“Do you want to renovate a home?” Asher asked.
“No,” Abi said, chuckling. “I just like watching others do it.”
“That’s weird, but okay,” Asher said, grinning. “What is your dream holiday destination?”
“Maldives.”
“How many children do you want?”
“Three,” she said, raising an eyebrow.
“Boys or girls?” he asked.
“Healthy,” she fired back.
“When did you know you loved me?” Asher asked, watching her carefully.
She took a moment to think about it. “A few weeks after our date at the Ruins . . . when I knew I was going to lose you and I couldn’t bear the thought.”
Asher cupped her cheeks and kissed her deeply. “You never lost me,” he whispered, his voice thick.
He pushed his chair back and got down on one knee. “Marry me, Abi. I don’t want to live a day without you. I want to wake up to you every morning, I want you to bear my three children,” he said with a smile. “I want us to have our own family and I want to know that no matter what is wrong in the world, we will always have each other.”
“Yes. That’s the easiest question of my life,” she said with wet eyes.
Asher pulled the box from his jacket and opened it.
Abi gasped. “Holy shit,” she said, then giggled. “Well, that was elegant.”
Asher chuckled as he took the ring from the box and slid it onto her finger. As Mr. Golding had said it would be, it was a perfect fit.
Abi wiggled her fingers. “I’m speechless, yet again. You have to stop doing this to me. I’m normally much wittier, but I can’t think past this ring.”
“Good. That’s the perfect response,” Asher said, bringing her hand to his lips. “You’re my queen,” he said. “And I don’t just mean the title. Everything now is about us. I will always look after you, and I will always trust you and respect you. We’re partners and equals in this crazy life we’ll live.”
Abi nodded as a tear ran down her cheek. She wiped it away quickly, as if she were embarrassed. “I don’t know who I am right now,” she said quietly.
“A happy woman, I hope,” Asher said, playfully.
Abi beamed a smile. “More than you’ll ever know.” And with that, she pressed her lips to his and he lost himself in the kiss, in every sensation of the woman who would be his wife.
Reed
Reed spun on his heels, his weapon raised. His eyes scanned the white walls, checking for movement behind the arches. He exhaled slowly, his finger steady on the trigger.
He heard no movement and saw no movement.
But something wasn’t right.
He’d felt uneasy all afternoon even though the palace had been quiet.
Reed retreated the way he’d just come. He moved in closer to the building, letting his shoulder rub on the old stone palace walls. A gust of hot wind blew through the loggia; he had come to love the warm Santina breeze that lingered long after the sun fell.
The breeze calmed him a little now, and he felt a little less like something was off, but he’d learned to trust his instincts.
Reed walked slowly, his footsteps silent and careful.
“Samuel, check the cameras in the south garden,” Reed whispered under his breath. “Check the last fifteen minutes.”
“Copy,” Samuel said. He didn’t ask any questions, didn’t question Reed.
Reed continued to creep forward. He was doing his second check of the grounds, despite having done one less than ten minutes ago and having security teams stationed along the perimeter walls.
Reed looked to the walls and spotted his men. “Perimeter guards, check in,” Reed said.
He held his breath as the men responded one by one. When all thirty-five of them responded, he felt his shoulders drop a little.
“No movement except the rustling of trees,” Samuel responded.
“Thanks,” Reed said, but he didn’t let down his guard.
Maybe it was all in his mind, maybe he was tired and it was the relentless pressure of a job where mistakes could be fatal.
Reed could make those arguments in his head, but he didn’t believe them—not for a second.
He crept forward, pausing at the corner of the tower, then stood so still he could’ve been mistaken for a statue. He barely dared to breathe as he took a moment to let himself feel . . . what, he didn’t know.
His heart beat steady in his chest and he used the rhythm of the beat to roughly count the seconds. A few minutes later, he was still standing there. His mind told him to go, but his legs refused to move.
“Jesse, check in,” Reed said.
“Copy,” Jesse responded immediately.
“Are you with Asher? Where’s Abi?”
“I’m with Asher. Abi is in the tunnels,” Jesse said.
Reed supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised. They’d been monitoring her recent Google searches.
“Okay, good. Stay close to Asher,” Reed said.
“What’s wrong?” Jesse asked quickly.
Reed sighed. “Nothing, I just feel uneasy. I can’t explain it,” he said.
“Copy. Keep me updated,” Jesse said, and Reed was grateful he hadn’t needed to explain further. As much as they’d needed to investigate Jesse, his willingness to do anything they’d ever asked was the one thing that had always indicated his innocence. He wasn’t after power, and he wasn’t interested in leading them in a certain direction. Jesse was willing to do whatever needed to be done.
“Hey . . . I’m not sure . . .”
Reed’s eyebrows threaded together as he strained to listen to the conversation Jesse had started with someone else.
Another gust of wind blew through, hitting the sweat on the back of his neck, cooling his body. He no longer cared about the stickiness of the dust that covered his skin when the warm winds blew; surprisingly, he’d come to love desert life in Santina.
“Alistair’s up . . . two teams behind him,” Jesse said under his breath.
“Copy,” Reed said with a nod, realizing that he must’ve been speaking to Alistair or his team.
Reed’s head snapped to the left at the sound of a stick breaking. He looked to the fruit orchard and bent down, sitting on his heels as he looked underneath the trees for movement.
“Samuel, fly a drone over the orchard. There’s movement in there,” Reed said, without a doubt in his mind.
“Copy,” Samuel responded.
Reed’s eyes scanned back and forth, scoping every tree trunk. They had every perimeter secure and set up with trip wires, and the tunnel entrances were manned and tripped with explosives if anyone entered from the outside.
The palace had been in lockdown since Asher had threatened the Adani king a few hours ago. Reed wished he could’ve seen the king’s face when Asher had told him he had proof of their involvement in poisoning the water supply of their poor and if the full tape of Abi was released, Asher would personally hold the king responsible. The tape was recorded on Adani land, after all.
Reed was turning away when he noticed something on the ground by the arch. He looked over his shoulder, checking behind him.
“Orchard is clear,” Samuel said.
“Copy,” Reed responded, but his mind was on the dusting of a footprint a few meters in front of him. He crept forward and put his foot beside the barely visible print, confirming his suspicions. This footprint didn’t belong to any of his men—it was far too small. It could’ve belonged to a servant, but they should’ve been locked down inside for the last few hours. And this print was definitely fresh, because it hadn’t been swept away by the hot Santina breeze.
Reed pulled his phone out and sent Samuel a photo. “Look at the security surveillance for this area—my current location—for the past twelve hours,” he said as his eyes darted up. There was no direct camera pointing at this position, but hopefully they’d get lucky.
He swept the back of his palm across his slick forehead.
He needed a drink and he needed to get out of this thick heat.
But his eyes returned to the lone footprint. The ground didn’t look like it had been cleaned, so how had only one footprint been created? Reed’s head tilted back before he’d finished thinking that through.
And then he saw it. Another partial print on the column.
There weren’t any prints on the ground because someone had climbed up the arch.
His blood turned cold. The palace had been in lockdown, but someone had already made their way inside, and now they’d locked them in.
He was still processing that realization when a thunderous roar rolled through the air as the palace shook.
“Jesse! Check in!” Reed screamed as he started sprinting for the tunnels.
But what he heard next chilled his blood.
“Jesse’s dead,” an unfamiliar voice said.
“Samuel! Code 23!” Reed commanded as his lungs fought to breathe through the shock as he skidded around the corner, changing direction and sprinting toward Asher’s office.
They’d been infiltrated, and now someone had Jesse’s communication device. Samuel would change them to a different frequency—except for Jesse’s earpiece—and eliminate that problem. But Reed feared the worst: If someone had Jesse’s earpiece, he was almost certainly dead as the voice had said—or at least so incapacitated that he couldn’t fight back. The earpieces were small and hard to get in and out of the ear. It took time, and time wasn’t something an intruder had when their target was fighting back.
Jesse was down. And that meant that Asher’s team might be too.
“Team Delta, check in!” Reed shouted as he came hurtling around the corner so fast he almost slipped on the fine layer of dust that always settled on the loggia tiles regardless of it being cleaned every day.
He caught himself and sprinted forward and toward Asher.
Asher
Two gunshots echoed through his office as the ground beneath him shook, and the guards inside Asher’s office fell to their knees as their eyes rolled back. Asher’s heart was in his throat and it took him a minute to see the holes in the drywall—the guards had been shot from outside.
The door flew open and a masked man strode in, aiming his weapon.
Asher looked down the barrel, paralyzed.
He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t think. He wasn’t trained for this.
Asher heard the click of the weapon—he couldn’t say what part of the gun it was, but he’d watched enough movies to know that sound came a few seconds before the bullet.
His body felt cold and time seemed to pause. His life seemed to flash before him, but the sound of another gunshot brought him back to reality.
The masked man swayed then fell to his knees. James Thomas appeared behind him with a pistol pointed. His eyes swept over the office like two darts, pausing on his fallen men.
“The palace is under siege,” James said quickly. “Let’s go!”
“Where’s Abi?” Asher asked as the reality of the situation struck him like hail in a thunderstorm.
“She’s in the tunnels. She has a team and Reed’s heading there now. But we need to move,” James said, looking over his shoulder and then back to the window.
“And my mother and Alistair?”
“With their teams,” James said, looking over his shoulder once more.
The glass windows shattered and James dove for cover behind Asher’s desk, bringing him to the ground.
James looked to him, his dark eyes swirling with a fierceness Asher had never seen. “I’m getting you out of here, but I need you to listen to every word I say. We don’t have time for you to question me.”
Asher nodded rapidly, his stomach still in his throat.
“Stay here,” James said as he crawled around the desk, toward the window. He sat back on his heels, using the wall for protection and raised his weapon. He seemed in no rush and was impossibly calm despite the urgency in his voice a few moments ago.
He fired six shots, then sprang to his feet and pulled the curtains shut before running back to Asher. “Help me move this desk,” he said.
Asher jumped to his feet as they dragged his father’s solid wood desk into the corner of the room.
Objects fell and mountains of paperwork slid into one another. Asher knew it didn’t matter, but the thought that it was going to take him hours to sort out came anyway.
If you survive.
Asher shook his head.
He would survive—and he would make sure Abi and his family did too.
James tilted his head back and Asher realized he was looking at the trap door above.
“We need to go into the ceiling. There are men everywhere and I don’t want to move you through the hallways,” James said as he leaned down and dragged an arm across Asher’s desk, pushing everything onto the floor.
“Come on!” James said, springing up onto the desk.
Asher climbed up as James pushed the trap door cover aside and motioned for Asher to go first.
Asher had no idea how to haul himself up into it, but he’d seen James do it on surveillance and tried to mimic the action. He grunted as he pushed up, pulling his knees to his chest. It took his eyes a few seconds to adjust to the maze of beams and insulation that surrounded him. He crawled forward, careful to keep his balance.
James was a second behind him and passed him an earpiece.
“Samuel, we’re in,” James said.
Gunfire sounded below them and Asher’s breath caught in his throat. He quickly pushed the earpiece in.
“Head north until I tell you to stop,” Samuel said.
Asher paused, realizing he had no idea which way was north, but James didn’t have the same problem and surged ahead, Asher following without hesitation.
The thick dust settled in his lungs and he suppressed a cough.
“Keep moving,” James urged.
Asher cleared his throat and focused on putting one hand and knee in front of the other, but he almost lost his balance when gunfire erupted and his head snapped up.
“It’s underneath us—it’s my men clearing the path for us and making sure no bullets are fired at the ceiling,” James said quickly.
Asher continued on, struggling to keep up with James who crawled forward with an ease that Asher didn’t feel.
“Where are we going?” Asher asked.
“To the garage,” James said. “I’m going to get you out of the palace. I have two teams making their way there now. They’ll escort you to the Bennetts’ house, and I’ll stay here and help the remaining teams.”
“Where’s Jesse? He was just outside my office,” Asher said in a rush.
James didn’t answer straight away and Asher’s stomach churned, but he didn’t have time to focus on it because gunfire erupted, breaking through the ceiling to their left.
James sprung to his feet. “Come on!”
Asher stood, careful to keep his balance. James grabbed his arm, guiding him across the beams, moving faster with each step. Asher’s heart pounded in his chest and more than once he thought he was going to lose his balance and fall through the ceiling.
All the while the gunfire continued to come, tracking them.
“How do they know we’re in here?” Asher asked, breathless.
“They must be using thermal imaging,” James said, skidding to a halt. He stopped at a box, flipping the lid off and pulling out two pistols and a selection of items that Asher thought included grenades—but he couldn’t be sure.
It dawned on him then that Thomas Security must’ve positioned the boxes in the ceiling some time ago, in preparation for such an event.
“Let’s go!” James said, running again.
Asher followed him, ignoring his burning lungs but grateful for the high ceilings that meant he could run upright for the most part.
“Drop through the next trap door,” Samuel instructed as bullets fired through the ceiling, closer this time.
Neither man hesit
ated.
Abi
Abi blinked, her eyes blinded by the explosion. But when she opened her eyes, she couldn’t see anything but darkness. She couldn’t work out if she’d been temporarily blinded or if the power had been cut.
But she could hear, and the sounds she heard chilled her blood: gunshots, fighting, and the thud of punches landing and the cracking of bones breaking.
An arm grabbed her, spinning her around, and a scream roared from her throat. She fought back, every self-defense instinct kicking in. She had no idea what was going on, but she knew one thing for sure: she would not be taken again.
“Abi!” She heard the security guards calling her name and she yelled in response to them, and then second-guessed herself. Maybe it was better if no one could see her.
But with every moment that passed, her eyes adjusted and she fully realized the nightmare she was in.
There were so many men in the tunnel she could barely believe it. Where had they all come from?
The comprehension and questions were like flashes of lightning in her mind and then she flipped back into survival mode. There was no time to think, no time to ponder, only time to fight—because her life depended on it.
A body flew into her from behind, knocking her to the floor and the wind from her lungs. She pressed her palms into the ground when a gunshot rang through the air and the body above her jerked in response. She shivered and stayed deadly still, keeping her breathing calm and low. Could they see her? Right now, her best protection might be underneath the person she was sure wasn’t breathing. The thought disturbed her, but her survival instinct was more powerful. She stayed underneath the body.
“Abi!” She recognized the voice this time: Rachel.
She stood by her head, swooped down, grabbed her hand and pulled her up. “Are you okay?” she asked, wiping something wet from her forehead.
“I think so,” she said, her hand immediately tracing Rachel’s. Her fingers caught the edge of her hair and she realized it was slick and coated in a warm, thick substance.
The realization hit her like a freight train; she didn’t need to look at the body she’d rolled off her. He’d taken one in the chest and one in the head, and she was coated in his blood and likely some brain matter that Abi couldn’t think about right now.
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