Chapter 100

**Hadassah POV**

“I know you.”
She nods, almost scornfully. “Keep that gun in my face. You’ll know a different side of me.”
A smile steals across my face. “You got quite a mouth on you.”
“And I know where yours have been.”
A flare of anger and she uses that mico moment to lunge for the gun and tactically disarms me. But a surprise kick to her groin sends the ground clattering, sliding across the varnished floor. Calum grabs me from behind and jerks me around with startling force, still restrained by his arms even though we’re completely rotated around with our backs towards her. And Calum’s hold clamps down around me warningly.
“What the hell? She’s on your side.”
Before I can even say anything. The door opens behind us, one guard pokes his head around to check what’s going on. He charges inside at the sight of them and that alarms the other to join him.
“Let her go,” one of them demands.
Calum releases me slowly and I shake my head vigorously. “No, they’re not a threat—”
A red dot appears on his forehead. And suddenly, I identify as a statue.
“Step away from her.”
“She’s the least of your concerns, mate,” Calum comments.
“You guys brought a sniper with you?” I ask with wide eyes.
Calum shakes his head with equal bafflement.
The guard looks beyond us and up at the roof-to-ceiling window. The sniper's shot cracks the silence, a sharp whistle as the bullet slices through the glass, then finding its mark—a burst of blood from his forehead with a final, deadly thud. The other guard barely has the time to twitch in reaction before he’s shot down. The three of us spit for cover as I dive behind a column and Calum flattens himself against the other one opposite me. And the other woman slips into an alcove, carefully sneaking a glance back at the expansive window at the end of the foyer.
I do know her. Partially.
The benefit of never being able to forget a face. Commander Acheson.
“CIA?” Calum asks her.
She throws back an answer. “FBI operates domestically in these types of cases. A joint cooperation.”
“So what you’re saying is we’re doubly screwed?”
“Good news is that they will try to capture us before they’re given the order to neutralize us if all avenues of containment have been exhausted.”
“Which none of those options are ideal,” I add.
A controlled explosion catches our attention, followed by a cacophony from a barrage of bullets, trading fire. Which I’m guessing one or two units managed to breach the private area and are locked in a shootout with Torin’s men. At least, the chaos provides us cover. I look across at Calum and I can see the lightbulb expression on his face as our eyes lock on cue and we share an empathic nod.
“You two thinking what I’m thinking?” Acheson calls out.
“Right behind you, Commander,” Calum shouts back.
Acheson goes for the gun before she flanks the door. She opens it by a hairline fracture to check the outside and a salvo of sound slips through—the thunderous onslaught of return fire. Calum nods me over and I push myself away from the column, dashing across until I’m behind her. When I’m there I yank off the red bottom heels, ready to run this barefoot if I have to. Calum soon slides over next to me. Acheson glances back at me and clocks the stairwell—the closest egress and one that doesn’t put us in a direct line of fire.
Acheson takes a few labored, readying breaths before she rushes out with her arm outstretched, the barrel on a swivel like a targeting sequence ready to lock on target. A SWAT member pounces at her and a bullet blitzes through his throat—an explosion of blood before he drops, revealing one of Torin’s men. I know him too. The lead guy I was working with when we ran point on that operation at the sea palace. Acheson’s arm whips back up to shoot him and impulse makes my hands shove her arm down like a lever, causing an intended misfire. The lead guy gets swarmed by an oncoming wave that he picks off one by one—the rest of them enduring. Most of the corpses are the ones wearing full special force tactical gear.
Acheson pitches a fiercely confused look at me before she moves on and uses her shoulder to push the door open. We rush down the stairwell, my feet slapping against the cement steps. We descend maybe two levels before Acheson stops abruptly and holds out her fist, motioning for us to stop. And that’s when we can hear it. A staccato of rapid steps, boots pounding upwards—an entire troop making their way up. And that’s when we take the first door out, coming out into a random corridor. We race down the opulent hallway on our way to the elevators until we get impeded by a family of four, making their way to their hotel room, their movements slowing as they register the distant sounds of gunfire.
Acheson aims the gun at them and hurries them along. “Inside.”
The father speeds on to open the door, rushing his family inside and before he can close the door. Acheson slams her foot in the gap and shoos him away with the barrel of the gun. He edges back with his hands raised and she calmly beckons us over. The father recedes and he grabs his wife before pushing his older son and young daughter behind him, watching us fretfully.
“Relax, we’re not going to hurt you. Any of you got a laptop?”
“I do,” the teenage boy says and a quivering finger points at the room with two single beds. “I can give you the password.”
“Calum,” she instructs.
“On it.”
He darts into the room and soon comes out with a slender laptop. Calum doesn’t need the password, he cracks into it just fine just as efficiently as he infiltrates the hotel’s systems because the agents that are inside and have already likely surrounded the building and definitely have surveillance on the interior. They can just as easily find us so running aimlessly is not a good plan.
Calum frees a whooshing breath. “This is bad. They have all exits covered. Right down to the underground garage. The only place they haven’t secured is the rooftop access with an occupied helipad. Any of you know how to fly a chopper?”
“There’s a reason why Torin chose this hotel,” I point out, unveiling one of his many contingencies. “The helicopter is a diversion. Just in case anyone caught us here—he wanted people to think we would just fly away, so they would waste time going up. Even though he wasn’t going to go up or down. This hotel was built originally in the early periods of the 19th century. There’s a network of hidden tunnels that run down a few blocks from the prime vicinity.”
Instead of being grateful, Acheson has a glimmer of judgment in her eyes.
“What?” I snap.
“He must really trust his hostage if he’s willing to share potential avenues of escape with you.”
Even though I’m not one easily goaded into violence. I find myself taking a threatening step forward. Calum shoots us both with a reproachful glare, his eyes warding me back to a neutral stance.
“Emilia,” he says sternly. “Enough. Hadie, you think you can lead us to one of them?”
I submit a confidant nod.
“I can’t turn off the surveillance feeds in the hotel without turning off the power to the entire grid. Backup generator will kick in—that I can’t stop, but it will give us invaluable minutes before the entire system reboots, and they get eyes on us. This whole street will lose power in three… two… Let there be darkness.”
With a push of a key, all the artificial lights snuff out like a blown candle. The natural radiance of day time is dim against the darkness. Sunlight penetrating and pushing back the veil a few inches. My mind probes through my memories, winnowing through shelved information to the layout I need of this building’s interior. The tunnel system wasn’t at random but strategically constructed in the event of a crisis.
“We have to get one level down—closest access point.”
“Are you kidding?” Acheson sheathed the gun and the family visibly deflated. “As you saw, the stairwell is compromised. Power is down, which means elevators are offline.”
I lift a shoulder. “Who said anything about riding the elevator?”
Coming to grim acceptance, Calum closes the lid of the laptop. “When we get caught, I hope at least our adjoining cells are above ground this time.”
I inhale deeply. “That is a welcome torment compared to if Torin is the one that finds us first.”