KATIE
Thomas hadn’t allowed me to leave for three days. Seventy-two hours, locked up inside the penthouse, felt like weeks. I missed Lena’s company. I’d pleaded with Thomas to send his driver for her, but he wouldn’t let her come, wanting to keep her out of the line of fire. When he’d put it that way, Marta and I had agreed.
Aside from that and discussing my father’s situation, we’d hardly said a word to each other. Dad was missing, and not knowing my father’s whereabouts weighed heavily on us both. I could see his thoughts spinning behind distant eyes, and he noticed the horror in mine.
“I’m so sorry, Katie,” he said, drawing me against his broad, hard chest to comfort me. “I’ll search for him as soon as John arrives. I will find him.”
His younger brother, who was also eighteen, was flying in from England to help guard me and free up Thomas for the investigation.
To reassure me further, Thomas explained there was still hope even if his findings forced him to turn my father over to the British government.
“Reed”—as he’d been referring to my father—“is an American citizen, and because your parents have quite a lot of political influence, the US government could seek extradition before he’s prosecuted in the UK. If he has committed espionage, it would be more helpful for him to be charged and tried here.”
Thomas was in a difficult position. I couldn’t fault him for doing what was necessary to protect his own family.
“We’ll ring your mother and speak with her together,” he added.
Not even a full minute into the call, Mom swept into one of her stoic performances. We were discussing my father’s disappearance, for heaven’s sake.
Her lack of emotion made me wonder, Is she keeping vital details to herself? Does she know where he is and what he’s doing?
Thomas turned to view the security monitors after disconnecting the call.
Despite the awful situation, one obligation still existed that I needed to fulfill, and it required me leaving the apartment. I stood there, still in the dining room with Thomas, staring at the hard sheet of muscle on his back, waiting for a response to my request.
A minute passed, and then he spun, crossed the room, and hovered close. A move that made me weak. He consistently approached me like a predator, and I wanted him more each time he did it. His navy-blue T-shirt hugged his chest muscles as well.
“Of course. You must do it,” he said, surprising me.
I’d been offered Columbia’s fellowship for excellence in mathematics, a completely funded package, but it came with the stipulation that I took part in a charitable program to benefit dyslexic children.
The organization planned a video campaign, and my role was to demonstrate the application of basic math skills, using a system that dyslexic kids could grasp. I’d collaborated with my professor to create the plan before graduation.
The campaign’s overall format was groundbreaking, joining mathematics with music and art. With the way my brain associated numbers with color, assigning shades and notes to mathematic expressions came easily for me.
Lessons created by me would integrate into the full story. The project editor planned to splice my prerecorded presentation into short clips and drop them throughout the video series.
I’d received the offer from Oxford before the project reveal, but it hadn’t mattered. Zero. That was how many regrets I had for my contribution to Columbia’s dyslexia campaign. I enjoyed community activism, and I was pleased to take part in any project that advocated change for the educational systems that unfairly affected disadvantaged children.
“I’ll make it happen,” Thomas added.
I smiled. “Really? You did hear the part about me going to the studio, right?”
He nodded. “I’ll figure out the logistics.” A smile curved one side of his mouth, and he dragged the back of his fingers over my cheek. “I won’t hold you back, Katie. Your parents have kept you from your dreams, but no more, not on my watch. Seeing you smile like this, how it lights up your eyes, it makes it quite worth the pain it’ll cause me to let you go.”
The pain it will cause him to let me go. But he sees me. He still sees me.
“Thank you.” I grabbed hold of his hand as he dropped it. “Now would be a good time to kiss me—if you fancy kissing me, as you would say.”
He lowered his forehead to mine and said hoarsely, “I do. But I won’t.”
“And I won’t give up,” I whispered.
“I know,” he breathed.
Our lips were close, so close. His warm, masculine scent overwhelmed me.
He lifted his head and straightened his back. “Set it up with the producers while I sort out security. Tell them you’ll be there in two hours. If they give you any shit about the short notice, let me know, and I’ll take care of it.”
With a stone-cold look settling over his face, Thomas became my professional bodyguard once again. Over the next two hours, the physical distance he kept from me was just as notable.
“Katie, I’m coming in,” Thomas said from the other side of the door.
“Yes, come in.” I grabbed a sweater from the closet and met him in the center of my bedroom. “What’s the plan? Will you be driving me and staying?”
“There’re business matters my staff can’t manage without me, and I can’t put one of the meetings aside any longer. Carl will drive and stay with you.”
“Your driver, Carl, you mean?”
“He’s quite capable, and I’ll keep an eye on things.”
Thomas was careful and thorough, and one hundred percent, I trusted him with my life. His tech skills were beyond comparison, so when he said he’d keep an eye on things, I could count on the fact that he literally had a visual surveillance plan.
As he escorted me to the parking garage, I noticed more cameras and the heightened security detail he’d hired to patrol the building.
Pausing for a moment before securing my seat belt and shutting me in the back of his Escalade, Thomas told me to be safe, and then he gave Carl a warning nod.
The filming studio was in Lower Manhattan, but with all the traffic, it might as well have been in Jersey. Even though we’d left in time to get home before dark, a nagging feeling sat heavily in my gut.
I didn’t voice my thoughts, but Carl’s instincts were spot-on.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I know how to avoid some of this heavy traffic to get you back to Mr. Hastings before we lose daylight.”
That was a relief. Something about this man gave me a sense of calm. He made turns unfamiliar to me, cutting through side streets and alleyways, taking us through parts of Manhattan I’d never been. I noticed stares as we passed a cluster of men who looked like they didn’t appreciate our detour through their neighborhood.
“Never mind them, Miss Reed. They’re admiring the car, is all.”
Right. No one could see me through the dark tinted windows.
I dug into my bag for my phone, deciding to call Lena to see how she was doing, when I heard the crunch of metal and felt a jolt. It took a second to register that another car had hit us.
Carl cursed under his breath and turned on his blinker to show the other driver that he was pulling over. But the driver struck us again. And again. Each time with more force.
“Son of a bitch!” exclaimed Carl. “He’s trying to run us off. Pardon my French.”
“French all you want. He’s coming around.”
I peered out the window to see an old police car spray-painted black. It had a bull bar in the front and was swerving to gain access to our left. Carl gunned it, zigzagging to confuse our pursuer.
He was hot on our tail, skidding out as we made turn after turn to lose him. No sooner had we gained distance than he found us again, slamming the Escalade into a tailspin. He rammed us into an intersection, sending us into oncoming traffic. Two small cars crunched into one another.
Carl expertly maneuvered the SUV out of this spin, slammed on the brakes, spun the steering wheel, and peeled out, barely clipping the front bumper of an older Buick. “Don’t worry. They’ll survive.”
I was stunned, tossing my head to see the driver of the Buick jump out and curse us as our chaser sped through the wreckage.
“They’ll survive? What about us?”
Carl glanced at me in the rearview mirror and tipped his chin. “Desert Storm. Special Ops. I’ve got you.”
That explained a lot, but it didn’t explain who this guy chasing us was, why he was chasing us, and how we were going to lose him.
“Don’t be alarmed. I’m going to take him down an alley up ahead, slow down until he’s right beside us, and run him into the wall, if necessary. Do you trust me?”
Did I have a choice?
“Don’t answer that. Just hang on tight.”
I gripped the armrests on my seat, my nails digging into the leather. As described, Carl took the turn, tires screeching as they burned against the street. Our tail was close to follow, but I supposed it was part of the plan.
“You see that fire escape up ahead?” Carl said calmly, as though he were pointing out the scenery. “If I time this right, he’ll come alongside us, and I’ll smash him into the wall right before we reach it.”
I was about fifty percent confident that plan might work, but then again, I was trusting Carl simply based on Thomas’s trust in him.
The Escalade slowed slightly, allowing the other car enough room to come around on our right. But the car came up on our left instead.
His window was down, and I saw a flash of metal before I screamed, “Gun!”
He pointed it right at me even though I knew he couldn’t see me. I ducked down, hunching over my lap with my hands over my head.
Shots were fired. One. Two. Three.
Red flashed through my psyche.
A screech and a crash behind us.
I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t push out any sound.