Gritting his teeth, Nate stalked forward, holding the candlestick behind his back. Fischer pushed the men’s room door open. Nate surged forward, raising the candlestick high.
At the last moment, Fischer must have sensed something was off—or Nate must have made some kind of noise. The bodyguard started to turn toward him, but it was too late.
Nate brought the candlestick down on Fischer’s head, holding back as much as he dared because he didn’t want to crush the man’s skull. He expected Fischer to collapse in a heap, but his own squeamishness had perhaps taken too much off the blow. Fischer staggered, trying to catch himself on the doorframe.
“Sorry!” Nate said, wincing in sympathy as he swung again. Fischer let go of the doorframe to try to block the blow, but he was unsteady on his feet, and he started going down even before the candlestick struck him again.
Nate hadn’t hit him any harder the second time, still trying to make sure he didn’t seriously injure a good man, but apparently the second blow was enough to turn Fischer’s lights out. His legs went out from under him, and he hit the floor in a boneless heap, half in, half out of the men’s room. Nate had no idea how long Fischer would be unconscious, so he had to work fast. He put the candlestick down, then stepped over Fischer’s body so he could drag him into the men’s room by the shoulders.
And that was when he saw Agnes, standing by the door to the box, her eyes wide, both her hands clapped over her mouth.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Acting on pure instinct, Nadia slid off the edge of her bed and rolled into the deepest shadows beneath it. The noise of the mattress springs seemed loud as a scream, and the thump of her body hitting the floor sounded like a gunshot, but she knew both were adrenaline-fueled illusions.
Nadia watched from under her bed as her door was slowly, carefully pushed open, letting in an ever-widening beam of dim light from the hallway. The light hit the edge of the bed, but couldn’t penetrate the shadows beneath.
Nadia breathed out a sigh of relief when she saw Athena step through the door. She was letting paranoia get the best of her.
“Nadia?” Athena asked in a hushed voice as she frowned at the bed in puzzlement.
Nadia almost answered. But then she noticed that Athena was in her nightgown and robe, and her feet were bare. The stealthy footsteps that had triggered Nadia’s internal alarm had definitely not come from bare feet.
There was someone else out in the hall.
“Nadia?” Athena asked again, knocking on the bathroom door and then peeking in when there was no answer. Nadia noticed that she used her left hand to knock and open the door, and that her right hand was buried in the pocket of her robe.
Hiding something?
Someone else stepped into the room, a tall, sturdy-looking woman dressed in the pants-and-blazer uniform of the Sanctuary staff. No one Nadia had seen before, but then she didn’t usually see anyone who worked the night shift.
“You said she wouldn’t leave until three,” the staffer said in an irritated hiss, closing the door behind her and flipping on the light.
Nadia blinked in the brightness, the bed still shielding her from view—which it would continue to do nicely, right up until the moment it occurred to Athena and the staffer that Nadia was hiding. Apparently they had not factored her paranoia into the equation when they’d invaded her room. She might almost have convinced herself they were here to help, except they were being too sneaky about it. And, when Nadia’s eyes adjusted to the light, she saw that the staffer was holding a stunner in her hand.
Nadia wasn’t sure what the two women were up to, except that it was no good.
“That was the plan,” Athena said, sounding equally irritated. “You didn’t fall asleep while watching the security feed, did you?” She’d taken her hand out of her pocket, and Nadia saw that she was holding a small canister with a spray nozzle.
Nadia was a sitting duck under the bed, and it would be mere seconds before the women would think to look there. She had to do something, and do it fast, though both the stunner and the mysterious canister Athena held worried her.
Sucking in a deep breath and holding it, Nadia quickly rolled out from under the bed and snatched her pillow from it. Athena and the staffer were both surprised by her sudden appearance, which was the only way Nadia was able to get hold of the pillow before they converged on her.
Holding the pillow in front of her as a shield against the stunner, Nadia once again surprised the women by charging forward. The stunner made an electrical popping sound as it made contact with the pillow, but its charge couldn’t penetrate the stuffing.
Out of the corner of her eye, Nadia saw Athena raise the little canister and point it in her direction. She pulled in a quick breath and held it, closing her eyes and shifting as the staffer tried to slip the stunner in around the pillow.
There was a hissing sound, which Nadia assumed came from Athena’s canister. The Sanctuary staffer made a sound of protest, then gasped and collapsed.
Still holding her breath, Nadia cracked her eyes open tentatively. Athena was standing about five feet from her, the canister held out at arm’s length. The nozzle made a hissing sound as she sprayed another fine mist of … something … in Nadia’s direction. It wasn’t pepper spray, because it wasn’t making Nadia’s eyes sting or burn, but it looked like it had knocked the staffer out cold.
Nadia used the pillow like a fan, hoping to blow the mist back in Athena’s direction. She didn’t know if it was working—the mist was only visible right when it was first coming out of the nozzle, but Athena took a couple of hasty steps back and stopped spraying. Continuing to fan the air, Nadia gave a brief thought to screaming and awakening the whole hall, but quickly rejected the idea. If she sounded the alarm, she’d never be able to get to the phone.
Her lungs were starting to protest the lack of air, and Nadia knew she couldn’t hold her breath indefinitely. She dropped the pillow and ducked down to grab the stunner the Sanctuary staffer had been trying to zap her with. She had every intention of zapping Athena with it, but Athena was staggering woozily, having apparently gotten a lungful of her own knockout gas.
Nadia darted for the door and bolted out into the hall, where she could finally draw a breath. Her first instinct was to run for the hall door and enter the override code, but she jerked to a halt after a couple of steps. She had no idea if the override code was even real. Plus, she had no idea how long her attackers would be out—or even if Athena had gotten a big enough dose of her own medicine to lose consciousness. If she took off running now, they’d catch her in no time.
Heart thumping heavily in her chest, Nadia turned back to her room. What had Athena and her accomplice been planning for her? Why had they snuck into her room in the middle of the night armed with a stunner and knockout gas? It was hard to believe their goal had been anything short of murder. Nadia tried to tell herself none of this had anything to do with the blackmail recordings, that it was some sort of vendetta against her family. They were more than powerful enough to have enemies, people who hated them just for existing. But really, what were the chances that the Chairman wasn’t behind this? And he wouldn’t dare try to kill her unless he’d found the recordings.
Nadia jerked her mind away from that line of thought. She couldn’t afford to ponder the hows and whys right now. The only thing she dared think about was how to survive the night.
Taking another deep breath and holding it, Nadia stepped back into her room, the stunner at the ready, but she didn’t need it. Both women were out cold. She closed the door and picked her way across the room to the window, sliding it open in hopes of clearing the air. After sticking her head out the window for another deep breath, she hurried over to Athena and took the canister away from her. Then she used the belt from Athena’s robe to tie her hands together behind her back, tightly.
Nadia used the belt from her own robe, which hung from a hook in the closet, to tie the staffer’s hands. The woman groaned softly, and Nadia t
ook the precaution of gagging her with a pillowcase. It was a clumsy gag that the woman would probably be able to get rid of in time, but it would do for now. Nadia then patted the woman down, looking for anything that could be useful in her escape attempt.
What she found was chilling.
On the plus side, the woman—whose name, according to her ID badge, was Lily Hughes—had a key card that would no doubt be a big help in Nadia’s escape. But she also had a handful of zip ties in one pocket, a ball gag in another, and a small snub-nosed gun on a holster strapped around her ankle. Worst of all was the sheet of white paper with a typewritten message on it, one Nadia suspected they’d have forced her to write by hand herself, once they’d subdued her.
It was a suicide note. Apparently, Nadia was so distraught at the turns her life had taken that she couldn’t bear to live anymore. Nadia wasn’t sure how the suicide was supposed to have occurred, but a precipitous fall from her window onto the flagstones below was a good guess.
They had really been trying to murder her.
The fresh air was beginning to bring Athena and Lily back to consciousness. Nadia used the zip ties she’d found in Lily’s pocket to secure her hands more tightly. For good measure, she then used the belt to hog-tie her wrists and ankles. Satisfied that the woman who’d been sent to kill her wasn’t going anywhere, Nadia turned to the one who had betrayed her.
Athena was blinking groggily, awake but not yet alert. Nadia had a zip tie left over, and she figured she might as well put it to good use. Brandishing the stunner, she cautiously approached Athena, who was waking up more every second.
“Call for help, and I’ll make you wish you hadn’t,” Nadia growled, hitting the trigger on the stunner and causing an electrical spark. Athena’s eyes widened, and she swallowed hard. Amazing how intimidating a sixteen-year-old Executive girl could be when she had a stunner in her hand and righteous anger in her heart.
“I’m sorry,” Athena said, making no attempt to struggle as Nadia none-too-gently turned her over onto her stomach and fastened the zip tie around her wrists.
Like she cared about Athena’s remorse or lack thereof. “What did they offer you?”
Athena sniffled, and there were tears leaking from her eyes. “They were going to set me free. Give me a new identity and enough money to start over.”
Nadia snorted in disdain. Athena’s wrists were now firmly fastened, so Nadia loosened the belt robe and retied one end of it with enough slack to secure the other end to Athena’s ankles.
“And you believed them?” she asked incredulously, shaking her head at Athena’s naiveté. “Ten to one you would have been dead and buried before the night was through, and your family would never know what had happened to you.” Athena would have been a dangerous liability, and Lily probably wouldn’t have lived much longer. The Chairman didn’t allow people who posed a threat to keep breathing for long.
Lily had come to and was now struggling against her bonds. Nadia quickly finished tying Athena’s ankles and pulled the canister of knockout gas from her pocket. She gave it a quick shake, and a liquidy sloshing sound told her she still had plenty of “ammunition.”
“They’ll try again,” Athena said through hiccuping sobs. “You have to get out of here.”
“Thanks for stating the obvious.” Nadia didn’t know whether Athena was genuinely sorry for the betrayal, or whether she was just sorry to have lost what she thought was her chance at freedom. And she didn’t care. Since Lily had conveniently provided a ball gag, Nadia decided to use it. “Open wide,” she prompted, and Athena was so beaten down that she obeyed without hesitation.
Nadia stopped with the gag just inches from Athena’s mouth. “Was anything you told me true?” she couldn’t help asking, even though she knew she couldn’t trust the answer.
“What I told you about the Chairman and Ellie was true,” Athena answered. “If you ever get a chance to tell Nathaniel, please do. It was Ellie’s last wish.”
Nadia nodded brusquely, then went to stick the gag in the other woman’s mouth, but Athena turned her head.
“The override code I gave you will only work for the hall door,” she warned. “Plans changed this evening, but originally I was just supposed to be cozying up to you for future use. There isn’t usually an override code—they just programmed it into the door for tonight so I could gain your trust. Take Lily’s key card.”
Apparently, Athena didn’t think much of Nadia’s intelligence if she thought there was a chance she wouldn’t take the key card.
Having said her piece, Athena allowed Nadia to insert the gag and tie it firmly into place. Nadia made sure she had everything she needed tucked into her pockets, then rose and shut the window. Lily was struggling more vigorously now, and though Nadia thought she’d done a pretty good job of restraining her attackers, she would not take any chances.
Holding her breath one more time, Nadia sprayed both of them with another dose of the knockout gas, then slipped out of the room, closing the door behind her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Shit. He was busted.
Nate froze where he was, bending slightly forward in his interrupted attempt to grab onto Fischer’s shoulders and drag his considerable weight into the men’s room. He held his breath, meeting Agnes’s eyes across the distance.
Would she bolt back into the box and raise the alarm? It seemed like the logical thing for a mousy Executive girl to do.
And yet, instead of bolting, she took a couple of steps closer to him and dropped her hands from her mouth. Her face was white, her eyes wide enough to show white all the way around.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice so soft he could barely hear it.
There was no good explanation for it. Nothing except the truth, that is. Nate didn’t feel up to coming up with a convincing lie.
“Nadia’s in trouble,” he said simply. “I have to help her, and I can’t do it with a bodyguard on my heels.”
“What kind of trouble?”
He didn’t have time for this. “The kind of trouble that’s bad enough to do this,” he said, gesturing at Fischer’s limp body.
Agnes processed his words for what felt like five minutes. He figured he was lucky she was taking a moment to think about it before sounding the alarm. She’d probably never broken a rule in her life, and the very thought of standing by and letting him do something so obviously against the rules probably made her feel faint with horror. Nate wondered if he was enough of a bastard to try to knock her out as he had Fischer.
If that was the only way to get to Nadia, then yes, he was. He only hoped that thought didn’t show on his face, because the last thing he needed was for her to become even more frightened. Then she would run for sure, and he wouldn’t be able to get close enough to knock her out.
“I know I’m asking a lot,” he said, “but please go back to your seat and forget you saw me.” Letting her go would probably be foolishly trusting of him, but he wasn’t going to hit a girl unless there was no other choice.
To his surprise, perhaps even shock, Agnes nodded to herself and then started coming toward him.
“I’ll take his feet,” she said, bending down and grabbing Fischer’s ankles.
Nate stood there for a moment, blinking stupidly. “I’m not asking you to help me. I’m just asking you to keep quiet.”
Something flashed in Agnes’s eyes, and he realized that had been the wrong thing to say.
“That’s probably the first time anyone’s ever told me to keep quiet. Usually, they’re badgering me to talk, then looking down their noses at me when I can’t think of what to say. If Nadia’s in trouble, then I want to help. She’s the only person in all of Paxco who hasn’t treated me like a pitiful dimwit.”
Nate winced, realizing he’d treated her even worse than that.
“Besides,” she continued, “just because I’m shy doesn’t mean I’m a coward. Now let’s hurry, before he wakes up.”
Nate could see he’d
gotten her back up and he was stuck with her help whether he wanted it or not. Which was probably just as well. Fischer had to weigh about 250 pounds, so dragging him anywhere wasn’t going to be easy.
Keeping a careful eye on Agnes, Nate stuck his hands under Fischer’s shoulders and heaved backward. Agnes picked up Fischer’s feet and pushed. Hauling Fischer’s dead weight took all of Nate’s strength, and he was sweating and panting by the time they got the bodyguard all the way into the men’s room. He stood up to leave; then, on a whim, he bent and removed the gun Fischer always wore in a shoulder holster. He doubted he would need it, and didn’t actually know how to use it, but it couldn’t hurt to be prepared for any eventuality.
No doubt Agnes thought her part in this was over now except for a little fibbing to cover for his absence. But really, he couldn’t let her go back to her seat. His only chance of getting to Nadia was if his father didn’t know he was trying it. Maybe Agnes wasn’t a coward, exactly, but she was timid. If his father started leaning on her even a little bit, she’d tell him Nate had run off to help Nadia, and there’d probably be a whole security team waiting in ambush at the Sanctuary when he got there. No, he had to buy himself some time, and that meant she had to come with him.
Nate jumped over Fischer’s body and grabbed Agnes’s wrist, dragging her out of the men’s room. Her skin was cold to the touch, and he felt a shudder run through her. Perhaps she was already having second thoughts about getting involved.
“Come on,” he said, as if she’d already agreed to go with him. “We have to hurry.”
He started toward the door to the Chairman’s private entrance, expecting Agnes to resist his pull. But she didn’t.
“How are we going to get past the man at the door?” she asked instead.
Nate hadn’t given his plan a whole lot of advance thought, and until Agnes mentioned it, he’d forgotten that there would be a guard outside the door. Of course, that man wouldn’t be Nate’s personal bodyguard, so it wouldn’t be his duty to follow Nate, or to stop Nate from leaving.