but none at home. The nannies he hired were evil bitches whom he paid to torment me. They would lock me in my room or go days without giving me food when I was younger.
The Farm didn’t have anyone my age. Everyone was in their twenties. Nobody hung out with the sixteen-year-old, so I spent all my time alone. “I didn’t leave any friends behind. Antonio was my first best friend when I became a field agent. But let’s not talk about Juan for once. Are you working from here until everything blows over?”
Sophie pointed to the laptop on the bed. “I’m working on helping a company increase their cybersecurity.”
Computers were never my thing. “Does Zane have people here during the day when he’s gone?”
“Yes, and they watch me like a hawk. I know it’s serious, and I don’t plan on leaving. Bridget will let me work remotely as long as I need to.”
“I’m happy she is letting you work from here. I’m heading back to the women’s center next week.”
I loved to help the women. Antonio promised I
could go back next week as long as I took a bodyguard. We had compromised on a female bodyguard from Brock’s security company. Mia wouldn’t intimidate the women like Antonio’s men might.
The bedroom door opened, and Antonio and Asher entered. Antonio looked hot in a tight black shirt that stretched around his biceps. But the wariness in his eyes made my heart break. He didn’t know if he was welcome. When I patted the seat next to me on the bed, he practically ran to my side. Zane joined Sophie on the other side.
Antonio leaned over and kissed my forehead. “I missed you, Kitty Kat,” he whispered so only I could hear.
“Any leads?” Sophie asked.
“The pilot of Juan’s helicopter, a man named Weiss, was in the military at the same time as Nebula. When we dug further, they both deployed to Iraq together.”
“They were in the same unit?” I asked. Antonio ran his hand down my side. His touch made me feel grounded for the first time in days.
“Yes. We’re trying to get a list of the full unit. The mission they were on was declared highly classified by Juan,” Zane said with a sigh.
“Doesn’t your clearance give you access?” Zane and Antonio had the highest clearance appointed by the president, so they shouldn’t have had a problem getting the info.
Antonio frowned as he pulled me into his arms. “We have as-high-as-you-can-get security clearance and can look at anything on the government servers. The issue we are running into is that the data from that deployment is missing.”
“Then how do you know they were in the same unit?” Sophie had asked the question that was on the tip of my tongue. If they were able to find the information linking Weiss the helicopter pilot and Nebula, why couldn’t they pull the remaining unit information?
Zane flipped the channel from HGTV to the NBA finals game. “CJ tracked the helicopter and then pulled the flight plan. Asher broke into Weiss’s house yesterday and found a photo of the unit. I recognized the place in Iraq where it was taken. We don’t know anyone else in the photo. Neither name is in any military database.”