“I guess I’ll just order him to stay put,” Nate said, though he didn’t like it. Too much chance the guard would find his behavior suspicious enough to report on it.
Agnes took him by surprise and snatched her hand from his. He made a startled sound of protest and prepared to lunge after her, but she wasn’t heading for the box. She was heading for the bar, where she picked up the first bottle of wine she could lay hands on and grabbed a couple of glasses. She came back to him and handed him the bottle.
“We just want to have a private drink with no one watching us,” she informed him. “The door to the outside is locked anyway, so we’ll be perfectly safe.”
Nate was sure he looked like an idiot with the way he was gaping at her, but who would have guessed she had this in her? Not only was she willing to break about a thousand rules of polite society to help a girl she barely knew, but she had plotted their escape in about two seconds. She still looked pale and frightened, but she showed no signs of balking. And she hadn’t even batted an eyelash at his assumption that she was coming with him.
Color blotched Agnes’s cheeks, and her shoulders slumped in a defensive posture as she lowered her gaze. “I-I know I’m not the kind of girl … er … that I’m not someone you’d…”
If it were physically possible for Nate to kick himself in the ass, he’d have done it. Agnes was taking his obvious shock as distaste for the idea of implying he felt any kind of romantic attraction to her. And why wouldn’t she, when he’d made no effort to hide that he found her unappealing?
“Don’t be silly,” he told her with a dismissive wave of his free hand, trying to be casual. “I was just surprised again that you’re willing to go out on a limb for Nadia. And the idea is perfect.”
Agnes smiled tentatively at the praise. Nate shifted the bottle of wine to his left hand and then held out his right elbow to Agnes. She squared her shoulders and raised her chin as she slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow and allowed him to lead the way.
* * *
Nate was only mildly surprised to find that Agnes’s plan worked. People were certainly used to him being reckless and irresponsible, and they were also used to taking orders from him. The man guarding the door to the Chairman’s lounge gave Nate a funny look when he glibly repeated Agnes’s lie, but he made no attempt to stop them from leaving. Agnes leaned into him and uttered a completely fake-sounding giggle as they descended the stairs. Nate cringed a bit at her bad acting, but there was no sign that the guard found it suspicious.
When they reached the first-floor entrance, Nate glanced at his watch and saw that the ten minutes Dante had given him were almost up. He wanted to burst through the door and sprint out to the car, but if he wanted a clean getaway, he couldn’t afford to attract attention. And if he wasn’t careful, the guard at the top of the staircase would hear the opening and closing of the heavy door and know that Nate and Agnes weren’t cozying up in some safe, private corner as they’d claimed.
He put the wine bottle down, and Agnes put the glasses down beside it. Then he pulled on the door, trying to be quiet and gentle about it.
Even the Chairman’s private entrance had to conform to the city’s fire code, so the door opened freely from the inside even though it was locked. There was a soft electronic beep as the lock disengaged. Nate hoped that high-pitched sound hadn’t been loud enough to be heard from the top of the stairs.
The door weighed a ton. Nate motioned Agnes through, then slipped out himself, easing the door shut behind him. However, it was impossible to close a door that heavy without making a thunk. He would just have to hope the guard either didn’t hear it or didn’t think it was his business to investigate the Chairman Heir’s activities.
There wasn’t a whole lot of traffic, either on foot or by car, at this hour, but it was Manhattan, which meant there were still people around to observe Nate and Agnes’s exit. Even if their faces hadn’t been famous, they were pretty conspicuous in their elegant opera clothes.
Together, they hurried toward the curb just as a nondescript brown sedan pulled up. Agnes’s steps slowed.
“Keep moving,” Nate urged, giving her arm a little tug. “That’s our ride.”
She looked over her shoulder. Nate supposed it was natural for her to have second thoughts at this point, but he didn’t have time for them.
“It’s not like you can get back inside anyway,” he said, tugging a little harder. “Too late to change your mind now.”
“I’m not changing my mind,” Agnes said, and she sped up again.
Nate could see Dante, staring at them with a fierce glare as they approached. Nate was afraid Dante might see that Agnes was coming and decide to floor it and go off on his own, but despite the pissed-off look on his face, he waited. Nate opened the back door for Agnes, and she slid in. He went to get in the back himself, then thought better of it and took the front passenger seat because he didn’t feel like talking to the back of Dante’s head.
Dante hit the gas before Nate had finished closing the door, and he was pleasantly surprised he didn’t fall out.
“What the hell?” Dante shouted at him, then glanced at the rearview mirror and said, “Excuse my language, Miss Belinski,” in a much more measured tone of voice.
Nate buckled his seat belt hastily, because Dante was driving like a maniac. “She wanted to help,” Nate said, figuring it was best to keep it simple. “I didn’t have time to talk her out of it, and I didn’t want anyone asking her questions about where I’d gone.” He half-turned in his seat so he could see Agnes.
“Agnes, this is Dante. He used to work for the Lake family, and now he works for me.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Nate saw the glare Dante shot his way. He’d accepted the job on Nate’s staff because it was convenient, but he was never going to let Nate forget how little he liked working for him.
Agnes rearranged the preposterous pink flounces of her dress, her restless hands betraying her nerves though her face looked relatively composed. “You don’t have to lie to me, you know. If there are things you don’t want to tell me, well, just don’t tell me.”
Nate opened his mouth to protest that he wasn’t lying, but for once he decided to actually think about his words before he spoke. A hasty, indignant protest would just cement her conviction that he was lying to her, and considering how testy the dynamic between himself and Dante was likely to be over the course of the long drive ahead, she’d have a lot of trouble swallowing the idea that Dante was his servant.
“I’m not lying,” Nate said. “I’m just leaving a whole lot out. Dante does work for me, but for reasons I can’t explain, he knows I won’t fire him, so he feels free to treat me like an equal.”
“Uh-huh,” Agnes said, clearly unconvinced.
Nate expected Dante to get out of the city as fast as possible, so when the car made a sudden turn into a parking garage, he turned his attention away from Agnes.
“What are you doing?” he asked Dante.
“We have to change cars,” Dante explained. “Too many people saw the two of you getting into this one. We don’t need anyone tracking us. And both of you, take the batteries out of your phones.”
Nate uttered a curse. He should have thought of that himself. The secure phone wasn’t a problem, because no one who’d be looking for him knew he had it, but his personal phone was. He fished it out of his pocket, keeping an eye on Agnes to make sure she followed suit. Her phone was in one of those silly little clutch purses ladies carried, and when she took the battery out, she handed it to him. He raised his eyebrows.
“I don’t want you thinking I’m going to put it back in the minute your back is turned,” she explained.
He accepted the battery, though if Agnes were going to betray them, it seemed like she’d have done it by now. Then he pulled out the secure phone. This was just the kind of emergency he’d had in mind when he’d asked Dante to smuggle a phone to Nadia, so he punched in the number and held his breath.
&
nbsp; “Who are you calling?” Agnes asked.
“Nadia, I hope,” he said. He had no way of knowing if she still had the phone, but he had to try. He cursed when he reached voice mail.
“Try again later,” Dante suggested. “She may not be free to answer right now.”
Nate resisted the urge to bite the asshole’s head off for stating the obvious.
The garage was deserted, and though most of the spaces on the lower floors were filled, as they climbed, there were fewer and fewer parked cars. When they were near the top, Dante pulled up beside another bland-looking sedan, this one blue.
“You must pay your servants awfully well,” Agnes commented. “Not just one car, but two. I’m impressed.”
Apparently, when she wasn’t in some kind of fraught social situation, Agnes wasn’t quite so shy about speaking up. He didn’t know how to explain the cars. Dante certainly wouldn’t be able to afford a car on a servant’s wages, and the cars were both too cheap for Nate to claim them as his.
“Please stay in the car, Miss Belinski,” Dante said as he turned off the ignition and opened the door. “I need a private word with Mr. Hayes.”
Amazing how much contempt Dante managed to get into his voice while technically addressing Nate in a proper fashion. Nate thought Dante was as surprised as he was when Agnes said, “No, I think not.”
She opened her door, but remained in the car, clearly planning to get out if they did and stay put if they didn’t.
“It’ll just be for a minute,” Nate said, figuring Dante wanted a chance to let him know how displeased he was at Nate’s decision to bring Agnes along.
“No, it won’t,” Agnes countered. “He’s going to suggest sticking me in the trunk while you two ride off to the rescue.”
The mingled surprise and guilt on Dante’s face proved she had guessed right. And Nate supposed it made good sense. She would be nothing but a liability on this mission, but they couldn’t just let her go because of what she might tell people. It would be a really shitty way to treat her after she’d helped him, but it was logical. Of course, since she had guessed what Dante had planned, there was no way they were getting her into the trunk quietly.
Agnes sniffled and lowered her eyes, and Nate felt like a bastard. She opened that little purse of hers, and he assumed she was looking for a tissue to blot her eyes. He practically swallowed his tongue when she pulled out a gun instead.
“You are not putting me in that trunk,” she said, pointing the gun at Dante, who glared at Nate as if this were all his fault. Which, come to think of it, it was.
“Where did you get that?” Nate asked, shaking his head. There was no way Agnes habitually went to the opera with a gun in her purse.
“It was in your bodyguard’s ankle holster. I was holding his ankles, remember?”
She sounded calm enough, but there was a slight tremor in her hands. Obviously, she’d had an inkling she’d be coming along from the moment she’d helped him with Fischer, but she probably hadn’t given herself enough time to think it through.
“You’re not really going to shoot anyone, are you?” Nate asked. Five minutes ago, he’d have been saying that, not asking, but he had obviously underestimated Agnes.
“Not unless someone tries to lock me in the trunk.”
Nate and Dante looked at each other.
“I thought she was supposed to be shy and quiet,” Dante said. There was a thread of anger in his voice, and the look he was giving Nate was anything but friendly, but it didn’t seem like he was particularly bothered by having a gun pointed at him.
“I did, too,” Nate said, then turned to Agnes again. “You don’t even know what’s going on or why we think Nadia is in danger, nor do you know what we plan to do.” Actually, Nate didn’t know what the plan was, either, and it would be rather hard to discuss it if they couldn’t ditch Agnes.
Agnes let out a shaky breath. “I know something extremely fishy is going on in Paxco, and I’m damn well going to find out what it is before I find myself locked into a marriage agreement. I agreed to the match because I thought it was for the good of my state, but now I’m not so sure. No one’s going to tell me the truth, so I’m going to have to learn whatever it is firsthand.”
Nate couldn’t blame her for not wanting to be locked in the trunk, and he supposed the whole situation had alarm bells clanging in her head. The haste with which the marriage agreement was reached, the “hiatus” in the Replica program, the introduction of Dorothy, and now this. She was more than prepared to take one for the team, but the match probably wasn’t looking so ideal right about now.
“You have no idea what you’d be getting yourself into,” he told her. “The less you know about it, the safer you’ll be.”
“Perhaps you should have thought about that before you dragged me out of the theater,” she said quite sensibly. “I’m now thoroughly involved anyway.”
Dante scowled at her in a way that probably would have been intimidating if she weren’t holding him at gunpoint. “You don’t get it. You come with us, you could get killed. This isn’t some stupid game, and we don’t need you coming along for the thrill.”
It was hard to tell in the darkened car, but Nate thought Agnes’s face lost some of its color, and he was sure Dante had made his point. Her hand wavered, but she regained her resolve before the muzzle lowered enough for anyone to try to take the gun away.
“I’m coming,” she said firmly. “And we’re wasting time here. Stop trying to figure out how to get around me and let’s go.”
“She has a point,” Nate admitted reluctantly. “We don’t have time for a long standoff. Unless you’re willing to gamble that she won’t shoot.”
He felt about 90 percent certain she wouldn’t, but she’d surprised him so many times tonight he wasn’t about to rely on his instincts.
Dante shook his head in disgust. “Fine. We’ll take her along. And when she gets us caught before we get to Nadia, it’ll be all your fault.” He got out of the car and slammed the door behind him, then stalked over to the blue sedan and unlocked it.
Nate followed suit, as did Agnes, who kept a careful distance between them and didn’t actually get into the sedan until Dante did. She stopped pointing the gun at Dante’s head when they were all in the car, but she didn’t put it away, and Nate knew she was poised for any attempt to wrest it away from her.
Wondering what the hell he’d gotten them all into, Nate buckled in as Dante started the car and pulled out of the space.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Nate didn’t realize what a complete disaster his situation was until he’d had a few quiet minutes to think about it. He knew he and Dante needed to talk about the plan to get to Nadia, but it was hard to even begin discussing it with Agnes sitting in the backseat and listening to every word they said. She’d as much as said that she was considering this her own personal recon mission, and letting the daughter of a foreign Chairman find out there was a sizable, organized resistance movement in Paxco wasn’t such a hot idea. However, Nate was pretty sure they were going to need inside help to get Nadia out of the Sanctuary, and he was dying to ask Dante about his resistance contacts.
Unable to think how to start a conversation, Nate sat quietly in the passenger seat as Dante drove through the streets of the city, going as fast as he dared when it was imperative they not draw attention. And in that quiet time, Nate realized that his life would never be the same.
If he was right, and Gerri’s death meant she had led the Chairman to the blackmail recordings, that meant there was nothing to stop the Chairman from killing Nadia. Before his mother’s funeral, Nate had assumed he himself wouldn’t be in any real danger, because his father needed an heir and no longer had Thea around to make a blissfully ignorant Replica if he disposed of Nate. But now the Chairman had Dorothy, whom he had publicly acknowledged as his daughter. He could get rid of Nate and still have an heir.
Did his father hate him that much?
Sure, the man had a
lready had Nate killed once, but knowing he could create a Replica—one who hadn’t overheard the Chairman and Dirk Mosely talking about Thea’s human experimentation and therefore wouldn’t make waves—must have made it feel like he wasn’t really killing anyone.
Nate’s father had been angry with him for almost as long as Nate could remember. And Nate had taken every opportunity to foster more anger, acting like a spoiled, selfish brat for the sheer pleasure of pissing his father off.
But did that anger lead to actual hate, into something so toxic it would drive him to murder his own son?
The fact was, Nate couldn’t be sure. And that meant that once this adventure was over, even if everything went perfectly and they got Nadia out of the Sanctuary without a hitch, he couldn’t go home, couldn’t go back to his old life.
The realization was like a brutal kick to the chest, forcing all the air out of his lungs and triggering a moment of sheer panic. He closed his eyes and clenched his fists as he tried to fight it off, but he felt the sweat beading on his forehead and upper lip. He thought for a moment he was totally going to lose it, right there in the front seat of the car with both Agnes and Dante as witnesses.
“We’ll get her out,” Dante said gruffly, making the natural assumption that Nate was freaking out because he was worried about Nadia. But Dante didn’t have a clue what was really happening.
And then what? Nate wondered. Neither he nor Nadia could set foot in their homes. Nadia would have no money, no access to money, and nowhere to go. Nate might be able to get hold of some scrip before his father came up with an excuse to freeze his account, but even that would be dangerous, giving those who might be hunting him a bead on his location, even if it was just for a short while. So he might have a temporary supply of scrip, but that would be it. Like Nadia, he would have nowhere safe to go. In fact, the only place he could even imagine going was the Basement. He at least had some experience there from the jaunts of his reckless youth, but a sheltered Executive girl like Nadia might as well have the word “victim” tattooed on her forehead in a place like that.