From the shadows at the base of the stairs, a woman stepped into the fading light coming through the windows, the end of a Colt pointed right at Eve’s chest. Beneath the hand covering her mouth, Eve swallowed hard.
“I’ll take that.” Natalie climbed the stairs and picked up Eve’s gun from the floor, then holstered it at her back. Both hands gripping her gun, she looked past Eve toward Carter. “I warned you she was a problem.”
“I didn’t know she was going to show up here.”
“If you’d done the job correctly the first time, Archer would be dead and none of this would be a problem. And if you’d followed through in Seattle, they’d both already be out of the picture.” Natalie’s voice rose a notch. “Don’t talk to me about not knowing. It’s your job to think ten steps ahead. Now she knows we aren’t dead, and we’re not going to be able to pin this on her like we’d planned.”
Eve’s adrenaline shot up. Her mind rushed back over that meeting in the park followed by the chaos after. She’d been so wrapped up in Zane, in finding out what was going on, that she’d let down her guard and hadn’t noticed when Carter had gone after Natalie instead of letting Zane help her. Or that he’d gone the wrong direction, on purpose.
“It’ll still work,” Carter said. “Relax. Where’s Roberts?”
“In the den.”
Carter lifted his hand from Eve’s mouth and slid the gun to the middle of her back. “Move. Toward the stairs. And go slow, Juliet. Don’t think I won’t shoot you right here if you do anything funny.”
Eve’s pulse raced as she stepped past Natalie and her smug expression. The stairs creaked under her boots with every step, and her mind ran with options. Zane had been the target from the beginning, not her. “Why Archer?”
“Don’t answer her,” Natalie snapped.
“Shut up,” Carter said at Eve’s back. Then to Eve, “Because he knew too much. He overheard me on the phone with Cross one night when we were in Beirut. The only plus in all of this is that those Chechens already killed Cross. Even if Archer didn’t remember, I had to make sure he never would. And if he’d died in Guatemala like I’d planned, all of this would be a moot point.”
They hit the first set of stairs, heading for the main level. “And the bombing in Seattle?”
“Cover-up. Kill two birds with one stone. I knew Archer was in Seattle looking for you. Hell, I even leaked information to him through a third party as to where you were. I knew he’d come after you. The dumb fuck was way too obsessed with finding you these last few months. And if Cross hadn’t messed that one up, you’d both have died in that blast, and we wouldn’t be here now.”
He pushed her into the den. In the corner of the room, Roberts was handcuffed and gagged, leaning against the dark oak wall paneling, blood dripping down his forehead. His wife and ten-year-old son were also bound and gagged next to him, eyes wide and frightened.
Memories bombarded Eve. The kids in that school in Beirut. The child on the street next to her in Seattle. This boy.
Her pulse picked up speed until it was rapid-fire in her ears.
“So this is how this is going to go down,” Natalie announced. “Roberts is going to tell us where he stashed Humbolt’s file, and we’ll kill you all quick and painlessly. There’s no reason for anyone to have to suffer here.”
The boy whimpered and closed his eyes. Horror reflected in the wife’s eyes. Beneath the gag, Roberts mumbled something Eve couldn’t decipher.
Natalie glanced toward Carter. “We’ll use Wolfe’s being here to our advantage. It’ll look like she came after the file, killed his family, and Roberts shot her before she could get away. By the time anyone figures out what’s going on, our Chechen friends will have the file, and we’ll be billionaires.”
“A nice, neat bow,” Carter mumbled.
“Better than yours.”
Natalie crossed the room and yanked the gag from Roberts’s mouth, then moved behind the wife and pushed the muzzle of her gun against the woman’s nape. “Start talking, Roberts.”
Roberts’s wife screamed beneath the gag. The boy sobbed louder.
“Carter,” Eve said in a low voice, “you can’t do this.”
“Shut up, Wolfe.”
“I don’t have Humbolt’s file,” Roberts sputtered. “I never had it.”
“That’s a lie.” Natalie shoved the gun harder against the woman’s head. “We know Cross got cold feet and sent it to you. Tell us where it is or your wife dies.”
“Carter,” Eve hissed. “You can’t let her kill innocent people.”
“Shut. Up.” Carter growled.
“You’ve got five seconds,” Natalie hollered. “Five—”
“I don’t know,” Roberts screamed.
Adrenaline surged through Eve’s body. “He doesn’t have it,” she yelled. “He doesn’t have it because I do.”
Natalie’s head came up. She glared hard Eve’s way. “Where?”
“Kill any of these people and you’ll never know.”
Fury flashed in Natalie’s eyes. She shoved Roberts’s wife to the floor, stepped over the woman’s crumpled body, and lifted the gun to Eve’s head. “Where’s the fucking file?”
Beyond the glass doors that led from the den to the patio, a shadow moved.
“Natalie!” Carter yelled.
“I won’t ask again,” Natalie said in a calm voice. “Five—”
“Goddammit, Natalie, if you kill her, we’ll never know where it is.”
“Yes, we will. We’ll find her fucking boyfriend and get it out of him. Four, three—”
“Dammit. Tell her, Eve.” Carter’s panicked voice echoed through the room. “She’s not fucking around. I can’t stop her.”
“Two—”
Eve tensed. No way was she telling this chick where that file was located.
A gunshot sounded. Eve jolted. Glass shattered. Natalie yelped, and her gun went flying.
Carter let go of Eve and swiveled away. Realizing the shot had come from outside, Eve didn’t turn to look at what he was doing. She arced out with her fist and caught Natalie with a right hook to the jaw. The woman fell back into the desk. Paper and pens went flying. Her body hit the ground with a thud.
The crack of fist against bone met Eve’s ears. Wood splintered. Some kind of fight was going on behind her, but before she could look, she heard voices. Carter’s. And Archer’s.
“Son of a bitch,” Archer muttered. “You should have stayed dead.”
He’d come after her. Even after she’d left him with that stupid note. Even after all the things she’d done to try to fuck things up between them.
Her hand dripping blood where she’d been shot, Natalie pushed to her feet and used her good arm to swipe at her bloody mouth. “He should have killed you a long time ago.” She reached for Eve’s gun at her lower back.
Eve swiveled and kicked out. Her foot connected with Natalie’s jaw and then knocked into the hand lifting the gun. The gun went sailing. Eve threw two more punches and shoved Natalie into the fireplace. Natalie’s head smacked against the mantle. She grunted, then sank to the floor.
Eve checked Natalie’s pulse and found she was still alive, just unconscious. Carter and Archer were gone, though, and she couldn’t hear them anymore. Her adrenaline shot up even more. Grabbing scissors from the desk drawer, she stepped up behind Roberts.
“I didn’t know Cross was compromised,” he said while she cut the zip ties around his wrists. “How did you get Humbolt’s file?”
Eve moved to his wife. “Cross had a change of heart. He didn’t know Natalie and Carter were going to blow up a city street. When the Chechens realized he’d stashed it and wasn’t playing fair, they locked him up next to my sister. He told her where to find it.”