Replica

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Nadia sat alone in the den, waiting for Nate to show up for their eight o’clock “date.” They usually tried to make a public appearance together at least once a month, giving the press an opportunity to photograph them and giving the high-society gossips something to talk about, but it was their quiet, private get-togethers that she had always enjoyed most, the nights when they’d stayed in and talked or watched a movie or played games. These were times reminiscent of their childhood together, when they didn’t fully understand what the handshake agreement between their families would mean to them in time.

Tonight was going to be a very different story.

She’d tried to call Nate after hearing about the riot, but she’d gotten his voice mail. She’d left a message, but he hadn’t called back. Late in the afternoon, he’d texted her a terse message assuring her he was all right, but that was it. Apparently, he didn’t want to talk to her. She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised, but it still hurt.

She resisted the urge to call him again and took a page from his book, texting him to remind him of their scheduled date. She had a feeling he would conveniently “forget” about it if she didn’t, and she needed him to show up so she could fill him in on her interview with Mosely—and figure out what to do about the new tracker Mosely had ordered her to plant.

Nate hadn’t answered her text, and he was now a half hour late. It wasn’t unusual for him, but Nadia couldn’t help but take it as yet another slap in her face. She kept taking her phone out and looking at it, hoping he’d sent a message that she somehow hadn’t noticed.

Three times, she started to text him to confirm he was coming, and three times she erased what she’d written before she sent it. He would show up when he showed up, and her nagging him about it would just make her seem needy. Of course, she was feeling needy, spectacularly so, and she couldn’t stand sitting still in the den any longer. She let Crane know where she was going, then made her way up to the rooftop garden.

During the day, the garden was a beautiful oasis amongst all the glass and steel of the city. The wind was blocked by two tastefully low walls and by the bulk of the other two Lake Towers. Spring was in full bloom, beds of daffodils and early tulips making splashes of vivid color. A paved, circular path made its way through the flower beds, and at the far end of the garden were a pair of wrought-iron benches, one facing the beauty of the garden, one facing the breathtaking view of the city.

Now that the sun had gone down, it was a little too chilly to hang around outside, but Nadia had no interest in going back in. Instead, she kept warm by restlessly pacing the circular path, her hair whipping in the gusts that got past the wind breaks. Without the sun to shine on them, the flowers looked duller, less cheerful, and the panoramic view made Nadia feel very … isolated.

By 8:45, Nadia’s feet hurt from her restless walking, and she decided to sit on the bench facing the panoramic view. Moments after she sat down, she heard the sound of a footfall behind her, and she turned to look over her shoulder.

Relief flooded her when she saw Nate standing there, and she wanted to run to him and throw her arms around him. She hadn’t realized how afraid she’d been that he wouldn’t show up until he finally made his appearance. She rose to her feet, wrapping her arms around herself for warmth—and to discourage her desire to give Nate a hug.

“I thought you weren’t going to come,” she blurted.

Nate stuck his hands in his pockets and stood about an arm’s length away. “I don’t much want to be here,” he admitted bluntly. “I’ve had a sucky day.”

Nadia imagined being in the midst of that riot had been an ordeal for Nate, and she certainly pitied him the rude awakening he’d had this morning when she’d made her confession, but she was through making excuses for his self-centered attitude. Instead of acknowledging the hurt his words caused, she stood up a little straighter and looked him in the eye.

“Did you risk the arrest and torture of yourself and everyone you love, including two helpless children, today?” she asked, her voice as sharp as knives. “No? Then how ’bout you don’t talk about how rough you’ve had it, okay?”

Nate’s look of surprise would have been funny any other time. If he only knew how many times she’d refrained from telling him what she really thought through all the years they’d been friends … But that was over now. They weren’t friends anymore, not really, and she wasn’t going to censor herself anymore, either. They had made a pact together this morning, and he would hold up his end of the bargain even if she pissed him off.

Nate opened and closed his mouth a couple times as he floundered for something to say. Her natural urge to be the peacemaker made her want to let him off the hook, but she didn’t. Maybe the reason he was so self-centered all the time was because no one dared call him on it, and he didn’t know any better.

“I’m sorry,” he finally mumbled, rubbing the back of his head and looking down at his feet. “I know I’ve been unfair to you.” He scuffed his shoe against the paving stone, kicking at an imaginary pebble. “I can’t imagine what you’ve been going through.” He huffed out a deep breath and looked her in the face again. “I don’t blame you for doing whatever you need to do to protect your family. I just wish you’d trusted me enough to talk to me about it instead of going behind my back.”

For Nate, this was an abject apology, and Nadia should have been grateful for it. She was grateful. But it wasn’t enough.

“Tell me the truth, Nate: if I’d told you everything from the start, would you have kept quiet about it? Or would you have confronted Mosely on the assumption you could protect me from his retaliation?”

Nadia could almost see him restraining his knee-jerk first response, and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he thought about it. There was a shadow in his eyes, and his shoulders hunched in a bit. Whatever he was thinking, he didn’t like it. Shaking his head, he moved past her and collapsed onto one of the benches, his head hanging low.

Nadia took a couple of tentative steps in his direction, wanting to give him a hug, or put a hand on his shoulder. Anything to rebuild just a tiny bit of the connection they’d once had. But she wasn’t sure she could bear it if he rebuffed her, so she merely stood there wringing her hands uselessly.

Nate raised his head and patted the bench beside him. “Come sit down. We have a lot to talk about.”

Nadia sat beside him, but not in touching range. To her surprise, Nate slid over and slung his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close until their bodies were pressed against one another from shoulder to knee. He was warm and familiar, and, without thinking about it, Nadia rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes, trying to pretend nothing had ever gone wrong between them. She felt the press of his lips on the top of her head and smiled. For this one moment, she would take what he offered without thinking about what the future would bring.

She didn’t know how long they’d been sitting like that, neither one talking, before another figure wandered out from the tower and into the garden. Assuming it was one of the servants, Nadia hastily sat up and put some distance between herself and Nate. She and Nate had posed for photographs where they were holding hands and had even kissed in public to uphold the illusion that they were a couple, but she still didn’t want anyone speculating too much about what they did together when not in public. She trusted the servants’ discretion, and she and Nate were an acknowledged couple anyway, but she didn’t see any reason to take chances, especially now. But when the figure stepped into the light, she saw it was Dante.

“Dante!” she cried in surprise, standing up. “What are you doing here?”

Dante looked quickly back and forth between her and Nate. Trying to figure out if she’d been spilling any secrets, maybe? “Looking for you,” he said. “You didn’t seem to be in any of the usual places, so I thought I’d take a shot at the garden.”

Nate stood up too, moving closer to Nadia and putting his arm around her shoulders again. “Want to introduce me to your friend?” he asked, and there was a barely perceptible edge in his voice.

“Um, sure,” Nadia said, though she wasn’t sure what to say. “This is Dante. He’s my dad’s new personal assistant.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Nate said insincerely, holding out his hand. Most Executives wouldn’t offer to shake hands when meeting a low-level Employee, but Nate had always ignored the snobbiest of the social conventions.

“You too,” Dante said, and Nadia suspected the handshake that ensued was of the bone-crushing variety. She was tempted to ask who won.

“So, you were looking for me?” she prompted, a little surprised that Dante had approached her out here when Nate was with her. She would have thought he’d want to talk to her in private. If he was going to try to separate her from Nate to have a private conversation now, she had a feeling it wouldn’t go very well. Nate might not be attracted to her, but he was still sizing Dante up like a rival.

“Yeah,” Dante said, giving Nate a sidelong glance. “About that matter we were discussing this afternoon. I’ve arranged a meeting. For both of you.”

Nadia’s eyes widened in surprise. After all Bishop’s resistance, she hadn’t expected him to be willing to meet. “Really?”

Dante nodded. “That’s the plan as of now, anyway. He might not show up, especially if he gets a bad vibe.”

“All right, what are you two talking about?” Nate asked.

Dante waved his hand at Nadia, silently giving her permission to explain.

“Dante’s the one who put the note from Bishop in my napkin this morning,” she said. That was meant to be only the beginning of her explanation, but Nate didn’t give her a chance to continue.

“That so?” he asked, then hauled off and punched Dante in the jaw.

Dante went sprawling, and Nate gave a shout of pain, clutching his right hand to his chest and cursing. Nadia was paralyzed by shock, but only for a moment. Ignoring Nate and his cursing, she dropped to her knees beside Dante, who was rubbing his jaw as he shook his head as if to clear the cobwebs.

“Are you all right?” she asked, unable to believe that Nate had just thrown a punch. He just … wasn’t that kind of guy. She couldn’t help thinking about the opinions she’d seen touted on the net, the ones that suggested Replicas might have violent tendencies. They were making something out of nothing, of course, extrapolating wildly based on one brief loss of poise with a reporter. Everything that had happened since the night of the reception was enough to put anyone on a short fuse, Replica or not.

“Yeah,” Dante mumbled, eying Nate warily as if primed for another attack.

Nadia gave Dante a hand up, then turned to glare at Nate, who was still nursing his sore knuckles. Nadia wondered if that was the first punch he’d ever thrown. It would serve him right if he’d broken some fingers.

“What the hell was that all about?” she demanded.

“He’s a sneak, and he terrified you,” Nate responded, looking both sullen and stubborn.

It was Mosely’s call that had terrified her this morning, not the note Dante had tucked into her napkin, but she hadn’t specifically told Nate that. She wondered if he’d have gone all protective and alpha male on her if Dante weren’t so good-looking. He was acting positively territorial, although Dante was hardly of a class to be a rival. Nadia opened her mouth to give Nate a piece of her mind, but Dante forestalled her.

“Time out,” he said, making the requisite hand gesture. Nadia noted that although he was still acting wary, he was taking Nate’s unprovoked attack with a surprising level of calm, as if it didn’t bother him. “I’m willing to let bygones be bygones. We have more important things to talk about.” The look in his eyes hardened as he fixed his gaze on Nate. “Try that again, though, and I’ll fight back. You wouldn’t like that, especially when you’re already sore.”

Nadia got ready to jump in between the two, thinking that Dante’s calmly spoken words were more of an invitation to further fighting than a conciliation. “You may call me Mr. Hayes,” Nate said, low and menacing. “And how would you know I’m already sore?”

“That’s what I was trying to tell you,” Nadia said in exasperation. “Dante is a friend of Bishop’s. Now, why don’t you sit down, shut up, and listen for once in your life.”

Nate gave her a shocked look, but he was just going to have to get used to her standing up to him from now on. She had to fight a smile, proud of herself, when Nate meekly sat on one of the benches and made a zipping-his-lips gesture. Taking a deep breath, Nadia sat beside him and told him everything she’d learned from Dante, who stood off to the side, silent. The only thing she didn’t mention was her suspicion that Bishop had been planted in his household by the resistance. The idea would no doubt occur to him anyway, but perhaps not right away.

For a long time after Nadia finished talking, Nate didn’t say anything. He sat forward with his elbows on his knees, staring at the paving stones beneath his feet as he took it all in. The look on his face told her he was lost in thought, but it didn’t tell her anything about what he was thinking, and she thought he might be guarding his expression because of Dante’s presence.

Eventually, he sat up straight and glanced over to Dante.

“Explain this,” he said. “Why is it that yesterday, Bishop was trying so hard to keep me away that he had me beaten, and today he wants to see me?”

It was a good question, and Nadia’s suspicious mind immediately suggested it was a trap of some kind.

Dante shook his head. “He’ll explain when and if you see him.”

“No, you’ll explain,” Nate insisted, “and right now.”

“Or what?” Dante asked, raising an eyebrow. “You need me to take you to the meeting.”

“How do I know anything you’re saying is true?” Nate countered. “You could be trying to set me up for … something.”

“You’re just going to have to take it on faith, I suppose. Nadia was under the impression you wanted to see him, but if you’re not interested…” He shrugged his broad shoulders, and there was a hint of smugness in his tone.

Even in the lamp-lit darkness, Nadia could see the flush of anger creeping up Nate’s neck. He wouldn’t have missed Dante’s overly familiar use of Nadia’s first name, and Nadia didn’t think that had been a slip of the tongue. Dante might not have come up swinging after Nate hit him, but it seemed like he was being deliberately provoking. Maybe he hoped Nate would throw another punch so he could show off his own manly prowess. But though Nate didn’t make a habit of controlling his quick temper, tonight he kept it in check.

“Fine,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’ll go. But if you’re lying to me, it’ll turn out very, very bad for you.” Dante rolled his eyes at the threat. “So when and where is this meeting?”

“The where is a secret,” Dante said. “I’ll take you there. Take your phones with you to bed tonight. Sometime after midnight, you’ll get a call from me. Nadia first, then you.”

“Remember when I told you you could call me Mr. Hayes?” Nate said. “Well, you can call her Miss Lake.”

Ordinarily, Nate wasn’t nearly this uptight about protocol, and he’d be perfectly happy to allow the informal address. But it was obvious he and Dante rubbed each other the wrong way, and Nadia thought once again her services as peacekeeper might be needed.

“In there,” Dante said, jerking his thumb at the apartment behind him, “I’m a servant and I’ll address you both as such. Here and now, I’m your co-conspirator, and we’ll talk as equals or we won’t talk at all.”

“Fine,” Nate said, dissatisfied. “But even as a supposed ‘equal,’ you don’t know me well enough to call me Nate.”

“Fine,” Dante said in a similar tone. “Nathaniel. I’ll ring you and Nadia after midnight. You’ll sneak down to the service entrance, and I’ll be waiting for you there in a white panel van. Nathaniel, you should wear your Basement disguise. And Nadia, I’ll have a disguise for you in the van.”

Nate was shaking his head violently. “You are not taking Nadia into the Basement. I’m willing to take whatever risks are necessary myself, but she’s been through enough already.”

Nadia’s emotions were a confusing swirl. Fear at the thought of venturing into the Basement at night. Gratitude that Nate still cared about her enough to object. And determination to make her own decisions about what she would and would not risk.

“Bishop’s instructions were very clear,” Dante said. “Either you both go, or neither of you goes.”

“We can both go somewhere other than the Basement.”

“You’re under the mistaken impression that this is a negotiation. It isn’t. It’s a take-it-or-leave-it deal.”

Nate opened his mouth to protest, but Nadia put her hand on his arm to stop him.

“I’ll go, Nate,” she said quietly, ignoring the flutter of fear in her belly. “If that’s the only way Bishop will see you, then I’ll do it. There has to be a reason he’s changed his mind about seeing you, and I suspect it’s something we need to know. I’m already in this up to my eyeballs anyway.”

Nate put on his stubborn face, which she knew all too well. “I am not taking you into the Basement.”

“Yes, you are,” Nadia said more firmly, then turned her attention to Dante. “I presume you won’t be parading me through the streets for everyone to see.” The predators couldn’t hurt her if they didn’t know she was there.

Dante gave her an approving smile. “No. We’ll be discreet. The disguise is just a precaution. If all goes well, it’ll be only the good guys who see you.”

“If all goes well,” Nate muttered darkly. “Nothing has gone well since the moment I came back to life. Why should I expect that to change?”

“We’re doing this,” Nadia said. “We have to.” She tried not to think about what she would tell Mosely the next time he talked to her, which, with Nate’s visit to her apartment tonight, would no doubt be tomorrow. If she’d managed to convince him of her ignorance today, she wasn’t sure how she’d do it tomorrow. But that was getting way ahead of herself.

Thinking of Mosely reminded Nadia about the new tracker she was supposed to plant on Nate, and she reached into her pocket to draw it out.

“By the way,” she said, “I’m supposed to plant this on you. Will you take it with you when you leave here tonight so it looks like I’ve done what I’m supposed to?”

Nate took the envelope from her hand and nodded. “Sure.” He tucked the envelope into his jacket pocket, then reached out and took both her hands, drawing her closer to him. She looked up and met his eyes. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked, squeezing her hands tightly. “I’ve put you in so much danger already…”

Nadia squeezed his hands back and gave him a smile. Then she freed one of her hands and reached up to smooth the worry line that had appeared between his brows. However angry he was about her deception, there was no denying that he still cared about her, and she was beginning to hope that she hadn’t lost him as a friend after all.

“I’m sure.”

Nate pulled her into a hug that she suspected was painful, thanks to the battering his body had taken.

Nate didn’t even try to sleep. He wasn’t sure he could manage it under the circumstances, and he had a sneaking suspicion that if he did manage it, he wouldn’t wake up when Dante called. How pathetic would it be if he made all this effort to find Kurt and then slept through his chance when it finally came?

Assuming, of course, that Dante was telling the truth. The guy had set Nate’s teeth on edge the moment he’d laid eyes on him, and nothing that had transpired since had changed his opinion. He didn’t like the easy, casual way Dante talked to Nadia, as if they were equals, and he hated that Dante was putting Nadia in more danger, even if the request/order had come from Kurt. Not that Nate was a snob and thought Employees should bow and scrape when in the presence of Executives, of course. He hated all that bowing and scraping stuff. Maybe it would have been different if Dante hadn’t been so good-looking—or if Nate didn’t think Nadia noticed he was so good-looking.

Nate laughed at himself. Was he actually jealous? He hadn’t been able to put a name to his feelings on the rooftop earlier, but now that he tried the word on for size, he found that it fit.

The laugh died quickly. What did he expect Nadia to do? Stay a virgin her entire life to protect his delicate sensibilities? He didn’t plan to “cleave only unto her” when they were married, but somehow he’d never allowed himself to think about what she might do. Didn’t she have as much right to look for love as he did? She had never once shown any sign that she was jealous of his relationship with Kurt. He had no right to be jealous if she’d been hanging all over Dante, which she hadn’t. Just because she would be his wife someday didn’t mean she was his.

The past few days had been brutal, and he wouldn’t wish them on his worst enemy. But the fact was, they’d forced him to take a good look at himself, at how he treated those he loved, and he didn’t like what he saw.

Nate grunted in frustration. He had no use for wallowing, no matter how much he’d have liked to indulge himself. He had to be ready when the call came, and it took some serious time to transform himself from the Chairman Heir into the Ghost.

Nate was tired enough that it took him twice as long as usual to get dressed and costumed, and he was still fussing with his makeup when his phone buzzed. He glanced down at the phone to confirm it was Dante’s summons, then took a critical look at himself in the mirror. He needed another coat of powder on his face to perfect the bluish-pale complexion of the Ghost, but he was afraid Dante would get impatient and leave. Besides, the longer Nate spent fixing his makeup, the longer Dante was alone with Nadia in the van.

Rolling his eyes at himself for his ridiculous jealousy, Nate decided his disguise was good enough and began the simultaneously tedious and hair-raising task of sneaking out of his apartment, leaving Mosely’s tracker on his pillow.

As promised, the white panel van was sitting by the curb near the service entrance, its hazard lights blinking. The van was an ancient, dinged-up piece of crap, but, even so, Nate couldn’t imagine someone of Dante’s station being able to afford a scooter, much less a van. Maybe the vehicle belonged to someone higher up in the food chain in this mysterious resistance movement Nate was just learning about.

The van was stopped in a pool of shadow, but as Nate peered out cautiously to see if the coast was clear, he could see that the back doors of the van were ajar. Nate waited until there wasn’t another car in sight, then sprinted across the short distance, belatedly thinking that jumping into the back of a panel van without checking to see who and what was inside first might be a tad on the reckless side. He was taking a hell of a lot on faith tonight, and after everything that had happened, he didn’t have a whole lot of faith to spare.

The back door swung fully open just as Nate’s second thoughts were beginning to slow him down, and Dante reached out to offer Nate a hand up. At least, Nate thought it was Dante behind all the face paint. Nate hesitated only a moment before taking the offered hand and climbing into the back of the van.

Before the doors had even finished closing, the van took off, abruptly enough that Nate staggered and had to balance himself with a hand on the ceiling.

The back of the van was empty but for a handful of overturned milk crates and a duffel bag. Nadia sat on one of those crates, and Nate’s jaw dropped open when he got a good look at her. She was dressed in a shiny black catsuit that made her usually willowy form look lush and curvy. A silver chain belt circled her hips, tinkling charms hanging from a link here and there. Her blond hair was hidden beneath a neon-pink wig, and a band of pink and black face paint crossed her face over her eyes like a blindfold.

No two ways about it. She looked hot. And not at all like Nadia Lake, the sweet-tempered, genteel Executive’s daughter.

“Down, boy,” Dante muttered, and Nate blushed under his makeup.

Nadia smiled at him tentatively as he made his way to the milk crate closest to her and sat down. He reached over and took her hand, giving it what he hoped was a comforting squeeze.

“You look amazing,” he told her, telling himself that he shouldn’t feel embarrassed that for a moment he’d found his future bride attractive despite his sexual preferences.

Nadia cocked her head at him, eyes taking in his alter ego. One thing he knew for sure was that he did not look amazing. The point of his costume was to make him look different, not good. Maybe there were people in the Basement who thought skin the color of skim milk and black lipstick on a guy attractive—Kurt seemed to like it, after all—but to Nadia, he had to look bizarre.

“You look…” She thought about it a moment. “Wild,” she finally finished, and Nate felt strangely pleased by the term.

Dante came to sit on another milk crate, and Nate frowned at him.

“If you’re back here, then who’s driving?” he asked, uncomfortable at the thought of some unknown other being in control of the vehicle. The fact that Dante looked sexy and exotic in his Basement disguise while Nate looked like a freak wasn’t helping his nerves much, either.

“No one you know,” Dante said, but didn’t elaborate.

Whoever was driving didn’t give a damn about his passengers’ comfort, jackrabbiting through intersections and taking turns more sharply than necessary. The van banged its way through a pothole so deep Nate thought they were going to overturn. All three of them reached out to steady themselves, and when they did, Nate saw the butt of a gun sticking out of the inside pocket of the loose jacket Dante was wearing. Dante met his eyes and practically dared him to comment, but Nate managed to keep his thoughts to himself. It wasn’t a bad idea to have an armed escort when traveling into the Basement, and he had a feeling Dante knew how to use it.

Nate wasn’t wearing a watch, but he had the sense that they drove far longer than it should have taken to get to the Basement from his apartment. Either Dante had lied to them about their destination—which seemed unlikely, considering the costumes—or the driver was taking a deliberately circuitous route, perhaps to make sure they weren’t followed. Nate tried to guess where they were by listening for clues, but there were no telltale sounds. Or if there were, he didn’t recognize them.

After a while, the van’s progress slowed considerably, the road getting rougher under its wheels, and Nate guessed they’d finally crossed into the Basement. He expected the ride to end shortly after they crossed the border, but the van continued on, the ill-maintained roads doing a hatchet job on its suspension. Nate gritted his teeth to keep from biting his tongue with any of the unexpected impacts.

At last, the van came to a stop, and the driver pounded on the wall between the cab and the back.

“We’re here,” Dante said, and Nate’s heart leapt into his throat.

Nate wasn’t sure what scared him more: the thought that he was about to see Kurt again, or the thought that he wasn’t. His pulse raced, and his palms were damp with sweat as he waited for Dante to open the back doors and let them out. Nadia put a comforting hand on his shoulder, sensing his anxiety.

“It’ll be all right,” she murmured in his ear, her voice too low for Dante to overhear. “Whatever happens, it’ll be all right.”

But Nate knew there were no guarantees for either of them.