Resistance

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Nate didn’t realize what a complete disaster his situation was until he’d had a few quiet minutes to think about it. He knew he and Dante needed to talk about the plan to get to Nadia, but it was hard to even begin discussing it with Agnes sitting in the backseat and listening to every word they said. She’d as much as said that she was considering this her own personal recon mission, and letting the daughter of a foreign Chairman find out there was a sizable, organized resistance movement in Paxco wasn’t such a hot idea. However, Nate was pretty sure they were going to need inside help to get Nadia out of the Sanctuary, and he was dying to ask Dante about his resistance contacts.

Unable to think how to start a conversation, Nate sat quietly in the passenger seat as Dante drove through the streets of the city, going as fast as he dared when it was imperative they not draw attention. And in that quiet time, Nate realized that his life would never be the same.

If he was right, and Gerri’s death meant she had led the Chairman to the blackmail recordings, that meant there was nothing to stop the Chairman from killing Nadia. Before his mother’s funeral, Nate had assumed he himself wouldn’t be in any real danger, because his father needed an heir and no longer had Thea around to make a blissfully ignorant Replica if he disposed of Nate. But now the Chairman had Dorothy, whom he had publicly acknowledged as his daughter. He could get rid of Nate and still have an heir.

Did his father hate him that much?

Sure, the man had already had Nate killed once, but knowing he could create a Replica—one who hadn’t overheard the Chairman and Dirk Mosely talking about Thea’s human experimentation and therefore wouldn’t make waves—must have made it feel like he wasn’t really killing anyone.

Nate’s father had been angry with him for almost as long as Nate could remember. And Nate had taken every opportunity to foster more anger, acting like a spoiled, selfish brat for the sheer pleasure of pissing his father off.

But did that anger lead to actual hate, into something so toxic it would drive him to murder his own son?

The fact was, Nate couldn’t be sure. And that meant that once this adventure was over, even if everything went perfectly and they got Nadia out of the Sanctuary without a hitch, he couldn’t go home, couldn’t go back to his old life.

The realization was like a brutal kick to the chest, forcing all the air out of his lungs and triggering a moment of sheer panic. He closed his eyes and clenched his fists as he tried to fight it off, but he felt the sweat beading on his forehead and upper lip. He thought for a moment he was totally going to lose it, right there in the front seat of the car with both Agnes and Dante as witnesses.

“We’ll get her out,” Dante said gruffly, making the natural assumption that Nate was freaking out because he was worried about Nadia. But Dante didn’t have a clue what was really happening.

And then what? Nate wondered. Neither he nor Nadia could set foot in their homes. Nadia would have no money, no access to money, and nowhere to go. Nate might be able to get hold of some scrip before his father came up with an excuse to freeze his account, but even that would be dangerous, giving those who might be hunting him a bead on his location, even if it was just for a short while. So he might have a temporary supply of scrip, but that would be it. Like Nadia, he would have nowhere safe to go. In fact, the only place he could even imagine going was the Basement. He at least had some experience there from the jaunts of his reckless youth, but a sheltered Executive girl like Nadia might as well have the word “victim” tattooed on her forehead in a place like that.

“Maybe now is a good time to tell me what’s really going on,” Dante prompted when Nate failed to pull himself out of his panic nosedive. Dante frowned at the rearview mirror, once again letting Nate know how unhappy he was about Agnes’s presence.

Nate turned in his seat so he could meet Agnes’s eyes. “Can I trust you not to repeat everything I say?”

“Will you believe me if I say yes?” she countered.

Good point. He still didn’t quite know what to make of her. Clearly, she wasn’t the meek little pushover he’d thought, but he had no clue what she was really made of. Hell, for all he knew, she was a spy planted on him by the Chairman to try to eke out his secrets. Though surely if she were meant to act as a spy, she would have better-developed social skills.

“You know, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “Tell anyone you think should know.” His neck was getting stiff from the awkward position, so he shifted in his seat and faced forward once more. Maybe it would be easier to talk about what had happened if he didn’t have to look into someone’s face anyway.

“Nadia was arrested on suspicion of treason a few weeks ago,” he started.

“Yes, I know,” Agnes said. “But she was cleared of all charges.”

“Well, yeah, but it’s the why of it all that gets us into trouble.” He sneaked a glance over at Dante, who was watching the road with studious concentration.

“She was wearing a transmitter when she was arrested,” Nate said. “I went to try to help her, and got into a big fight with my father and our late chief of security, and they said some things they would never have said if they’d known about the transmitter. They said things so incriminating that once they found out Nadia had been transmitting to a secret location, and that she’d set it up so that the recordings would be released if she died or disappeared, they had to let her go.”

Nate stalled out, remembering the horror of seeing Nadia strapped to a table with Thea poised to vivisect her. Nadia had been gagged, unable to reveal that she had the transmitter on her and therefore unable to use the information to save herself. If Nate hadn’t figured it out …

“I don’t understand,” Agnes said. “You got into a big fight and they said ‘incriminating things.’ In front of you. I mean, I get that they didn’t expect Nadia to be able to tell anyone about it, but what about—” She interrupted herself with a gasp.

“You’re a Replica…”

Dante frowned and looked at Agnes in the rearview mirror. “Surely you already knew that.”

Nate couldn’t help turning in his seat again, despite the stiff neck. Agnes’s shocked expression told him that whatever she might lack in social graces, she had one hell of a sharp mind. She was making all the connections, despite having very little information to go on.

“He felt free to talk in front of you because he was planning to kill you,” she said in a horrified whisper. “Then he was going to use an old backup to make a new Replica who hadn’t heard any of his secrets.”

Nate nodded, but Agnes wasn’t finished making connections yet.

“What happened to the original Nathaniel Hayes?”

Nate and Dante shared a look. Dante knew the answer to that question because Kurt had witnessed the murder. It had been passed off to the public as the work of Dirk Mosely acting alone. But after everything Agnes had figured out so far, she was never going to buy that story.

“He was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Nate answered grimly. “The only reason my father didn’t kill me the second time was because of those recordings. And the only thing that’s kept him from killing Nadia is that she had those recordings hidden and had arranged for them to be released if anything happened to her.”

Nate had turned to face front once more, so he couldn’t see Agnes’s reaction to the news. “I got word during the opera that Nadia’s sister had just died in an ‘accident.’”

“And you think she led your father to the recordings and now he’s going to go after Nadia,” Dante finished for him.

Nate nodded and chose not to mention the likelihood that he was on the Chairman’s hit list as well.

There was a long silence as everyone stewed in their own thoughts.

“What do you know that’s worth killing so many people over?” Dante asked.

“I can’t tell you that.” Even if he trusted Agnes and Dante completely, he doubted he’d tell them about Thea. She was dead and gone, and telling people about her would serve no good purpose.

“Did you tell Bishop?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but no.”

“Who’s Bishop?” Agnes asked.

Nate didn’t consciously intend to answer that question with any real honesty. He could tell her Kurt was his old valet, and it would be completely true. But his subconscious had other ideas.

“He’s my boyfriend,” Nate blurted, then blinked in surprise. But really, what was the point of keeping that particular secret any longer? Under the circumstances, he had no choice but to flee his Executive life anyway, so why should he keep pretending? He’d always hated having to hide that side of himself, hated having to live a lie.

Nate didn’t look to see how Agnes was taking the revelation. Dante shrugged, as if it were no big deal—which to an Employee, it wasn’t.

“I must admit,” Dante said, “I’d wondered about you two. You seemed way more attached than an Executive would normally be to his valet.”

“Well, now you know.” Nate resisted the urge to squirm. He felt like Agnes was probably staring daggers at him from the backseat, but he didn’t have the guts to check. It wasn’t like she’d been hoping for high romance in her marriage with him anyway, but he supposed the news still had to come as something of a shock. Maybe she was now regretting having helped him. He was certainly regretting his impulse to bring her along in the first place. When he and Dante had tried to leave her behind in the trunk, Nate had tried to warn her what kind of danger she was walking into, but he hadn’t fully appreciated it himself at the time. It wasn’t just her reputation she had ruined by running off with him; it might well be her very life. What were the chances his father would believe Agnes didn’t know any damning secrets after all this? Finding out the truth about his sexual preferences was the least of her troubles.

Nate reached up and rubbed his eyes, as if he could somehow wipe away everything that had happened in the last few hours.

“When were you planning to tell me this?” Agnes asked, her voice cold for the first time he could remember.

Nate sank down a little lower in his seat. “I wasn’t. I’m sorry if that makes me dishonest, but I couldn’t risk you outing me. I have no interest in being ‘reprogrammed.’ But hey, look on the bright side: I’m going to be either dead or in hiding when this is over, so you won’t have to marry me after all.” He didn’t have the heart to break it to her that she would be in the same boat.

“You think your father would really kill you?” Dante asked. “Now that the Replica program is on hiatus?”

“Let’s just say I wouldn’t put it past him. Now why don’t we talk about something more important, like how we’re going to get Nadia out of the Sanctuary, and once we work that out, where the hell we’re going from there.”

They’d finally reached a highway, and Dante gunned the motor. A warning light on the dashboard came on, telling him he was exceeding the speed limit. With a growl of frustration, he slowed down. If he didn’t, the car would automatically send out a signal to the highway patrol, and he would have a hell of a time explaining why he had Nate and Agnes in the car with him if they were pulled over.

“I don’t suppose you know how to disable that sensor?” Nate asked, and Dante shook his head.

“I’ll get us there as fast as I can without drawing attention. When we get there, can you use your status to talk the retreat guards into delivering Nadia?”

Nate gave Dante an incredulous stare. “That’s your rescue plan? We just drive up to the gates and ask them to hand her over?”

Dante’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, and a muscle in his jaw twitched. “I’ve never tried to break someone out of an Executive retreat before, so excuse me if I’m a little out of my depth.”

“Can’t your … contacts help somehow?” The resistance had been able to get to Nadia at Tranquility, so surely they had someone on the inside at the Sanctuary, too.

Dante clenched up even more, anger radiating from him in waves. “No,” he said through gritted teeth.

At first, Nate thought the anger was directed at him, for asking uncomfortable questions, but then he realized he was being an idiot. The resistance had been willing to help get a message to Nadia at Tranquility in return for the information Nate had promised them. He had nothing left to bargain with, except for information he didn’t dare share. Though perhaps Dante’s resistance bosses didn’t have to know that …

“Don’t bother,” Dante said, as if reading his mind. “They have zero interest in getting involved. This is too dangerous, and she’s too high-profile. It wouldn’t matter if you offered to solve the mysteries of the universe for them, they wouldn’t bite.”

Nate did a double take. “But you’re going after her anyway. And you’re using one of their cars…” He was talking too much again, giving Agnes more clues than it was safe to give her. If she went blabbing to someone about this conversation, Dante could very well find himself brought in for questioning. Then again, who would she have to blab to? Her life was as ruined as his.

Dante nodded grimly, watching the road. “I’m disobeying direct orders. But I am not abandoning Nadia. I promised I would get her out of there…”

Nate wondered when that had happened, but he kept his curiosity—and the habitual pulse of jealousy that came with it—tightly leashed. Right now, he had to concentrate on coming up with a plan. Even though he kind of sucked at planning. He was more of a “charge in and hope everything works out” kind of guy, but that wasn’t going to be enough tonight. He tried calling Nadia’s emergency phone again, but was again dumped into voice mail.

“The place is guarded out the wazoo,” Nate muttered, hoping that maybe thinking out loud could help. “The fence is electrified, and they have freaking watchtowers!”

“And security cameras,” Agnes added from the back. “I noticed those when we went through the gates for the funeral.”

“Not only that,” Dante contributed, “but it’ll be almost three in the morning when we get there, and we don’t know exactly where Nadia is. If we don’t get through to her on the phone, she’ll probably be fast asleep and have no idea she’s in trouble or that we’re coming.”

Nate told himself not to panic, no matter how insurmountable the problems seemed. But in all honesty, he had no idea how they were going to pull this off without getting themselves captured and condemned to a fate worse than death.