by Katee Robert
Fuck, but she never ceased to amaze him. Tristan stepped closer and closer yet until she had to crane her neck back to hold his gaze. He carefully framed her face with his hands. “I’m not here on Zhao’s orders. Or anyone’s orders. He cut me loose, just like I told you. I haven’t lied to you once since I got here.”
She sighed. “That’s quite the qualifier.”
“It’s the truth.” He didn’t know how to let down his barriers. Not when he’d spent so much time building them up to keep himself safe. With Amarante, though, he didn’t have to. She was already inside with him. “I came here for you, Te. You’re the one I choose. No one else.”
“I really want to believe you right now.”
He brushed his thumbs over her cheeks. “I don’t believe in shit, so swearing on something won’t mean a single damn thing. But I believe in us.”
“Tristan.”
“I swear on us that I’m telling the truth.”
She closed her eyes for a long moment and he found himself holding his breath. Finally, Amarante sighed. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah, okay. Let’s get moving.” She stepped back carefully and he dropped his hands. If they survived this attack, then they could talk about the future. There was no point until they knew how things would fall out with Zhao.
Tristan followed Amarante out the back door he’d scoped out earlier. He’d ultimately chosen to sneak in through the front, initially hiding in plain sight before he found one of the doors into the secondary passageways he’d suspected existed. There was a small dock with an equally small boat tied to it. “Not exactly seaworthy.”
“It doesn’t have to be. We’re just island hopping.” She stepped easily into the tiny thing, looking strangely at home there despite her designer suit. Tristan followed more slowly. When he was settled on the plank across from her, she raised her brows. “You’re not afraid of the water, are you?”
“Not afraid. I just have a healthy respect for settings where I’m not the apex predator.” He jerked his thumb at the gorgeous blue stretching to the horizon. “The ocean tops the list.”
“Finally. A tiny sign of humility.” She turned the engine over and slowly steered them away from the dock.
Tristan tried to relax. Amarante never took them far from shore, hugging the island line as she took them south. He wasn’t much on an outdoors type of guy, but even he could appreciate the beauty of this island. Even more, he could appreciate how she’d beat back nature to create a safe space of her own. “It’s amazing what you’ve done with this place.”
“I know.”
He shot her a grin. “I’m not stroking your ego, Te. I mean it. Most of us just take and take and take from others. You went and created something new. It’s impressive.”
“It wasn’t easy. But it’s worth it.” She veered away from the shoreline toward a tiny island directly south.
He’d noticed it, of course, but he’d thought it was one of the countless unoccupied island in this area off the coast of Africa. There were thousands of them, some housing resorts and residences, but most left to nature because they were too small or missing something necessary to support human life. Or maybe they were just too much of a pain in the ass to build on. He didn’t know and he didn’t give a fuck.
Another tiny dock awaited them, this one partially hidden in the rise of the rock. Rocks were weird here, giant rectangle formations that looked alien and strange. Amarante tied the boat off and climbed out easily. “This won’t take long.”
He still didn’t know what this was, but he followed along. She had her reasons for being here, for bringing him here, and he doubted those reasons included answering half a dozen questions.
They headed up a small rise and down a barely tended path into the single copse of trees. He stopped short. There was a squat square building made of concrete. No windows. A single door. This was a jail cell if he’d ever seen one. Doubt rose, but he ignored it. Amarante either trusted him or she didn’t. It was too late to do anything but walk through the door she opened and meet his fate.
Inside was both what he expected and not. Three doors with impressive electronic locks on them that he’d be hard-pressed to hack. A tile floor with a drain in the center. He looked up and noted the hooks in the ceiling. Torture chamber.
It lined up. Bueller held no end to atrocities, but Amarante’s fate had been extra fucked up. They forced her to torture people for their amusement. Tristan fought back a shudder and kept his expression placid. “You should fire your interior designer.”
“Always with the jokes.” She shook her head and walked a slow circle around the room.
Despite himself, he asked, “What is this place, Te?”
She gave him an eerily empty smile. “This is where my father is going to die.”
Chapter 23
Less than twenty-four hours later, Amarante crouched in the darkness between Ryu and Tristan. They all wore uniform black gear and boots, the better to move with ease. A small, silly part of her missed her suits, but it would be the height of stupidity to go on a mission like this dressed as anything less than a solider.
Tristan peeled back a thick textured blanket-like thing to reveal a square metal hatch. If he hadn’t been here to show them where it was, it would have taken hours to find. If they’d found it at all. He touched the locking mechanism on the center of it. “When they start the attack, we’ll open it.”
“There won’t be alarms.” The suspicion in Ryu’s voice was warranted, but she appreciated that he’d put his issues with Tristan aside for the time being. She’d have to deal with them later if they all survived this, but later didn’t exist in this moment.
“To have alarms means people would know about this.” Tristan gently tapped the hatch. “And no one does. Zhao went so far as to kill the people who worked on it to ensure no word got out.”
Her brother’s face twisted. “And yet somehow you found it. You can’t seriously expect us to believe that.”
“Believe what you want. It took me seven years of haunting that fucking place to realize the storage closet was more than it seemed and another three to get all the codes I needed to work this.”
That kind of dedication staggered her if she thought about it too hard. Not that Tristan had the patience to play the long game; she had that kind of patience and more. No, it was that he’d remained in Zhao’s household for so long while actively collecting information that may or may not have been of use down the road. He had no guarantees at any point. “Would you have stayed?”
He didn’t ask her to elaborate. “I don’t know. If I’d found out about the camp sooner… No. He made sure to keep it from me, and he was damn careful about it, too. So it’s possible I might not have if you didn’t force his hand.” He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Not the answer she wanted, but a truthful one all the same.
Amarante’s body hummed with adrenaline. Waiting was the worst part. Once they moved, she could put all this pent up energy into action. “No mistakes.”
“No mistakes,” they repeated.
The first explosion tore through the night. She couldn’t see it from her position, but it sounded like someone had dropped a bomb on the other side of the compound. A second. A third. “What the hell did they put in those things?”
Ryu chuckled. “When it comes to Kenzie, it’s better not to ask.”
Tristan touched the numbers quickly and she held her breath as they waited for the lock to click open. The second it did, he wrenched the hatch up. “Let’s go.”
Ryu went first, disappearing into the hole without a word. Amarante cast a long look at Tristan and followed her brother down the metal ladder into darkness. Tristan came last, carefully leaving the hatch open behind them. They’d argued about the best option there, but ultimately closing it made no sense because they couldn’t afford to leave someone behind to cover it again. Better to have their exit route open and hope like hell that no one stumbled across
it in the meantime.
With the explosions still rocking the night, it was a pretty good bet that it’d be fine when they got back. As long as they hurried.
She touched her headlamp to turn it on, fighting back the darkness. Ryu and Tristan did the same. Tristan’s hand brushed hers as he carefully maneuvered to the front of their little line. “Let’s get this done.”
They wasted no energy speaking as they traversed the dark tunnel. She couldn’t shake the feeling of dankness, despite the concrete walls being perfectly dry. Maybe it was being underground that tricked her mind. She didn’t know. Instead of looking around, Amarante focused on the circle of light her headlamp created on Tristan’s back. The steady beat of his feet in front of her and Ryu’s behind her. A slow count to one hundred and they reached a second ladder.
“Lights off,” Tristan murmured.
She didn’t want to, but she ignored the tiny whimper of fear. It had no place here. Giving in meant death, and she was the only death who stalked these halls. Amarante clicked off her light and Ryu did the same behind her, letting darkness flood in until she couldn’t see anything at all.
They stood there and listened to Tristan climb the ladder. Ryu’s hand found hers in the dark and she squeezed it, trying very, very hard not to think back to another time many years ago, when they stood shoulder to shoulder in the dark. He’d been crying then. She’d been terrified. Neither of them knew what waited for them, only that they’d been hauled from their beds in the middle of the night by masked figures.
Neither of them had any idea that their father was the one who’d ordered it.
And she still didn’t know why.
“Clear.” Tristan’s voice floated down from above, barely more than a whisper.
Ryu squeezed her hand one last time and released her. Amarante hated how shaky she felt as she climbed the ladder. This wasn’t supposed to be a weak moment, and she had no time for these inconvenient feelings from her childhood rising beneath her skin.
Get in. Get Zhao. Get out. That was all that mattered.
The ladder ended and she blindly reached up to find the doorway. There was nothing but wall. What the hell?
“Behind you,” Tristan murmured. Then his hands were there, hooking her around the waist and hauling her back into the storage closet.
The scent of dust assailed her nose and she had to concentrate hard to keep from sneezing. A few moments later, Tristan helped Ryu into the closet, too. The space was nowhere near large enough for the three of them, so it took some jostling and awkwardness before he was able to slide the back wall shut. He flicked on his head lamp on the lowest setting. “This is how you open it.” He took her hand and pressed it to a slight irregularity on the left side of the wall. It gave with a tiny click and the wall moved. “Got it?”
She didn’t ask why he wanted to show her. It was in case something happened to Tristan before they got out of there. Amarante opened her mouth to tell him that she wouldn’t leave him behind, no matter what, but he pressed a finger to her lips. “Get out safely, Te. That’s all I ask.”
“Let’s go,” Ryu said softly.
He went out the door first and Amarante followed close behind, with Tristan bringing up the rear. The hallway was empty, but they could hear gunshots and yelling in the distance. The others were still keeping up their distraction. She checked her watch. “We have ten minutes. Maybe less.”
“This way.” Tristan headed down the hallway.
Amarante followed, trying not to pay too much attention to the art lining the walls. She’d never set foot in this compound, had been born in a different home in a different part of China, but it felt the same. She hadn’t been prepared for that, but she should have been. Zhao showed every sign of being a creature of habit. Of course his sense of style would stretch forward to this point.
Tristan took them up a set of stairs to the third floor. “He’ll be through here.” He glanced at them. “Are you ready?”
No. Not in the least. And yet as ready as she would ever be. She glanced at Ryu and wasn’t surprised to find him just as pale as she felt. They nodded at each other. “We’re ready.”
“Okay.” He didn’t ask again, which she appreciated. He simply headed to a massive set of doors at the end of the short hallway. Amarante barely had time to brace before Tristan threw them open. He swept left and Ryu swept right, leaving her to handle the rest of the room. She took in the massive space. A desk, a bed, a fireplace large enough to stand in, all dripping opulence.
Empty.
Ryu shut the doors behind them and Tristan headed for the bathroom. It was only then that she heard water running. She exchanged a look with her brother. Zhao was in the shower. Really? It seemed too good to be true. Which meant it must be. “Tristan, wait.”
Too late.
He opened the bathroom door and a gunshot rang out. Tristan stumbled back and fell to the ground, his hand to his shoulder. “Fuck!”
Zhao emerged, fully dressed and holding a gun. “Weapons on the ground.”
Amarante shot before he had a chance to finish speaking. Her bullet took him in the fleshy part of his bicep. He hit the wall and the gun hit the floor. Tristan kicked it away. The whole thing had taken seconds, though she was breathing like she’d just run a marathon. “Ryu, tie his hands and bandage that wound. I don’t want him bleeding out until I’m ready.”
Zhao tried to fight, but Ryu delivered a vicious punch to his jaw. While he was stunned, her brother zip-tied his hands in front of him and tore off several strips of sheets. Two went around Zhao’s bicep. The others, he handed to Amarante.
She knelt next to Tristan. “That was a stupid thing to do.”
“Brave.”
“Same thing.” She started to peel his shirt away from the wound, but he grabbed her wrist. Amarante glared. “If you bleed to death, I’m going to kill you myself.”
“A bit redundant, Te.” His voice was off, strained from pain. He took the strips of sheets from her, wadded them up, and stuffed them down his shirt to where his holster kept them in place. “I’ll hold.”
“Tristan—”
“I’ll hold. Let’s go. We don’t have much time.”
Time. She had no idea how much they had left. Amarante helped him to his feet and turned to find Ryu with Zhao over his shoulder. Her brother looked like he might be sick, but he locked it down when he caught her eye. “I’m fine. Let’s get out of here.”
“Without a hitch,” she murmured.
Amarante led the way out of the suite and back down the hall. She couldn’t heard explosions anymore, and only the occasional sound of gunfire. They were running out of time. Three steps down the stairs and she froze. “Someone’s coming.” Several sets of footsteps sounded below. She reached for her gun. The goal was sneak in and sneak out without a confrontation. The three of them couldn’t hold against the kind of numbers Zhao had in this place. Every minute they were held up decreased the likelihood of them getting out of here alive.
“I’ve got this.” Tristan moved to stand on the stair next to her. “I’ll hold them off long enough for you to get him out. You’ll be moving slower with his unconscious ass and you’ll need the extra time.”
His words refused to make sense in her mind. “You can’t seriously be asking me to leave you.”
“I’m not asking you shit, Te. I’m telling you that I’ll carve you out a window.” He snagged the back of her neck and towed her in for a quick kiss. “Get you and your family out of here. I’ll catch up.”
If they left without him, there would be no catching up. There would only be his death. “I’m not leaving you.”
“You don’t have a choice.” He moved faster than he had right to, shoving her back. She landed on her ass, but by the time she scrambled to her feet, Tristan was gone, disappearing down the stairs.
She started after him, but Ryu’s voice stopped her short. “We have to go.”
“I’m not leaving him.”
“Te.” He wa
ited for her to look at him. “I can’t get Zhao out of here on my own.”
Indecision ripped through her. Every instinct she had demanded she go after Tristan, to ensure he stayed safe. To lose him was unthinkable… But they were so close to their goal. She couldn’t fail her family. Her breath sawed out in a sound suspiciously like a sob. She had no choice. “Come on.”
They made it back to the storage closet without seeing a single person, but the sound of gunshots echoed through the house. Tristan, holding off Zhao’s men, creating a distraction, acting in penance? She didn’t know. She was desperately afraid she’d never get a chance to ask him.
The drop from the door to the bottom of the tunnel was barely six feet. Ryu hung Zhao by his arms and dropped him. The impact woke the older man up, and his curses filled the closed space as they climbed down. Amarante turned on her head lamp and stared at him. This man had seemed almost larger than life when she faced off with him in the Warren. Down here in the dark, his truth was revealed. “You’re just a man.”
Ryu stopped short and looked at her strangely. “What?”
“Zhao.” She stood over him. “For so long you were the bogeyman who haunted the darkness, the evil thing that would kill us if we stepped out of line. And then you were the enemy, which made you larger still. In reality, you’re none of those things. You are a man who is selfish and greedy and evil yes, but just a man.”
“Te, we have to keep moving if we’re going to get him out of here.”
“We’re not getting him out of here.” All her plans, her carefully detailed tortures… What was the point? She wouldn’t get the answers she craved because there were no answers. Nothing he could say would justify what he’d done. No information she could pull from him would change the people she and her siblings had become because of the evil he allowed to flourish in that place. Leaving with him would cut her off from one of the few things she actually cared about in this world. The price was too high. She wouldn’t do it. “Get out of here, Ryu.”