“Then he’ll kill me,” Dominik said simply.
She gasped. “Dom —”
“This could be our only chance to get you out of here again,” he cut in. “If I have to give up my life so you can rejoin your people, then so be it.”
Her people. It was surreal, difficult to absorb, but so damn true it made her throat hurt. She didn’t belong in this compound anymore, and she didn’t belong in the city.
She belonged in the free land. With or without Connor.
Dominik lifted his chin in that stubborn pose she’d seen her entire life. The same one she donned when she was about to dig her heels in. “I’ll tell the men that the message was a communication error and make sure they know there’s no meeting on the schedule.” He paused in thought. “We’ve got four hours. Plenty of time for me to figure out how to get you out of the compound.”
She attempted another protest. “Dom —”
“Don’t you fucking argue with me!”
She recoiled.
And when he took a menacing step toward her, she was genuinely afraid.
“Oh fuck.” He staggered to a stop and sucked in a breath, his fists slowly loosening. “Fuck.” A stricken look seized his features. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. I wasn’t going to… hurt you… I promise…”
He transformed in front of her eyes, reverting back to the little boy she’d grown up with. He looked so confused and upset that her fear faded and her heart throbbed, spurring her to throw her arms around him again.
“It’s okay. I know you’d never hurt me.” When she felt him shaking against her, she hugged him tighter. “I love you, Dom.”
“I love you too.”
They stayed like that for a few minutes, until Dom finally dropped a kiss on her cheek and stepped out of the embrace. Clearly shaken up. “I need to make arrangements.” His stride was weary as he headed for the door. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
22
“How did you get rid of the guard?” Hudson whispered a little more than three hours later. She gazed at the empty corridor outside the door of her quarters, then at Dom’s tired face. “Won’t Ferris be suspicious?”
“Trust me, he’s not happy about it,” Dom whispered back. “I was on the phone with the bastard for more than twenty minutes, listening to him fume about it. But I told him that no matter what you’ve done, you’re still the daughter of the man who founded the Global Council and therefore you deserve to be treated with respect.” He smiled faintly. “I also reminded him you were in the same training class I was and that if you wanted to escape, one guard at your door wasn’t going to stop you.”
She grinned back. “Damn right it wouldn’t.”
They fell silent as they crept down the fluorescent-lit hallway. The building primarily housed offices and living quarters, so they moved cautiously and soundlessly to avoid the risk of waking anyone. Hudson’s legs trembled with each step she took. She wasn’t sure what Dom’s plan was, how they were going to walk out of the gate unseen, but she hoped that whatever he’d come up with, it wouldn’t result in the two of them dying in a hail of bullets.
It was eerily quiet outside when they emerged from the building’s rear exit. They stuck close to the brick wall, which was bathed in shadows. Hudson glanced up at the roof in surprise. Normally there was a floodlight shining down on the back door.
Dominik raised a brow. “Bulb must be busted,” he murmured. “I should really get maintenance to look into that.”
She choked down a laugh, but all traces of humor died when she gazed at the lit-up area beyond their shadowy nook. The pavement gleamed under the bright lights, the silver links of the massive chain fence winking as if to taunt at her. Hudson peered up at the guard tower a hundred yards away, then studied the security cameras mounted on every fence post. Her uneasiness steadily rose.
How on earth did Dom think they’d make it all the way to the gate without being spotted?
To her shock, he raised his assault rifle and strode forward.
“What are you doing?” she hissed out.
He gestured for her to follow him. “It’s all right. The cameras along this side of the fence have been disabled.” Another grin flashed her way. “Regularly scheduled maintenance, which requires a total reboot, of course. But we’ve only got nine minutes before they’re back online. Stay tight to the wall so the tower guards don’t see us. It’ll be okay.”
She hesitated for only a second before deciding to trust him. This was her twin brother. She had to believe that he wouldn’t betray her. That he wasn’t leading her into a trap.
And if he was… well, then she’d take the screw you that the universe had handed her and accept her fate. Because maybe she was simply destined to be betrayed by everyone she cared about. Her father had arranged for her to marry a monster without telling her. Connor had cast her out without batting an eye. At this point, a betrayal from Dom wouldn’t be any worse than what she’d already had to deal with.
Her brother led her to the edge of the compound, halting when they were twenty feet from the gate – and the guard tower.
“Use this to open the gate.”
Horror swamped her stomach when he tucked a key card into her hand. “No. If I use your card they’ll know you helped me.”
“It’s not my card.” His eyes twinkled. “You left it behind the day you escaped, remember?” His tone went serious. “It’s still active – I checked. The system will log that you used it, but I’ll just claim you had it stashed in your room and nobody thought to search for it.”
“Or…” She dug her teeth into her lower lip. “You can come with me.”
He was quick to shake his head. “I can’t.”
“You can. You don’t have to stay here, Dom. You can start a new life in the free land, a real life, without drugs and rules and all the bullshit the GC feeds us.”
His jaw set in a tight line. “I have unfinished business here.”
Alarm rippled through her. “What are you planning to do?”
“I’m not sure yet, but I’m damn well going to do something. Not everyone on this compound is evil. There are good men here, and Ferris is drugging us and messing with our heads so we can go out into the colony and murder innocent people. I can’t let it go on.”
“Then I’ll stay and help you,” she said firmly.
He was just as firm. “You’re not safe here. Things are changing, and not for the better. All these new rules being put into place…” He shook his head again. “You’re safer in outlaw territory, H. I don’t know if I’ll be able to protect you if you stay here.”
He reached into his inner pocket, pulled out a small device and pressed it into her palm. It was a phone, she realized. Sleek and lightweight, with fewer buttons than the cell phones she was used to seeing.
“I won’t be able to use this outside the city,” she reminded him.
“It’s not a cell. It’s a satellite phone. You can use it to send text messages too. When you get settled, send me the coordinates of your location. I’ll do whatever I can to keep the colony sweeps away from that general area, but… I don’t know how much longer I’ll be in charge.”
“Promise me you’ll leave if things get worse. Promise you’ll call me, and I promise you’ll be welcome wherever I wind up.”
He visibly swallowed. “I promise.”
Hudson nodded in relief. “So now what?”
Dom tipped his head toward the tower. “When I give the word, I want you to go to the gate. I’ll deal with the guards.” He unclipped the radio from his belt. “The second that gate opens, I want you to run, H. Run as fast as you can. You should be able to make it to the woods before they spot you, but if they do…” He lifted his rifle. “I’ll cover you.”
Her throat clamped shut. “They’ll kill you.”
He seemed unfazed by that outcome. “Run and don’t look back, okay? You know where all the trip wires are, and the motion sensors on the north perimeter were disable
d in the reboot. Get at least ten yards past the perimeter line, and you won’t have to worry about triggering any alarms.” Frowning, he glanced at his watch. “Four minutes until everything’s back online. Time to go, sis.”
Her heart clenched. “I don’t want to say good-bye to you again.”
“Hey, at least this time there is a good-bye.” He ruffled her hair good-naturedly. “You skipped out without a word during your last jailbreak.”
She had to smile. “Yeah. Shitty move, huh?”
“Yup. Now give me a hug and get out of here already.”
Hudson wrapped her arms around him, forcing herself to remember this moment: her brother’s solid chest against her cheek, the warmth of his embrace, the pride in his eyes. Then she released him and whispered, “I’ll see you soon,” and hoped like hell that those words would come true one day.
The next few minutes were a blur. She wasn’t sure how she managed to make it to the gate without stumbling over in terror, or how she swiped the key card without dropping it five times beforehand. She wasn’t sure what Dominik did to lure the guards’ sharp gazes away from the clearing, or if he even had. All she was aware of was the asphalt beneath her boots as she ran as if her life depended on it.
Her lungs burned, the late-night wind slapping her face as she raced toward the tree line. She didn’t dare look over her shoulder to check if the tower guards had spotted her. She just ran. She ran fast and hard, praying that nobody fired at her, that she’d reach the trees before the guards noticed that she —
She’d made it.
Hudson couldn’t contain her astonishment as she sprinted into the brush and out of sight of the tower. No shots. No yells. Nothing but the sounds of twigs snapping beneath her feet as she flew past the motion sensors toward freedom.
Holy shit, she’d done it. She’d escaped – again. She’d fucking done it, but still she kept running, fueled by a sense of triumph that surged with her movements as she put as much distance as she could between her and the compound.
The forest was pitch-black, but she knew every inch of it. She and Dominik had played out here when they were kids. They’d hunted with their father and combed the woods, building forts on the days Dominik got to choose the activity and picking flowers when it was her turn to choose.
Two clicks west. That’s what Xander’s message had said. Hudson had no idea if she’d even traveled a mile yet, but she didn’t see any faces or hear any voices as she hurried through the forest.
She hoped Connor and the others were out there somewhere waiting for her. If they weren’t, it would make her journey a hell of a lot tougher, but she’d done it once, and she could do it again. She had her knives and the two pistols Dom had given her. She had her brains and her courage and a deep-seated will to survive, and any one of those things could get her as far as she needed to go.
She quickened her pace, cheeks flushed from exertion, lungs aching. She had to be getting close to the rendezvous point. A glance at the tactical watch Dom had strapped to her wrist revealed that it was ten minutes to four a.m. And she’d already vowed to wait no more than ten minutes past that.
If Connor and the men didn’t show by then, she would keep running. Make her way to Foxworth to find Tamara, or try to track down Lennox and —
“Going somewhere?”
The deceptively pleasant voice had her staggering to a stop. Hudson whirled around in time to see Knox step out of the darkness, the red stripes on his Enforcer uniform glinting beneath the shards of moonlight slicing through a gap in the trees.
She drew her weapon, but not fast enough.
Knox charged forward and knocked the gun out of her hands, and in the blink of an eye, she was flat on her back and he was on top of her.
His hands wrapped tightly around her throat.
I’ll be there.
That three-word reply was the only response to Xander’s message, and Connor couldn’t even be sure it had come from Hudson. Still, that hadn’t stopped him from boarding the chopper, from flying straight into city airspace and risking getting shot down by an air patrol.
But the risks didn’t matter. Nothing mattered if Hudson wasn’t with him.
The scream that suddenly pierced the air was not shrill. It wasn’t even loud. But Connor felt the muffled, shock-laced sound right down to his bones.
“It’s her,” he murmured to Rylan, whose shoulders had stiffened at the sound. The men had stayed hidden for the past twenty minutes, after spending an hour scouting out the area to ensure they weren’t walking into an ambush.
“Could be a trap,” his friend murmured back.
He didn’t give a shit if it was. He’d recognize Hudson’s voice anywhere. She was here. Somewhere in the woods.
Under attack.
Pike spoke up from Connor’s other side. “Gotta check it out either way.”
It was only the three of them, because Reese was an obstinate bitch and she’d refused to let anyone else accompany Connor on his mission, claiming that the added weight on the chopper used up fuel she couldn’t afford to spare. She’d allowed Pike to go because he was the only one of the men who knew how to pilot the damn thing, and Rylan, well, Connor suspected she just wanted him out of her hair. But he wished to hell the woman had consented to letting him bring a bigger crew.
“I’m going out there.” Connor raised his rifle and stepped out of the thick cluster of vegetation, Pike and Rylan quickly following suit.
They moved in unison through the brush, their years of hunting and survival skills making it easy to walk without making a sound, without disturbing the forest or alerting anyone to their presence. The farther they went, the closer the voices got. Muffled, hissed. Stilted words Connor couldn’t make out but that sent a chill up his spine regardless.
“Promised… coast… damn well gonna get both…”
Connor’s muscles tensed. A male voice, harsh and furious.
“Make you obey… understand?”
He slid behind a thick tree trunk and signaled to the men. They froze, taking cover nearby. Connor held up his hand to order them to stay put, because there was no point in all of them getting their heads blown off tonight.
If this was a trap, then he’d be the only one walking into it.
Rylan looked unhappy with the call, but a firm shake of Connor’s head had the man maintaining his position.
Adjusting the grip on his rifle, Connor continued forward alone. The voices got louder, a vicious stream of words that became more and more audible.
“… don’t care if I have to beat you senseless every morning – you’re going to do what I say. You hear me?”
There was a moment of silence. Connor eased behind another tree. Waiting. Listening.
“I’ll keep you on a fucking leash if that’s what it takes. Your father and I had a deal! A new colony – for us, damn it. For you and me to mold and enforce and rule over.”
“You’re a delusional bastard.”
Connor nearly dropped his weapon. Hudson. Jesus, he’d been right. It was her. Which meant that the man spitting out venom at her had to be Knox.
“You want to put me on a leash? Go ahead. I’ll still find a way to beat you.” Hudson let out a wild laugh. “I said I’d kill myself before I married you, but you know what? Forget that. I’d much rather kill you.”
A roar of pain sliced the air. It was followed by a grunt, then a fleshy thwack and a loud thud, as if something – or someone – had fallen to the ground.
Connor charged forward without a single thought to his own safety. He burst through the trees in time to see a dark figure launch itself at Hudson’s prone frame. Relief exploded inside him when he realized she was still alive, but the sight of Knox looming over her ignited a different kind of explosion.
Pure rage.
He flew at the other man, smashing the butt of his rifle into the back of Knox’s head as he heaved him off Hudson’s body. But the bastard’s skull was thicker than he’d expected, and the blow didn?
??t knock him unconscious. Knox fell on the dirt, then bounced to his feet with military speed that caught Connor by surprise.
“Don’t fucking move,” Connor growled as he trained his rifle on Knox’s chest.
The man froze, wild eyes snapping up to meet Connor’s.
Those eyes.
All the breath left his body as he stared at the man who’d murdered his wife. In a heartbeat, he was transported back to that day. Watching from the woods as this man – this killer – had sauntered up to his fellow Enforcers as if he were king of the world. Smirking, bragging about what he’d done.
“Who the hell are you?” Knox spat out.