“He was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Nate answered grimly. “The only reason my father didn’t kill me the second time was because of those recordings. And the only thing that’s kept him from killing Nadia is that she had those recordings hidden and had arranged for them to be released if anything happened to her.”
Nate had turned to face front once more, so he couldn’t see Agnes’s reaction to the news. “I got word during the opera that Nadia’s sister had just died in an ‘accident.’”
“And you think she led your father to the recordings and now he’s going to go after Nadia,” Dante finished for him.
Nate nodded and chose not to mention the likelihood that he was on the Chairman’s hit list as well.
There was a long silence as everyone stewed in their own thoughts.
“What do you know that’s worth killing so many people over?” Dante asked.
“I can’t tell you that.” Even if he trusted Agnes and Dante completely, he doubted he’d tell them about Thea. She was dead and gone, and telling people about her would serve no good purpose.
“Did you tell Bishop?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but no.”
“Who’s Bishop?” Agnes asked.
Nate didn’t consciously intend to answer that question with any real honesty. He could tell her Kurt was his old valet, and it would be completely true. But his subconscious had other ideas.
“He’s my boyfriend,” Nate blurted, then blinked in surprise. But really, what was the point of keeping that particular secret any longer? Under the circumstances, he had no choice but to flee his Executive life anyway, so why should he keep pretending? He’d always hated having to hide that side of himself, hated having to live a lie.
Nate didn’t look to see how Agnes was taking the revelation. Dante shrugged, as if it were no big deal—which to an Employee, it wasn’t.
“I must admit,” Dante said, “I’d wondered about you two. You seemed way more attached than an Executive would normally be to his valet.”
“Well, now you know.” Nate resisted the urge to squirm. He felt like Agnes was probably staring daggers at him from the backseat, but he didn’t have the guts to check. It wasn’t like she’d been hoping for high romance in her marriage with him anyway, but he supposed the news still had to come as something of a shock. Maybe she was now regretting having helped him. He was certainly regretting his impulse to bring her along in the first place. When he and Dante had tried to leave her behind in the trunk, Nate had tried to warn her what kind of danger she was walking into, but he hadn’t fully appreciated it himself at the time. It wasn’t just her reputation she had ruined by running off with him; it might well be her very life. What were the chances his father would believe Agnes didn’t know any damning secrets after all this? Finding out the truth about his sexual preferences was the least of her troubles.
Nate reached up and rubbed his eyes, as if he could somehow wipe away everything that had happened in the last few hours.
“When were you planning to tell me this?” Agnes asked, her voice cold for the first time he could remember.
Nate sank down a little lower in his seat. “I wasn’t. I’m sorry if that makes me dishonest, but I couldn’t risk you outing me. I have no interest in being ‘reprogrammed.’ But hey, look on the bright side: I’m going to be either dead or in hiding when this is over, so you won’t have to marry me after all.” He didn’t have the heart to break it to her that she would be in the same boat.
“You think your father would really kill you?” Dante asked. “Now that the Replica program is on hiatus?”
“Let’s just say I wouldn’t put it past him. Now why don’t we talk about something more important, like how we’re going to get Nadia out of the Sanctuary, and once we work that out, where the hell we’re going from there.”
They’d finally reached a highway, and Dante gunned the motor. A warning light on the dashboard came on, telling him he was exceeding the speed limit. With a growl of frustration, he slowed down. If he didn’t, the car would automatically send out a signal to the highway patrol, and he would have a hell of a time explaining why he had Nate and Agnes in the car with him if they were pulled over.
“I don’t suppose you know how to disable that sensor?” Nate asked, and Dante shook his head.
“I’ll get us there as fast as I can without drawing attention. When we get there, can you use your status to talk the retreat guards into delivering Nadia?”
Nate gave Dante an incredulous stare. “That’s your rescue plan? We just drive up to the gates and ask them to hand her over?”
Dante’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, and a muscle in his jaw twitched. “I’ve never tried to break someone out of an Executive retreat before, so excuse me if I’m a little out of my depth.”
“Can’t your … contacts help somehow?” The resistance had been able to get to Nadia at Tranquility, so surely they had someone on the inside at the Sanctuary, too.
Dante clenched up even more, anger radiating from him in waves. “No,” he said through gritted teeth.
At first, Nate thought the anger was directed at him, for asking uncomfortable questions, but then he realized he was being an idiot. The resistance had been willing to help get a message to Nadia at Tranquility in return for the information Nate had promised them. He had nothing left to bargain with, except for information he didn’t dare share. Though perhaps Dante’s resistance bosses didn’t have to know that …
“Don’t bother,” Dante said, as if reading his mind. “They have zero interest in getting involved. This is too dangerous, and she’s too high-profile. It wouldn’t matter if you offered to solve the mysteries of the universe for them, they wouldn’t bite.”
Nate did a double take. “But you’re going after her anyway. And you’re using one of their cars…” He was talking too much again, giving Agnes more clues than it was safe to give her. If she went blabbing to someone about this conversation, Dante could very well find himself brought in for questioning. Then again, who would she have to blab to? Her life was as ruined as his.
Dante nodded grimly, watching the road. “I’m disobeying direct orders. But I am not abandoning Nadia. I promised I would get her out of there…”
Nate wondered when that had happened, but he kept his curiosity—and the habitual pulse of jealousy that came with it—tightly leashed. Right now, he had to concentrate on coming up with a plan. Even though he kind of sucked at planning. He was more of a “charge in and hope everything works out” kind of guy, but that wasn’t going to be enough tonight. He tried calling Nadia’s emergency phone again, but was again dumped into voice mail.
“The place is guarded out the wazoo,” Nate muttered, hoping that maybe thinking out loud could help. “The fence is electrified, and they have freaking watchtowers!”
“And security cameras,” Agnes added from the back. “I noticed those when we went through the gates for the funeral.”
“Not only that,” Dante contributed, “but it’ll be almost three in the morning when we get there, and we don’t know exactly where Nadia is. If we don’t get through to her on the phone, she’ll probably be fast asleep and have no idea she’s in trouble or that we’re coming.”
Nate told himself not to panic, no matter how insurmountable the problems seemed. But in all honesty, he had no idea how they were going to pull this off without getting themselves captured and condemned to a fate worse than death.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The constant flow of adrenaline through her veins made Nadia want to run as fast as she could, but her best chance of escape was to move slowly and cautiously. She tiptoed down the dormitory hall and used Lily’s key card to unlock the hall door. The door made a soft beep when it approved the key card, and Nadia winced. But though this place felt like a prison to her, it wasn’t one. There were no guards posted to keep the inmates locked in, no one to come running to investigate the unexpected sound.