Not Ravi.
“We’ve been made.” Amara’s face shone with sweat, gun in hand. “Where’s Rick?”
Unable to form words, Lucy pointed toward the stairs.
“Papa!” the other woman yelled, her accent thickening like syrup.
Two heartbeats later, Rick appeared and launched himself down the stairs.
“Qu’est-ce qui s’est passé?” he shout-whispered.
Lucy didn’t need a translator to figure out he was asking his daughter what the hell was happening.
Amara scowled at him. “No time for tunnels.”
Withdrawing a gun from an ankle holster, Rick grimaced in equal displeasure. “This wasn’t the plan.”
“This is the new plan,” Amara said. Turning to Lucy, she commanded, “Stay behind me.”
Like father, like daughter.
Seeing as she was the only one without a gun, Lucy did as she was told. She trotted at Amara’s heels with Rick at her back, checking the neighboring windows and rooftops with owlish eyes. If Lucy didn’t know better, she’d say the Freelancers were concerned for her safety.
“Pedro was hit,” Amara called back to her father. “Meifen took down two of them. They must have gone on patrol early.”
Rick didn’t answer. Lucy could guess what he was thinking. She had been the one to cause the delay. To get one of his team wounded.
What if he punished Claudia for Lucy’s insubordination?
Panic gushed through her, sweeping away her hard-earned calm—the calm she needed to keep the line of communication open with Ravi. Energy cascaded from her head to her toes. The static in her ears taunted her.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she babbled. Rick was close enough that Lucy could feel the heat from his body as they moved together down the cobblestone street. “Please don’t hurt my friend.”
“Now you understand the stakes,” was all he said before a bullet whizzed past Lucy’s ear. The storefront behind them exploded, jagged shards of glass like icicles tearing toward them.
“Run!” cried Amara as she took aim at a target Lucy couldn’t see.
Gunfire exploded behind her.
Lucy ran. The next bullet set off the alarm of a parked car, its windshield shattering. The boom reverberated through her body, her heart thundering.
“Lucy?” Ravi gasped. The static made it sound like he was shouting through a wind tunnel. “Was that a shot? You’re coming in and out.”
“It’s the Sophists,” she managed between pants.
Amara gave Lucy a dirty look. “Brilliant deduction.”
Tires squealed and the Freelancers’ van sped toward them. Backwards.
Mikhail hung halfway out of the back as the door opened. He hauled Lucy inside; the rage emanating from him crushed the air from her lungs. Amara and Rick jumped in behind them while the van careened forward.
“Where to?” Meifen asked over the intercom. Tinted Plexiglas partitioned the front from the back of the van, but Lucy recognized her voice.
Rick growled, “Stick to the plan,” and the intercom cut out.
ThankGodthankGodthankGod.
They were still going to meet Claudia.
Lucy collapsed against the cold metal interior of the van as the adrenaline drained from her. On the bench opposite hers, Amara inspected Pedro’s wound. An aureole of blood spread from his bare shoulder. The other woman felt gingerly around the perforated flesh like someone who performed triage on a regular basis. Mikhail sat on Pedro’s other side, gripping his forearm. He dipped his head to whisper something in the wounded man’s ear and an unexpected look of tenderness swept across his face.
Lucy averted her eyes. She told herself she wasn’t responsible for his injury. The Freelancers had kidnapped her friend and press-ganged her into service. And yet, she couldn’t dispel the heaviness in her gut.
Amara lifted her chin at Rick.
“The bullet’s still inside. We need to get it out. But he’ll live.” She showed her patient a teasing smile.
“Gracias, señorita,” Pedro groaned with a smirk.
Rick met his eyes. “We need to deliver the package.” It was as close as the crew leader would come to asking permission, Lucy surmised.
Pedro nodded. Mikhail unrolled a bandage and began wrapping his colleague’s shoulder. Like unscrupulous Boy Scouts, the Freelancers came prepared. For whatever it was worth, they did seem to care about one another.
Lucy’s gaze dropped to her own bandaged hand. She rubbed her thumb across the center of her palm. Feeling Rick’s eyes on her, she squared her shoulders at him, expression steely.
“You’re in the big leagues now,” he said.
“Yeah. Merci beaucoup for putting me on the Sophists’ radar.”
“It was only a matter of time.” He leaned back, arm brushing her faintly. No surprise that she couldn’t pick up on his emotions. “What is remarkable,” Rick mused, “is that you’ve stayed hidden for so long.”
“I wasn’t in hiding,” Lucy countered. “I was living a normal life.” Okay, not quite true. “I had no idea. Neither do my parents.”
“It’s fortunate the Archimedeans found you before the Sophists did, I suppose.”
Mikhail flung a dark look in Rick’s direction, then returned to tending Pedro. Lucy suspected there was another story behind that look that she wouldn’t hear tonight.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she hedged, jamming her hands flat against her thighs. The Freelancers must have discovered her existence from a mole within the Order of Archimedes, but she didn’t want to provide any further details.
Rick laughed, an empty sound. “Don’t insult my intelligence. We knew the instant Tarquin’s protégé turned up as a new science teacher.” Another mirthless snicker. Lucy swallowed. “Pas mal. Clever,” he added with reluctant admiration. “The old fox will make you believe you have a choice.”
“Sounds preferable to a bullet in the brain—which is what the Order of Sophia was offering back there,” Lucy responded snidely as she shot a pointed glance at Pedro.
“You might be inclined to think so.” Rick shifted to face her dead-on. “The Freelancers can protect you. We’re the only ones who will put your fate in your own hands.”
“Like you did tonight?” Lucy snorted. “This was what? Some kind of messed-up job interview?”
Rick darted a glance at Amara, whose entire body had gone rigid. “We could use someone with your skill set on our team,” he said.
“No thanks. I don’t need to pick a side.”
“If you don’t pick a side, a side will pick you.”
“They can try.”
Lucy was sick to death of playing by everyone else’s rules all the time.
“Stubborn. I like that about you. But it’s not the smart move here.”
“So if I don’t pick the Freelancers, you’ll kidnap someone I care about whenever you feel like it? That’s quite a sales pitch.”
“I’m a businessman. I was paid for a job. The job is done. I have no further use for your friend.”
Meifen’s voice came over the intercom. “ETA two minutes.”
Rick reached inside his pocket and handed Lucy a sliver of paper with the word LIBERTAS printed on it. The Roman goddess of liberty, the very same who graced New York Harbor.
“Lib—” Lucy began in a questioning tone, but Rick silenced her with a finger. “Someone is always listening.”
Her body turned to lead. Rick knew. Had he known Ravi was listening the whole time? His true motivations were buried too far below the surface for Lucy to discern.
Doing her best not to let her voice falter, she asked, “Why are you giving this to me?”
Rick tapped a web address, a chat forum, listed on the second line.
“You can find me here.”
“Why would I want to find you?”
“When you want real answers.”
Lucy lowered an eyebrow. “Let me guess, those answers come with a price tag.”
“Nothing in life is free.”
“Not even liberty?”
“Especially not that.”
The van screeched to a halt.
“Amara and Meifen will escort you to the exchange point,” Rick told her. “But I’ll be needing the egg.” Reluctantly, Lucy handed it over. Nothing mattered more than Claudia. “Bonne chance,” he said blithely. “I expect I’ll be hearing from you soon.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” she said, but she tucked the scrap of paper under the elastic band of her leggings.
Lucy couldn’t think about Rick’s proposal right now. She couldn’t think about the floppy disk that had been hidden in a safe that could only be opened with her blood. All that mattered was getting Claudia home safe.