by Brynn Kelly
You do.
I don’t. But I’m doing this anyway.
She walked to the bedside table, picked up the phone and dialed a room number. Her hand shook so much she twice pressed the wrong button and had to start over.
A gruff voice answered. “Yes?”
“Senator Hyland?”
“Yes.”
“This is Samira Desta. I believe you are looking for me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
WHAT DID SAMIRA just say? Jamie hissed her name again but the comms were evidently still only working one way—and patchy at that. What was she doing? He’d heard typing, and then she’d dialed a number on a landline, going by the distant tones.
Merde, she’d called Hyland’s room? Fitz or not, Jamie had to get inside.
A tinny, echoing man’s voice came through the earpiece. Hyland. She’d put the phone on speaker? “...believe many people are looking for you. Where are you?”
“In your hotel. I want to talk to you and you alone.”
“My hotel? Where, exactly?”
“First, I want assurances. You want the name of the person I’m communicating with and you want to stop me testifying against you, and I’m willing to discuss both those things. But you are threatening people who are important to me. I need proof they are safe and will remain so. And I need a new identity and money in exchange for my silence.”
Shite. Go, Samira.
“Whoa, whoa,” Hyland said. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do, but I’m sure you’d prefer not to discuss this over the phone.”
A stocky man in a black suit charged out of the security tent, a dark bruise on his temple. The goon Jamie had sedated in the hospital. Jamie ducked behind a column, hunkering under the baseball cap he’d grabbed from the car. The earpiece exploded into crackles. When he peeped out again, the guy was talking to Fitz—urgent, hushed. Fitz spoke quickly into his phone, pocketed it and followed him inside. Going after Samira?
Jamie wandered up to the police guard at the tunnel entrance, one hand in his trouser pocket. He nodded at the officer, who waved him in.
“I know you’re not alone, Ms. Desta,” Hyland was saying. “Is your companion with you?”
The earpiece squealed with interference, drowning out her response. The body scanner beeped as Jamie stepped through. An officer did a paddle scan and let him pass. A plainclothes woman stood by a computer with a handheld scanner. She reached for Jamie’s lanyard. Here we go.
“Early start to winter out there,” Jamie said, choosing an American drawl to match the credentials on his pass.
“Try wearing a kilt,” the woman said, jerking her head toward a hotel doorman.
“No, thank you, ma’am.” Never again in his life, if he could help it.
The scanner beeped. Jamie’s face came up on its screen—the photo Samira had taken a few hours earlier. Diplomatic Security Special Agent Harrison Roberts Jr. Top-secret clearance.
Nice work, Samira.
“Thank you, Agent Roberts,” the woman said.
In the lobby, Fitz and the driver had disappeared. Jamie strode toward the lifts, watching the floor indicator. The right-hand elevator passed the second floor and stopped on the third. Putain.
The crackling in his earpiece morphed into Samira’s voice. “You have gone after everyone who is close to me. You should know that I am about to do the same, unless you do what I say.”
“What do you mean?” Hyland said.
“The carrot and the stick—isn’t that how it works, Senator? I have information that will destroy your daughter’s reputation, and we both know how much that means to her.”
“What information?”
Was Samira bluffing? Hyland didn’t seem to be buying it.
“I will speak only to you, and only if you come alone,” Samira said.
“Ms. Desta, I’m sure you understand that with the level of security—”
A smashing noise. Samira gasped.
“Ah, sounds like my head of security has located you,” Hyland said. “He will take it from here. Good talking to you.” A click. He’d hung up?
Several clonks, and the earpiece squealed. Jamie upped his pace.
“Lovely to see you again, Ms. Desta.” An Irish accent, distant and muffled. Fuck.
Jamie reached the elevators and pressed the call button. It lit up then went dark.
“You have to swipe it with your keycard,” a white-haired woman said, walking past. “It’s all very involved security around here this week. That senator from America is staying—the handsome one—but I guess you’d know that.” Her elderly companion rolled his eyes. “Not that he’s handsome, I mean. Just that he’s here.”
In Jamie’s ear, Samira cried out faintly, the weak connection making her sound like she was underwater. Shit.
He made a show of patting his pockets. “Oh no, I must have left my card in my room.”
“Are you—what’s it called—Secret Security Service?” The woman’s eyes widened.
“Something like that, ma’am. And, wow, will I be in trouble with the senator for this.”
“Oh, we can’t have that. Allow me.”
She shuffled forward, pulled a keycard from her purse, held it against the scanner and pressed the call button. It lit up—and stayed lit. Jamie held a hand to his ear, cradling his earpiece. Nothing but a faint hum. Seemed like he was the last one standing.
“Appreciate it, ma’am,” Jamie said, checking his breath. He’d be the one having a panic attack, in a minute. In what he hoped was a salute befitting the Secret Security Service, he touched two fingertips to his temple. “You two have a nice day.”
Once in the elevator, he chose the third floor and hammered the door-close button. What the hell would he do when he got to the room? The doors opened and he peeped out—a quick left and right. The corridor was empty except for a woman in gym gear talking on a phone, her wet hair plastered to her neck. He began walking, checking the room numbers.
“...so embarrassing,” the woman was saying as she slotted her card into a lock. “I had to go down to the front desk and get a new key—wet hair, goggle marks, no makeup and this huge zit on my cheek.”
Jamie strode faster, counting down the room numbers. He caught up to the woman as she pushed the door open. Room 327.
“Seriously, I look like a zombie with its flesh—Jesus Christ.” She held the phone to her chest.
Jamie pulled up behind her. The room looked deserted.
She turned to him. “I think I’ve been robbed.”
He grabbed her shoulders and planted her against the corridor wall. “Wait here.” He shouldered open the door as it went to latch, the contact burning into his wound, and reached for a gun that wasn’t there. An overturned chair, a spilled suitcase, strewn bedcoverings... Drawers had been pulled out and emptied. The minibar swung open. Jamie crouched and pulled at a corner of dark purple fabric. It snaked out from under a sheet. Samira’s scarf.
“Jesus Christ,” the woman said again, holding the door open. “Should I report it?” From her phone, a tinny voice squealed.
“No,” Jamie said, adopting an authoritative voice. “No, I’ll take care of it, ma’am. Go back to the gym and wait there. Speak to nobody.”
As she spun, a large figure covered the doorway. She jumped, screeching. The sound echoed in Jamie’s ear. Samira’s mic had to be still in the room. A guy in a black suit stepped in, holding a Beretta. Laura’s security detail. Blood seeped from a wound beside his eye. The woman backed into the room.
“Where is she?” Jamie demanded.
“I swear, man,” said the guy, advancing, the woman almost pirouetting in his wake, “I’m not even sure what’s going on but your best chance is to come quietly. Your buddy already gave me enough trouble.”
&
nbsp; The woman tripped and fell backward onto the floor. She scrambled, grabbed a high-heeled boot from a pile of clothing and smashed it into the guy’s shin. He flinched. Jamie leaped into a disarming maneuver. The guy swiveled and his fist connected with Jamie’s wounded shoulder. Another black-suited goon ran into the room, identical Beretta trained on Jamie’s chest.
“Sorry, man,” the first guy said. “I did suggest you come quietly.”
* * *
FITZ SHOVED SAMIRA onto a chair in a windowless meeting room. She didn’t even know what floor they were on. The Peugeot driver followed him in and closed the door, Samira’s laptop under her arm. They weren’t taking her to Hyland?
“I will talk only to the senator,” Samira said.
“He’s a busy man,” Fitz said. “He doesn’t deal with minor concerns.”
“I am no minor concern.” Damn her shaky voice. “He wants the name of my contact and he wants my silence. In exchange, I want reassurances. From him, face-to-face.”
“I can make you silent anytime I choose.”
“But you don’t know what information I have or where I’ve stored it or in whose hands it will end up if something happens to me. Do you think I would have come to you like this without taking precautions?” God, she sounded as desperate as she felt.
He linked his hands behind his back. “If you had any power over the senator you’d have used it by now, you’d have given your intel to the special counsel, the media. You have nothing.”
Saliva filled her mouth. She resisted the urge to swallow. “You think I want to put myself in the public eye like that? You think I like all this attention? You think I like living in fear?”
“I know for a fact that you don’t.”
“Then you know me better than I’d given you credit for. And you’ll understand that I want to come to a solution on the quiet, as I’m sure the senator does.”
He waited—stony faced but intrigued enough to find out where she was going with this. Hell, she hardly knew where she was going.
“There are three ways this will go away,” she said, her words racing along with her pulse. “One, I turn over what I have to the special counsel, which will require me to testify, which will lead to my entire life being dissected in the media, and that attention following me around forever. That’s not a win for either of us. Or, two, you buy my intel and my silence—money, a new identity and assurances that the people I love will be protected.”
“You said three ways. What’s the third?”
“You kill me, and all the dirt I have—on Hyland, on his daughter—will be delivered to the special counsel, the FBI and every major news outlet in America.”
“What makes you think we have the power to give you any of these things?”
“I’m not a fool, Matisse.” His brow flinched. “Oh, did I forget to mention? I have an intriguing dossier of evidence on you among my files. How would Jennifer, Grace and Toby feel if their husband and father was implicated in the LA terror attacks? I have proof of where you were that day—and it wasn’t at home on Sixth Street as you claimed, was it?” She eyeballed him, trying to cover for her bluff.
“I will need to see this evidence you claim to have before we enter any negotiations.”
She exhaled through her nose. Progress. She flicked her gaze pointedly at the laptop.
“Open it,” he said to the woman.
The woman laid it on the table and pulled the cover open. “It’s password-protected.”
Fitz raised his eyebrows at Samira.
“Some of this material is of a highly...personal nature,” Samira said. “I doubt the senator would be comfortable sharing it, even with you.”
He strode up to her, grabbed a chunk of her hair and yanked, forcing her head back, pressing her chin into his suit jacket. She gasped, pain shooting over her scalp. He smelled of strong cologne, like he’d sprayed in lieu of showering.
“Don’t have a panic attack, Samira,” he hissed.
She fought to keep her head from spinning. His outburst had to be a good sign—an attempt to reassert his power because he felt it slipping. She knew all about powerlessness. She breathed out, relaxed and let her lungs fill, breathed out, relaxed. He narrowed his eyes and released her with a shove, toppling her chair backward. Her cheek smacked into a cabinet. She sprawled onto the carpet and scrambled backward, sitting against the wall, drawing in her knees. She touched her palm to her cheek. Hot but not bleeding.
Fitz pulled out a phone and dialed. A second later he met her gaze, eyes wide, jaw dropped. Calling Hyland’s cell phone.
She pressed the soles of her feet hard onto the carpet, her back into the wall. “If you’re in any doubt about how far I can reach—how far I have reached—that’s just the beginning.”
“What is it?” the woman asked Fitz.
He hung up, switched his phone to speaker and called again, eyeballing Samira. It went straight to Hyland’s message—his new message. Samira’s voice scratched out of the phone: “Regrettably, Senator Hyland is presently detained and may be for quite some time.” She didn’t sound nearly as fearful as she’d felt when she’d recorded it, minutes before calling Hyland’s room—but then, she’d made three attempts before getting the words straight. His phone was now dismantled, the pieces dropped between the blades of an air vent in the swimmer’s room, along with Samira’s comms set, hurriedly stashed in the seconds it’d taken Fitz and his goons to push past the set of drawers she’d dragged in front of the door.
“Oh, I can also fix that once I’ve talked to the senator,” Samira said. “Or it might well get switched to something more incriminating, depending on how this next part goes.”
He snatched up his phone and walked out, slamming the door behind him. Eyeing Samira, the woman pulled out a chair and sat. She tapped the butt of her gun on the table. Don’t worry, lady. I’m not going anywhere.
How the hell had Samira got herself into this position? Where was Jamie? Rafe? Holly? Had Charlotte been rescued, at least?
What does your instinct tell you?
She stared at the ceiling. She knew what she wanted to be true—everyone safe, the pressure permanently lifted from her chest, that she could be free to start something with Jamie, that he could be free to give himself to her.
Wow. It turned out she wasn’t ready to give up on him. But first she had to convince him to stop giving up on himself.
Well, technically, first she had to get out of this alive—get everyone out. Then she had to convince him.
Yes. Yes, maybe that was the secret to finding the courage to see this through. She’d lived so long in fear of the future but maybe it was time to look forward to something—the promise of a new day that wouldn’t start with waking up alone and empty. Maybe that new day would be tomorrow. A clock ticked. She scanned the walls and found it. Six minutes until the password changed. Or not tomorrow.
Footsteps neared. Voices. The door handle moved and the door swished. A heavyset man in a black suit held it open, scanning the room.
Then Hyland strode in, right up to the table. He planted his fists on it, his weight forward, arms straight, like he was commanding a board meeting. Fitz sidled in behind. Samira pushed back into the wall. The senator was way bigger in person.
“Ms. Desta,” he said. His tie was gone, his top shirt buttons undone. “How good to meet you after all this time. I apologize that I’m a little rushed—I have several of the world’s most powerful people waiting for me—so I’ll make this quick. I understand you’re attempting a power play. Well, let me school you in power plays because this is what I do best. This...” He waved his security guy forward. “This is what we call a show of strength.”
The guy unlocked his phone, strode toward Samira and held it out. The screen showed a photo. A woman lying on a concrete floor, eyes closed, long black hair splayed in a pool of blood. Samir
a blinked and looked away. No. No.
“You may recognize your friend Ms. Liu. Your late friend, Ms. Liu.”
Samira’s windpipe closed. Her eyes stung.
“I know you thought you’d saved her with your friend’s call to the police, in the same deluded, naive way you’ve convinced yourself you have some kind of power over me. It was quickly dismissed as a hoax. Amateur hour, Ms. Desta. And this—” he beckoned to Fitz, who opened the door “—is what we call a trump card.”
Holly was shoved into the room, hands bound, mouth duct-taped. She squirmed against her captor—one of Laura’s guards, a bloody cut smearing his temple. The room tipped. Samira slammed her hands onto the carpet either side of her hips.
“And the other two?” Hyland said, moving aside as Laura’s bodyguard fought to force Holly onto a chair. “The men they were with?”
“Dead,” the bodyguard said, through clenched teeth.
Samira’s chest pinched. The room blurred.
Holly gave a muffled yell as the bodyguard secured her hands to the back of the chair. Hyland’s guard tied her ankles to the legs. Her dark makeup was streaked down her face. She looked at Samira with an expression made even more desperate by the makeup and the gag.
Tears escaped Samira’s eyes. Her breath scraped.
“Unlike you,” Hyland said, shoving his hands in his trouser pockets, “Ms. Ryan here is a genuine threat to me and one I’ll be quite happy to be rid of.” He nodded at Fitz, who pulled a gun from under his suit jacket, a metal tube on its barrel. A silencer?
Samira’s chest felt ready to cave. She pressed her hand to it. Her vision pinpricked.
“Which just leaves the sword of Damocles—in this case, your parents and Tess Newell. The death of Ms. Ryan, right in front of you, along with Ms. Liu and your two male friends, will serve as a warning to you that I mean business. But, as you know, I don’t like dealing only in sticks. Leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Your parents and Tess are the carrots that will keep you silent as long as I want to keep you alive—and I haven’t yet made a decision on that. Oh, and it’s not just their freedom that’s at stake. No, no. I will have them killed if you don’t fully cooperate with me right now, just as I had your traitor fiancé killed.” He raised a finger, as if he were making a point of order. “Oh no, wait. That’s not a carrot, technically, is it? It’s another stick. My mistake. It turns out there are no carrots, here, Ms. Desta. You cannot fight me. You have no power. I have all the power and I always will. Remember that, for as long as you may or may not live.”