James heard the familiar whistle in the air and was already jumping toward Willa when everything went to hell. The shockwave of the blast was the first thing that hit. Then the rubble started to fall from the sky. For a few moments, James couldn’t move. The pure surprise of the attack combined with the need to keep himself over Willa kept him frozen in place. But he knew that the building could’ve lost all stability because of the blast, and if he really wanted to keep her safe, they were going to have to move.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Willa had landed on her stomach and she flipped herself over, groaning as she looked up, her eyes wide with shock. “What happened?”

“There was a bomb,” he said, knowing that was a dramatic understatement. “We need to move. Are you okay? Can you stand?”

She nodded as she started to push herself up. It was only then that James allowed himself to look out at the street. Austin was helping Jennifer up while Hart ran straight into the building. Damn hero complex.

But then James realized what he was going after. Jennifer, Austin, Hart, Willa, and he had all been on the street. Toni hadn’t been. His eyes traveled up the building until he saw where the explosion had hit. It wasn’t Willa’s apartment. It was the apartment below. Someone had been aiming for Toni’s setup. “Let’s go.” He helped Willa up and led her across the street. There were a few other civilians around them on the street, but no one seemed seriously injured.

He was willing to bet that there were a lot more casualties in the building, though. There was probably some serious damage. He’d felt the shockwave rip into him even down here, a ways away from where the actual blast took place.

This had been a precise attack that was designed to kill and send a message. Once they were across the street, James once again looked Willa over to look for any sign of injury. One of her knees looked a little banged up, but that was about it.

“Toni....”

“Hart is going in to get her.”

Willa’s eyes were glazed over and he knew she was going into shock. She was strong as hell, but this kind of stuff was way out of her league. “Willa!” he shouted, breaking her out of her trance until she looked at him. “I need to get you somewhere safe.”

She nodded a few too many seconds for him to feel comfortable. “We can, um....” She started to look at the wreckage again and James moved to stand in front of her so she looked right at him. “We can go to a hotel.”

“Okay. We’ll need to walk out of the area to get a cab.”

She nodded and the loud blaring of a cell phone started to cut through the craziness around them. Willa pulled out her phone and looked at it for a few long seconds without answering it until the ringing stopped. “It was Daddy,” she said, almost in despair. She looked back up at James. “Did he do this? Did he try to kill me?”

“I don’t know,” said James honestly. “But this doesn’t feel like him. He is subtle. He goes behind the scenes to get things done. Whoever did this, it wasn’t about you. This was sending a message. I think this is Sterling. He’s cleaning house. Getting ready to come back.”

The phone rang again.

“Don’t answer it,” said James. “I’ll get you out of here. You’re never going to have to deal with him again.”

She was quiet, which was terrifying on a whole different level.

“Just drop the phone and we’ll leave. You’ll never have to look back.”

When she looked into his eyes, she knew what she was going to do before she even started to move. “I’m sorry, James.” She hit the Answer button and brought the phone to her ear. “Daddy?” Her voice sounded small and just as freaked out as she looked. “Can you come pick me up?”

“What are you doing?”

She told her father where on the street she was before she hung up the phone. “If I leave now, I can never get back in my father’s good graces again.” She pointed to the destruction above them. “This isn’t acceptable. This isn’t something I can pretend isn’t happening. I can’t run and I can’t stick my head in the sand. Even if I end up homeless on the corner, I don’t care. This is ending now.”

James leaned in. “I’m not going to let you get yourself killed.”

“Good.” Willa’s voice trembled. “Because I really don’t want to die doing this.”

He cupped her face with both of his hands. “I don’t say this a lot, so I want you to really listen. Please, please don’t do this. I don’t want to lose you.” The words were ripped from him. Not because he didn’t mean it. He meant every single word. But he already knew that Willa wasn’t going to change her mind.

She pushed up and kissed him. It was different from any of their other kisses. Slow and steady. “I can’t not do this,” she said.

Even though James could think of a million reasons why she shouldn’t, he kept quiet.

“Go help the rest of them. The car will be here any minute. Daddy might judge me for making out with the help.”

“I’m going to be close.”

“I know. I’ll never forget.”

James forced himself to leave her as he ran across the street. He wished like hell he knew she’d be okay for now, but nothing was safe at the moment. Jadon would pick her up and he’d be looking for any reason the Murray women had been setting up camp right beneath his daughter’s place.

For the moment, James’s cover was still in place, but he knew that he was vulnerable. Considering he’d played a part in Jennifer and Austin getting away and he was so new to the team, eyes were going to be on him. He knew his credentials were pretty bulletproof since he was using his real name, but he didn’t know what these new guys were capable of.

He ran to the entrance of the building. A few police stood out front, but not a lot. He could still get in if he needed. Before he could start, he saw the familiar outlines of Hart and Toni. Toni was leaning against Hart as he led her out of the building.

As soon as they were out, James went to the other side of Toni. “How did it look in there?” he asked.

Hart shook his head. “Not good. The place we were staying was destroyed. Equipment is ruined. It’s all fucked.”

“I’m going to find them and I’m going to kill them.” The anger vibrated off Toni’s voice. “I’m going to shoot them in the head, execution style. No. that’s too nice. Something slower. I’m going medieval on their ass. Drawn and quartered. Wheel of pain. Blood eagle.”

“Toni, it’s computers,” said Hart.

“Shut your face.” She started to walk on her own, limping on her right side. “This wasn’t just computers. This was us. What if you were still upstairs? What if I wasn’t checking on the bugs in Willa’s place? The stupid expensive elevator doors are the only thing that saved me and I’m lucky the damn thing didn’t fall.” She turned to look at the wreckage above them. “I don’t feel very lucky right now!”

“We have another problem right now.”

Hart, for his part, seemed to keep his cool. “Great. What now?”

Before James could say anything, the cops approached. “You all need to move.”

Hart nodded. “We’re getting out of your way.”

They all started to move but then the cops looked at each other and back at them. “Hart? Scott Hart?”

The joy of working with a former cop. “Hart,” said James under his breath.

“I got this.” Hart waved his hand, signaling Toni and James to keep moving.

James put a hand around Toni’s back and led her away, but he kept an ear out for what was happening behind him.

“I’m Scott Hart. You guys heard of me?”

“Yeah,” said one of the cops. “Scott Hart, you’re under arrest.”

––––––––

––––––––

Willa paced back and forth in her father’s spare bedroom. The news was still showing footage of the wreckage of her apartment building. It was being considered a terrorist attack and the talking heads had been going nonstop about which race, religion, or terrorist cell was behind it. She wanted to turn it off because it made her more and more nauseous by the second, but she couldn’t stop listening to it.

There had been two deaths and ten other people hospitalized. Two people who had nothing to do with this were dead. Two innocent people. And to make it worse, Willa had no idea who they were. Their names and pictures had been flashed on the screen, but there wasn’t even a hint of recognition. These were her neighbors. These were people she must’ve passed by or said hello to or something. And now they were dead because of her.

She held a hand over her mouth as the nausea bubbled up. This wasn’t going to happen to anyone else. She was going to make sure of it.

There was a knock on her door and she jumped in surprise as she turned to stare at the wood. “I’m not feeling good,” she called. And she wouldn’t feel good until Jadon left the damn apartment so she could do her search. He hadn’t left her alone since he brought her here. The only way she could act like a normal person was if she sequestered herself away in the room. Thanks to the trauma of the day, normal wasn’t really in play today.

“Did you order food? We just got some Chinese delivered.”

She opened her mouth to say no, but then thought better of it. Even though the thought of eating was almost enough to make her hurl, she said, “Yes.” She pulled the door open and took the brown paper bag from her father’s hand. “I meant to tell you but my brain just isn’t working right.”

Her father looked at her with a mix of concern and curiosity.

She didn’t know what he was looking for, but she couldn’t muster up any fake emotions. “Thanks, Jadon.” She shut her door. She sat the brown bag of food on the vanity and opened it up. It looked like... Chinese food. She half expected a note or something to be hidden inside, but it was just the white pints and two fortune cookies.

She couldn’t call anyone because she didn’t know whether anyone was listening, so she’d been on her own this entire time. She was about to write off the Chinese food as a mistake when she noticed the receipt. It said delivery for Willa Belli. So this wasn’t the wrong apartment. It was someone who knew she was at her father’s. She opened the fortune cookies first, but they were just the basic meaningless sayings. Next, she tried the quart container of some kind of fried rice. She pulled out the chopsticks and started to poke around. After a few seconds, she felt it. She carefully extracted the small package wrapped in plastic wrap. Keeping it close to her stomach, she opened it. It took her a second to figure out what the little skin-colored ball was, but the only saving grace was that there was a note that said simply “ear.” Well, that was easy enough to understand. She moved the thing around until the contours went in the right way. It fit great, but this thing had better not have been used before.

She had it in and was rolling her head around to get a better feel for it when she heard it. “Willa?” The low, growly voice was unmistakable. Before she could say anything, James said, “We can hear you but you’re probably being watched, so keep quiet.”

She nodded before she realized that he probably couldn’t see her. Though if Toni was around, who knew what things she’d tapped into? “We lost a lot in the blast but we still have access to your dad’s phone. He is leaving the house in fifteen minutes so that will be your window. We’re outside the building, so we can let you know when he’s coming back. There might be video in the apartment, so if you’re going to do a search, you only get one chance.”

There might be someone listening to her but that didn’t mean she couldn’t talk to herself. “We, we, we, we,” she said in a singsong voice.

“Me, Jennifer, Austin, and Toni,” he said, obviously understanding what she meant.

She hadn’t been talking super loud and it had picked it up. That was impressive and terrifying at the same time.

The next fifteen minutes went by achingly slow, but at least the nausea was gone. Not gone enough that she could eat the Chinese food, but she had doubts about eating any food that came complete with earbud. So this time when a knock came on her door she jumped up, a bit of adrenaline already coming. It was strange to know things ahead of time. Her father was going to let her know that he was leaving. And then she’d have as much time as she needed. Something Jules hadn’t had.

She pulled open the door to see her father once more. “Hi, Daddy.” Once again she refrained from acting too happy. She didn’t need to pretend to be happy about a damn thing tonight.

“I have to run out to take care of a few things tonight. I hate to leave you alone.”

“Really, it’s okay. I don’t think I’ll be good company tonight.”

“We have a problem,” said James in her ear.

“You don’t have to be good company but I can’t in good conscience leave you on your own.”

“Daddy, I’m—”

The intercom button sounded through the apartment and Willa realized what the problem was. “Did you send a bodyguard?”

“No. That seemed too cold and impersonal. I wanted someone you knew.”

For the love of God, he better not say—

“Stan is going to be here for a bit.”

“That’s going to be a pain,” she said to both Jadon and James.

“I know you two don’t always get along—”

“He can’t stand me, Daddy.”

“But I can’t leave you alone.”

“If you’re so worried about me, don’t leave me with some geriatric misogynist.”

“I’m not the one worried about you, hun. I know you just got swept in my mess, but there are others who are asking questions. Questions about how close you were to the explosion.”

“Someone fired a rocket launcher into my building, Daddy! I didn’t have anything to do with—”

He held up a hand to silence her. “I believe you. And I’m going to talk to Sterling. I’ll let him know there’s nothing to worry about.”

“Let him go,” said James in her ear. “We’ll figure this out.”

“Fine, go,” she said. “I’ll just ignore Stan and imagine him getting hit by an asteroid.”

“That a girl.” Jadon reached to pat her on the arm and Willa couldn’t help herself as she flinched away from him. Maybe she ruined the image of being a dutiful daughter, but she just wasn’t as good at this espionage thing as she wanted to be.

He winced before he turned and left. She poked her head out into the hallway. A few moments later, Stan White was in the apartment; he looked down the hall at her and smiled. Well, the nausea was back.

“I need to get rid of him.”

“We’re working on something,” said James.

Working on something.... She started to go through a list of ways to get Stan out of the apartment.

“Does he have any family?” asked James. “We can fake an emergency and tell him a kid is in the hospital. Lying, of course.”

“He doesn’t even like his kids.” She fell back into her room and sighed. The only things Stan cared about were his money and his.... Oh. She needed to talk to James and if anyone was listening, they would just have to hear her. “Austin is supposed to be a really good thief, right?”

“The best,” said Austin.

“Think you can get into a Maserati?”