Chapter 102

**Hadassah POV**

“You don’t need to know anyone to show compassion,” she retorts with a bite of judgment in her tone. “To be decent. I had an informant that I groomed. I made him a lot of promises, too. He was linked to a foreign criminal organization that dealt in arms trafficking. And he had a kid brother.” She lapses into a pained silence for a few heartbeats. “I thought I could protect them and still adhere to the politics of the bureau. And knowingly, they executed an operation that leaked intelligence about a snitch, so they killed my informant’s brother as retaliation. He blamed himself so much he committed suicide soon after. Those are the deaths chained to my soul.”
Calum moves his free hand from me to give her shoulder a consoling squeeze.
“My agency does good work that most of the world will never know. But like all things related to humanity, it has its flaws, its best and worst sides. When I heard about a fierce woman braving the shadow world like a lone wolf, not only reaching the untouchable but dragging them to the depths where they belong. I was in awe. And when I learnt that the CIA and other intelligent officers had no intention of taking you alive. I couldn’t let history repeat itself, not while I was watching.”
After that moving monologue. All I do is nod slowly.
“We should keep going.”
After what feels like a long journey through the subterranean depths, we reach a point where the tunnel forks into multiple paths, each leading to different parts of the city above. However, the path we’re on continues straight, extending into the darkness ahead. Finally, after a considerable distance, we arrive at an old, weathered ladder embedded in the stone wall. The rungs are cold and sturdy, leading upward through a narrow shaft.
Climbing the ladder is a slow, deliberate process, each step taking us closer to the surface. As we ascend, the air grows warmer, and the distant sounds of the outside world begin to filter through—muffled voices, the hum of traffic, the occasional buzz of conversation. At the top, the ladder ends at a heavy, reinforced hatch, which opens into a small, inconspicuous room hidden behind a convenience store in a quiet corner of the city.
Finally, Calum reaches down to hoist Emilia out, wincing as she fumbles out.
“Now we need to find a secure way back to the bar,” she mutters.
“Bar?”
“It’s a safe spot we’ve been staying at whilst we planned to get you out.”
I nod again, cynicism morphing into concern. “And I’m guessing you figured out a way to extract mom? You did it a lot faster than I anticipated. How did you pull that off without a team?”
Calum glitches, looking anywhere but my eyes.
“She’s safe,” Acheson says. “Obviously, we couldn’t get her out on our own. Not with well-trained and well-armed men guarding her. So I called in a not so anonymous tip back to my agency.”
“Are you serious?” A spike of anger. “The bureau are just as ruthless as the criminals they pursue. They won’t hesitate to hold her as leverage.”
“American operatives, yes. I was loaned out but I serve British Intelligence. They’re interested in whatever secrets the Americans harbor. Not enough to imperil your mother’s life. They didn’t suffer an intelligence leak like the Americans do.”
“And what if they do—what if the other books contain something incriminating about them or their operations.”
“Which is why we should make sure we get to the first,” she retorts. “I get it, she’s your mom but you have to think beyond emotions. They took her into custody, back to a facility out of Londen. Safe from your government and gun-carrying goons.”
“It was the only way,” Calum says quickly. “We could never reach her and—”
“I get it,” I say, to punctuate the rant before it can begin. “She’s safer with them than any of the other options.”
“So, can we get out of here?” Calum says. “We’re way too exposed right now.”
“You guys can.”
They stare back at me with twin expressions.
“I can’t leave Torin just yet,” I confess. “Not what you think. We still need him to get ahead of Santos and Torin himself. Not to mention that Orian is lurking in the shallows, always one wrong step too close. I need every advantage I can get. The bureau would have been a great resource, but they’ll never trust us until I can prove I was never in league with the Moons. And I have no intention of exposing whatever dirty secrets they’re afraid of.”
“No way,” Calum whispers furiously. “We didn’t go through all we did just to leave you. You’re not going back to him, if he finds out—”
“He won’t. We were ambushed, that’s all he knows. And he knows that even with my newfound freedom, I’d never be safe on my own. There’s no trouble with him that I can’t talk my way out of.”
“Or reassure him in other ways,” he says with a blatantly naughty suggestion.
“Calum, she’s right,” Acheson says, rolling her shoulder with a tight wince. “She can be our eyes and ears on the inside. It’s the only way to stay ahead and we can still keep tabs on her like we’ve been doing.”
Calum releases an explosive breath, his jaw strained.
“I know,” I say before I pull him into a swift and soul-soothing embrace. “I’m sorry that I put you in the middle of this. I’ll forever be sorry for what I put you through, but I’ll make it up to you in the end.”
He draws me away. “Make it up to me by making sure you make it to the end.”
I nod before I move, sidestepping away from him to look back at Acheson.
“I need you to shoot me.”
“What?” they both say in unison.
“Don’t act like the urge never crossed your mind, Acheson.”
She reaches back and unsheathes the gun that, fortunately, has a silencer.
“Where do you want it?”
Calum darts in front of me. “Like hell you’re going to shoot her.”
I move out from behind him. “I have been putting on a performance since the moment I woke up in the cell the Moons threw me in. And it’s almost time for my final act.”
“It may have begun as an act,” he says incredulously, “but somewhere along the line. Something real began to bloom.”
I tear my gaze away. “Believe what you want,” I say, transferring my gaze to Acheson.
She lifts her good arm with her aim on my shoulder.
“Try not to enjoy this too much.”
She smiles vaguely before she locks eyes with me and pulls the trigger.