Chapter 90

**Hadassah POV**

She whirls around and sees Calum. Fast, I deactivate my earpiece as she unleashes a you-can’t-be-here spiel. Before she can even turn to regard me, I rush at her with her back still toward me. I hook my arm around her throat, forcing her back as she squeaks and squirms futilely as I cut off her air supply as her slapping and flailing falters and becomes more sluggish until she slumps against me. I draw her away and back into the dressing room, where I drop her on the floor before I wrench the curtain close. I swivel around and Calum collides into me, holding me in a bone-crushing embrace.
“You have no idea how happy I am to see you… again.”
I snort a laugh, and I pull away. “Not that I’m not beyond myself to see you. How the hell did you get access?”
“I had help,” he says cryptically. “But the security here is high grade. I’ve breached their surveillance system, which is why I’m able to keep them in the dark for now. But this access won’t hold for long.”
“Then I have to go.”
I move and he captures my shoulders to stop me.
“The book is here,” I answer before he can ask. “You’re actually disturbing an ongoing operation.”
“Is the operation to delve into Torin’s mouth—you find any clues there?” he questions scornfully with derision twisting his features.
My face deadpans as I glare back at him in silent reproach.
“If you two are ‘undercover’ then color me convinced.” He throws a careless hand in my direction. “Out here looking like America’s Next Top Power couple with the matching fits and—” his eyes explode before he snatches my hand, “—an expensive ass wedding ring—is that a blood diamond?”
I grab back my hand. “Focus.”
“I should be telling you that,” he rebukes. “Now that I’m here, what’s the gameplay to betray your billionaire boy toy and escape with the book?”
“That,” I begin painfully. “That was never the plan. We can’t get ahead of ourselves. Torin has my mother in ‘protective’ custody. An illusion of safety with a lingering threat. I don’t know where the hell she is. To save me, you have to save her first. And she’s likely being guarded by an armed infantry, no doubt. Somewhere in the world.”
“That’s not a problem. I still have backdoor access to Torin’s systems. And also,” he says with his face knotting into a pensive look. “Like I said, I have help now. Okay, okay, we can split off and find your mom before the CIA does.”
“The CIA?”
He waves me off with a tight headshake. “Long story, but you should know intelligent agencies around the world want you dead or alive—anyway. I can track you through your necklace, but we won’t have a secure way to communicate when the time comes to pull you out.”
The load of information compresses on my thoughts, my mind struggling to render full comprehension. I dispel the clamor by pacing away for a few loud steps.
“We prepped for this,” I say thoughtfully. “I don’t know how, but I’ll send word when I can, like I did before. It seems we have even bigger problems than my extraction. I just need you to find my mother and relocate her far from the reach of the Moons. I fear them more than I do the government.”
He pulls me in for a quick hug and I soak in all the comfort I can.
“Stay safe for me, princess.”
He retreats and leaves the room and only then I reactivate the earpiece before I also dash out of the room. Torin had shown me the schematics of this place. And with just one thorough scan of the interior layout, I know exactly where I need to go. The only wild card is the guards’ rotations that alter every hour on the hour.
“Torin,” I whisper.
“Was worried there, I thought your comms went out.”
“There was a complication, but I handled it. En route to the secondary location.”
“Hey!”
I snap to my right to see hulkish guards marching towards me.
“You’re in a restricted area.”
I look around theatrically. “Am I?” I ask with a sweet-toned, high pitch. “I was looking for the little girl’s room and I got lost in this labyrinth.”
The one guard secures our surroundings whilst the other comes to examine me. Not at all fooled by the dumbstruck facade as he seizes my jaw and turns it aside, pushing away the sheet of hair. Then he does it again on the other side, revealing the earpiece. A bloody pulse pounds through me as he roughly fixes my face straight so he can glower down at me.
“Who’s on the other end of this line?”
“Your dad.”
He tears out the earpiece and threatens whoever is at the end to turn themselves in. Torin keeps silent. The guard wrenches at me, dragging me away whilst he reports the incident. They take me upstairs, far enough for no one below to hear me scream. The guard pulls me into a bedroom with a soft, neutral color palette with accents of deep blues, greens, and purples. The other takes a chair from the vanity table to set it in the center of the room. And the one manhandling me dumps me on the festooned chair. In due course, another man strides inside with sure-footed purpose with a gun in his waistband. The guard pitches my earpiece at him and he catches it midair and assesses the device before he pockets it.
The man, who I’m guessing is head of security, dismisses them with a curt motion, but they only recede to flank the double doors from the inside. The man with short iron streaked hair and a salt and pepper beard positions himself in front of me and calmly crosses his arms, staring down at me observantly.
“Who do you work for?”
“I’m self-employed.”
I didn’t see it coming. A strike so fast, so explosive, I nearly slip off the chair as I paste my hand on my stinging cheek, throbbing with my face turned to the side, my breaths kicking strands of hair that strayed over my mouth.
“You can tell me or I will force the information out of you.”
“Your men,” I say unsteadily, with my face still turned to the side. “They searched us, patted us down,” I say, my hand snaking to my stiletto drop earring fashioned as a miniature dagger. “But they forgot something,” I say, carefully unhooking the earring. “They missed something.”
“What?” he barks, desperate, he brings his face to mine menacingly. “What did they miss?”
“My accessories, bitch.”
I plunge the tip into the side of his neck, blood bursting as I sweep up to rotate him around, locking my arm around his neck to use him as a body shield. I force him lower with a howl of pain—his hand glued to his neck fountaining blood with red seeping between his fingers—the earring still protruding. And I steal the gun from his waistband with a clean flourish. The two guards whip out‌ their pistols in unison to try and aim the barrel at me.
“Uh uh,” I chide playfully. I place the barrel of my gun at their boss’s temple. “On the floor, boys.”
Before they can even comply, a squadron of black-suited men wearing balaclavas burst into the room. A spray of bullets makes both guards convulse violently before they collapse on the ground, blood starting to pool around them grimly. I release the man and he staggers out of my grasp and when I’m out of their line of fire. One of them ends him with a headshot that drops him instantly.
I point the gun at him with only the single slit to see bushy brows over his smoldering eyes.
“Took your sweet time.”