Page 99 of Arrogant Bastard

I smile, my impending freedom suffusing me with happiness. “Sure, lead the way.” We enter the elevator, and he slides his keycard through the slot. We ride for a few floors in silence. “Are you allowed to tell me what goes on on the seventeenth floor, or will you have to kill me?”

His head snaps to me, and his eyes widen for a moment. “Oh. No, it’s nothing like that. I mean…it is…Well, what I’m saying is, level seventeen requires top clearance, of course, but—”

I reach out and lay a hand on his sleeve. “Hey, it’s okay. I was just messing with you.”

“Oh.” He looks down at my hand for a second, a hint of a frown creasing his brows. When I drop my hand, he shrugs. “Well, I’m used to that.”

The bitter snap to the words prickles my skin with cold disquiet. It’s enough for me to hurry out of the elevator when we jolt to a stop.

I haven’t been to level seventeen before, so I don’t know what to expect. But I’m sure it shouldn’t look like an underground garage with industrial-size steel pipes twisting and turning in a maze of metal. I take a few more steps into the large space and then turn around.

My blood goes cold.

He’s pointing a gun at me, the black muzzle gleaming pure menace. Shock holds me still long enough for him to punch a couple of buttons on the elevator panel before stepping out. I rush forward when the doors start to shut.

“Stop,” he commands coldly. “I may be just an analyst, but I went through some training to get this job. Six feet, I believe, is the space I need to keep between us to stop you from attempting to disarm me before I shoot. I’m not ashamed to admit that I know you can kick my ass, but trust me, if you come any closer than the requisite six feet, I’ll shoot. Now turn around and let’s go.”

Heart shaking, I swivel back to the maze of pipes. “Where are we going?”

“For now, straight ahead of you.”

I force my feet to move. After about two hundred feet, I glance over my shoulder. He’s maintaining the six feet that keeps him out of my reach. “What’s your name?

He shakes his head. “Don’t bother trying to establish rapport. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters now.”

The finality in his voice sends another cold shiver down my spine. “You’re the mole.”

His pale skin goes even paler. “You know.”

“Yes, but whatever you’ve done, it’s not too late to make things right.”

He makes a creaky sound that is a poor imitation of laughter. “You know what they do to people like me in jail?”

“Why? What did you do?”

His head bows for a moment. I slow my steps but then his head snaps up, and he slows down too, keeping the exact distance between us as before.

His fingers grip the gun tighter. “I really don’t want to shoot you, Miss Carson. Turn left, please.”

I follow another set of steel pipes. “Where are we going? At least you can tell me that?”

“I don’t know. I just have to deliver you to him, that’s all.”

My heart drops to my feet. “Him? Paul Galveston?” I ask over my shoulder.

He nods.

“You don’t have to do what he says. Help Killian…Mr. Knight and me instead. We’ll—”

“Look at me. Tell me what you see,” he says.

I stop and take a closer look at my captor. Everything about him reeks of despair. The no-hope, finite kind. I don’t have the courage to voice that because that will also seal my fate.

“Exactly,” he says softly.

He jerks the gun, and I start moving again. Toward the dark green door a hundred feet in front of me.

Nothing good lies on the other side of it. I know that in my bones. Ten feet from it, I stop.

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