Nina was pushed into the back of the black SUV as the two men who had been carrying Carter climbed into the passenger and driver seats.

  Nina frowned. Were they leaving Carter in the van? Why?

  Nina saw it, the moment he clicked the button, but it was the eruption of the blast that took her breath away.

  “No!” Nina screamed as she twisted, looking over her shoulder at the van engulfed in flames. “No!” Nina wailed, tears filling her eyes.

  Dante grabbed her chin. “Let that be a lesson to those who betray me,” he said before he pushed her chin away in disgust.

  Nina looked back to the van as they drove away, her heart breaking into pieces.

  He didn’t deserve that.

  Tears ran down her cheek, dripping off her chin.

  Nina looked to Dante, hatred flaring in her eyes. But she had no fight left in her, the hatred had paralyzed her.

  Nina was numb as they drove away from the house. She didn’t feel anything at all. She didn’t care where they were going, she didn’t care whether she lived.

  She told herself to think of Annie and Lena, but she was too numb to feel anything.

  When they pulled up at a warehouse, Nina had no idea how long they’d been driving but the sun had set and a cold chill swept through the air.

  Dante grabbed her elbow, dragging her from the car.

  Nina’s shoulder screamed in protest but not a sound left her lips.

  “Put her in there,” Dante said, pointing toward a closed door.

  Nina had a sense of déjà vu, but this wasn’t the warehouse where Ed had been killed.

  This warehouse would become a new nightmare for Nina.

  CHAPTER 27

  NINA

  Nina’s head hung forward as she fought through the chloroform they’d tried to sedate her with. She’d closed her eyes, letting her head roll back and they’d taken away the cloth. Nina had barely been conscious—just awake enough to let them believe they’d succeeded in sedating her—when they’d left the room.

  Her head bobbed now as she fought to lift it up. Everything seemed hazy and she struggled to remember where she was. But even through the drug, Nina couldn’t completely forget.

  Carter.

  Her eyes welled as the image of the van bursting into flames stole the breath from her lungs. Nina had never felt more alone. Dante hadn’t even looked over his shoulder. Carter’s life had been extinguished, not even worthy of a confirmation look from Dante. For a moment Nina had wondered if Carter had somehow gotten out of the van—that maybe he wasn’t really dead—but Dante’s confidence in Carter’s death had been so assured that he hadn’t even looked over his shoulder to confirm.

  A sob slipped from her lips and she felt like her heart was crumbling in her chest. Tears ran down her face but she couldn’t even wipe them away because her hands were tied, so she let them run, dripping from her chin.

  The dimly lit room mirrored her heart and her mind. Hope seemed lost, escape unfeasible. Nina lifted her heavy eyes to the door but like the impossible jobs Carter had been sent on, this too seemed impossible.

  Nina didn’t have the strength to hold her head up, so it fell forward. She was so tired; she felt like her body was going to stop breathing, unable to perform even the most automatic functions.

  Nina closed her eyes, slipping back into the darkness, hope a distant dream.

  Nina startled, opening her eyes. She blinked, clearing her blurred vision. She looked at the door and the man sitting opposite her and quickly remembered where she was and what had happened.

  Carter.

  “Good afternoon,” Dante’s man said with an arrogant smirk.

  Nina looked at him, but she had no response. She felt numb. Cold, yet numb.

  “Dante wants to speak to you. You said you have his money, but it’s not in his account,” he said.

  Nina stared at him, but she could barely understand what he was saying. Grief had a way of swallowing you whole, gripping you in its numbing arms. Nina felt like she was watching a movie, one she didn’t want to see the end of.

  She closed her eyes, too tired and drained to respond. When Dante wanted to talk, he knew where to find her.

  Her cheek stung and her eyes flung open. Dante’s face was inches from hers. Instinctively Nina jolted back but her back was already pressed against the chair.

  “Enough sleeping, Nina. I want my money,” he growled.

  Nina tried to look dazed to buy some time to think through her plan. She didn’t think she’d need to try that hard. She raised her eyes, spotting a clock on the wall behind Dante. Had the clock always been there? She couldn’t be sure.

  “The money was in your account. Check your transactions,” she said with a croaky voice.

  Dante frowned, narrowing his eyes. Then he looked at his phone, tapped the screen a few times. His jaw hardened as his eyes widened simultaneously.

  “What the fuck?” he growled. “How did you do that? You’ve been asleep the entire time you’ve been here!”

  The corner of her lips curled up. “Don’t you want to ask me where the money is?”

  His jaw set. “I don’t care where it is. I want it back in my account. Now!” He raised his gun, pressing it against her temple.

  Nina swallowed hard. She forced her mind to focus, to think clearly, even though she pretended to be dazed and confused because the last thing she wanted Dante to realize was she was playing a new game and this time she would be the puppeteer.

  “I used a code to set up an automatic deposit and subsequent withdrawal from your account. If you want me to reverse the withdrawal, I’m going to need my laptop,” Nina said.

  He stared at her a long moment then looked over his shoulder and said, “Get her laptop." Dante’s man hurried off, but Dante’s eyes never left Nina. “How did you suddenly get my money, Nina?”

  “I had it all along,” she lied, meeting his gaze. “It was never transferred to the customers.”

  Dante glared at her. “If that’s the case, why not just return the money?”

  “Because I hadn’t finished my second act. Here’s the thing, Dante. I need to enter a password into my system, and the password will be different every time. Every single month, month after month. So if you kill me, you’re going to have a big problem because the code sequence I used won’t take the money I sent to you, the code will drain your account to zero.”

  Dante called her bluff. “Not if I move it to another account,” he said.

  Nina shook her head. “That’s the thing with this code, it traces the money. It’s the most brilliant piece of code I’ve ever seen.”

  He scoffed. “You’re not very modest,” he said.

  Nina scoffed. “I didn’t design it. Ella did,” she said, and Dante’s jaw dropped open and his eyes hardened.

  A grin spread across Nina’s lips. “Well, Ella did most of the work, I simply modified the code. She was planning to use it to send money into your account. I reversed it so that it sends the money out. Much better that way.”

  “I’ll withdraw the cash,” Dante said, recovering his arrogant tone.

  Nina raised an eyebrow. “That’s a lot of cash to withdraw in a very short period of time, don’t you think?” she asked, but continued before he had a chance to respond. “It won’t help you anyway, because I was able to intercept your phone conversations. How did you think we knew to go to my house at the exact same time Greg was there?” She let that sink in a moment.

  “That’s right, we intercepted your message to Greg, and we recorded every voice call you made. These recordings are going to cause trouble for you, Dante. The CIA, the FBI . . . they’ll all be interested in hearing them. And if you kill me, they’ll get released to the world and there’s nowhere you’ll be able to hide. It’s a dead man’s switch and it’s already in play; there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Let me walk out of here, and I’ll enter the password every month like clockwork and we’ll forget we ever met.”

  His jaw clenched and Nina could see his mind spinning, trying to think of everything she could’ve overheard, trying to work out whether she was calling his bluff or not.

  A smug smile threatened to turn up the corner of her lips but her glee was short-lived as a blood-curdling scream cut through the walls.

  “Where is Carter, Jedd?”

  Nina frowned and Dante’s eyes snapped to the wall.

  Nina’s mind reeled. Why were they asking Jedd where Carter was? They’d put him in the van and blown it up.

  “Go to hell!” Jedd yelled back before he screamed so violently it made Nina’s head rattle.

  Dante frowned and fled the room, leaving Nina bound to the chair, her mouth agape.

  Muffled voices penetrated the wall but Nina couldn’t hear what they were saying. She looked to the clock, noting the time. Dante didn’t return, but Jedd’s screams did.

  A clear voice came through the wall and Nina recognized it immediately. Dante. “I will kill you, then I’ll find him and kill you both, so you might as well tell me where he is,” Dante said.

  “Fuck you,” Jedd spat.

  Nina stopped breathing. Something had happened to make Dante believe Carter was alive. At first she thought his body hadn’t been found, but given the intensity of the explosion, she couldn’t imagine there would be a body to be found.

  So maybe someone had seen him get out? Maybe he hadn’t been unconscious at all, but faking it like she had done.

  Hope flickered in her chest.

  “This is your last chance,” Dante said.

  “Kill me,” Jedd responded, fiercely as though he had no concern about dying.

  Nina realized she’d been wrong all along. Jedd was loyal to Carter and was willing to die for him.

  Hope surged through her veins. She fought against the restraints but it only caused them to cut into the soft flesh on her wrists and ankles.

  The door opened and she froze. Dante looked at her.

  “Okay, Nina, you’re free to go,” he said with a cocky smile as he stalked toward her, backed up by three of his men.

  She was no fool, he was not letting her go that easy. He had a plan, and she would figure it out. But first she had to do something else, for someone without the leverage she had.

  “Let Jedd go. Now,” Nina said sternly. “Release him and move me so that I can watch him walk out of the door. If anything happens to him, I’ll refuse to enter the password.”

  Dante tilted his head. “Why do you care about Jedd?”

  Because Carter cares about him. “He’s no help to you,” Nina said. “Let him live his life. You don’t need him, and he’ll never give you Carter.”

  “I can see why he likes you,” Dante said with a sly grin that made her stomach roll. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll let Jedd go, but you’re staying with me until I can be sure you’ll enter the password.”

  Nina nodded. She knew it wasn’t about the password. Nina would be used to draw Carter out. She was another pawn in the deadly dance Dante and Carter had been playing for more than a decade.

  But it was time for the dance to end.

  For now, Jedd could go and she would do whatever Dante needed until she found a way to get herself out of this mess. And then she would take Lena somewhere safe—somewhere Dante would never find them even if he came looking for them. Perhaps a little beach house on a cliff.

  He disappeared from the room and came back with her laptop. “Put the money back in my account then we’ll talk.” He cut the rope binding her hands, throwing her a warning glance.

  Nina inhaled deeply, focusing on the task at hand. She used Ella’s code sequence to move the money so it would be withdrawn if she didn’t enter the password.

  Dante checked his account and nodded. “Let Jedd go.”

  Three men walked out of the room and Nina expected Dante to follow them but he walked around the chair Nina was tied to and lifted it up.

  Nina squealed as she felt like she was going to fall off, but the ropes kept her secured to the chair.

  Dante carried the chair to the window and opened the blind.

  Nina blinked, recognizing the view—or lack thereof. If they weren’t in the same warehouse Carter had initially taken Nina to, they were in the one next door.

  Nina heard faint voices through the walls and then she held her breath as Jedd walked into view. He limped on his right leg and his left arm hung at an unnatural angle. Nina was glad she couldn’t see his face, but she knew it was him by the star tattoo on the base of his neck. Even from where Nina sat, it appeared to take a monumental amount of effort to walk, but walk he did. He climbed into a black truck that became invisible through the dust cloud when Jedd spun the tires as he drove away.

  For you, Carter, Nina thought as hot tears stung her eyes. Your brother is safe.

  Dante swore under his breath and spun Nina’s chair around so violently that it almost gave her whiplash.

  “Where did my money just go?” Dante growled.

  Nina stopped breathing, fear snaking up the back of her neck like icy tentacles. The money shouldn’t have gone anywhere.

  Nina tried to swallow but the lump in her throat was growing larger by the second.

  “Give me my laptop,” she said quickly, fighting to remain calm. She needed Dante to believe she was in control of this.

  Her fingers fluttered over the keyboard but she couldn’t find the mistake—the error in the code. She’d tested it on her own bank account and Carter’s. It had worked perfectly, moving money in and out only when the password had been entered.

  But something had changed. The code was malfunctioning and Nina didn’t know how to fix it.

  “Go after him. Find him and bring him back,” Dante said.

  “No!” Nina said, her eyes looking to the clock. Jedd hadn’t been gone more than five minutes. He wouldn’t be far enough away. “I’ll get you your money.”

  “Go after him!” Dante said, ignoring Nina’s plea. “Concentrate on what you’re doing. If that money is not back in my account within the next fifteen minutes, I’ll shoot Jedd the second my men bring him back to me.”

  Nina inhaled deeply, blocking Dante’s threats from her mind.

  She studied the code sequence, double-checking the times. But she didn’t understand what had gone wrong.

  Beads of sweat lined her forehead.

  Think, Nina, think.

  Her eyes darted to the clock again.

  Almost ten minutes had passed and Dante’s men weren’t back with Jedd. Maybe he had gotten away.

  Nina separated the code into multiple sections, breaking down each one, but there was nothing in the code that should’ve activated the transfer. And worse than that, she had no idea where the money had gone or how to get it back.

  Nina kept trying, but it felt like a lost cause. She wanted to sit in the corner of the room, bury her head in her hands and cry. She was tired of this, tired of it all.

  She stared at the laptop, unable to think—her head was too foggy.

  “I need a glass of water,” Nina said without looking up.

  In her peripheral, she saw Dante nod but his eyes never left Nina. Someone left the room and came back a moment later, passing her a glass of water. Her hands shook as she took the glass, spilling some water onto the laptop.

  She quickly swiped her arm across the keyboard, letting her sweater soak up the water. She put the glass down beside her ankle—which was tied to the chair. She used the moment to look around the room. Six men, their eyes trained on Nina.

  She shook her head, forcing herself to focus.

  She looked back to the code, her breath catching in her throat as she saw the error. Two commands were out of sequence. It had been in front of her the entire time. She couldn’t fathom how she’d made such a mistake, but in her haste to copy over the code she must’ve made the error.

  Nina looked to the clock once more. Dante’s men had been gone for over half an hour and they hadn’t returned with Jedd.

  Was he safe?

  She pushed the questions from her mind as she focused on the task. She fixed the code and the transfer reversed.

  Dante gave a chilling grin. “Very good, Nina.” He took her laptop from her, and secured her hands behind the back of the chair once more before he turned and walked out of the door, locking it behind her.

  Nina looked over her shoulder to the window but she couldn’t see anything from where she sat, bound to the chair.

  Nina inhaled a deep breath. If Carter was alive, why hadn’t he come for them?

  She tried to rationalize that he hadn’t known where to find them, but she was sure this warehouse was next to, or very close to, the warehouse Carter had first taken her to.

  Maybe he was badly injured and couldn’t physically come. Or maybe he wasn’t alive at all. That was the most plausible explanation because Nina knew that even if he didn’t come for Nina, he would’ve come for Jedd. Every cell in her body knew that.

  Nina bit her lip, the hope that had flickered in her chest had burned to ash. Her head fell forward, exhaustion creeping through her veins like a deadly gas.

  She was tired of this, tired of it all.

  Dante would wake her again when he needed something. Until then, she wanted to sleep—to escape this nightmare—and awake with a fresh mind that could come up with a new game plan because she was playing against the grandmaster.

  Nina closed her eyes.

  CHAPTER 28

  JEDD

  His vision blurred and he fought through the cocktail of exhaustion and pain riddling his body as he drove past Nina’s house, looking for any sign of Carter. The burned-out van was gone and the drapes were drawn. Jedd pulled the car to a stop, idling for a few minutes, lowering the window so his face was visible. If Carter was somehow watching the house, he would see Jedd.

  He checked the mirrors again, but he’d been careful. No one had followed him. They had Nina, which meant Dante was confident he could use her to draw Carter out. It was a good strategy and one that made Jedd’s stomach churn because if Carter was alive, Jedd knew he would stop at nothing to find her.

 

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