I followed his gaze to what appeared to be a ventilation duct barely wider than my shoulders. “That’s… not very big.”
“It’s why you’re going in, not me.” His mouth quirked slightly. “You’re softer.”
I bristled at that, narrowing my eyes at him. “Softer? Is that supposed to be a compliment or an insult?”
His expression relaxed slightly, the hint of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. It was rare enough that I almost forgot my irritation.
“Don’t worry about fitting through,” he continued, pushing his luck. “Not like at the motel with that service wall.”
“I did not...” I started to protest, but he cut me off.
“There’s nothing wrong with your hips,” he said, his voice dropping lower. “You’ll fit. I’ve had them in my hands often enough to know by now.”
Heat rushed to my face. The casual reference to our intimacy caught me off guard, especially in the middle of what was essentially a last-minute mission briefing.
His jaw tightened, his eyes turning serious again. “The air conditioning system feeds directly into the security hub. Once inside, you’ll have three minutes to plant the override module on their biometric panel.”
“Before the system realizes there’s an anomaly in the airflow,” I finished, remembering our briefing.
He nodded once, sharp and efficient.
My heart hammered against my ribs as I mentally retraced the route. Get through the vent. Cross to the security panel. Override the biometrics. Open the south entry. Relay information to Ronan and Specter. And if lucky, findinformation about Xavier, and where he might be. Simple. Except for all the ways it could go catastrophically wrong.
A beam of light cut through the darkness, sweeping over the landscaping to our right. Ronan reacted with jarring speed, wrapping one arm around my waist and pulling me deeper into the shadows behind a cluster of flowering shrubs. His body pressed against mine, a living shield. I froze, not daring to breathe as the guard passed barely ten feet from us, his footsteps crunching on gravel.
Ronan’s heartbeat remained steady against my back while mine threatened to give us away. The guard paused, scanning the area, his flashlight beam traveling dangerously close to our hiding spot. Finally, after what felt like years, he continued his patrol around the corner.
Ronan released me, and I inhaled shakily.
“Let’s go through it again,” he said, voice tight with what I now recognized as concern masquerading as professionalism. “Once you’re through the duct, you’ll enter a maintenance closet. The security hub is directly across the hallway.”
“I know,” I interrupted gently. “We’ve been over this six times.”
His eyes flicked toward the ventilation duct again, calculating dangers, measuring risks. Risks to me that he couldn’t control. My stomach tightened at the realization of how badly he wanted to take my place.
He reached into his pocket and produced a small flesh-colored device. “Put this in your ear so all three of us can communicate.”
His fingers brushed against the sensitive skin behind my earlobe as he positioned the comm device, lingering a half-second longer than necessary. The touch anchored me.
“This,” he said, placing a slim black tool in my palm, “will bypass the biometric scanner. Just hold it against the panel for five seconds.”
I closed my fingers around it, noting the cameras disguised as landscape lighting throughout the property, the nearly invisible motion sensors nestled among tropical plants. This place was a fortress disguised as a luxury home.
The wood-paneled security hub held more than just access to the building—it might contain the key to finding Xavier and ending this nightmare.
I steadied my breathing as Ronan checked his watch, his profile sharp against the gradually brightening horizon. The mansion loomed ahead, all clean lines and glass, deceptively beautiful for something that housed so much darkness.
“Once you’re in the security hub, barricade the door,” Ronan said, his voice dropping to that dangerous whisper that somehow carried perfectly to my ears. “If there’s a metal filing cabinet you can drag across the entrance, do it. They’ll have a key. It won’t hold forever, but it’ll buy you time if they realize something’s wrong.”
I nodded, counting down the seconds until I needed to move. My pulse thrummed in my throat.
“If you get compromised…” His jaw tightened, a muscle flickering beneath his skin. “Get out. Don’t wait for the extraction signal.”
“I know the plan,” I whispered back, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
His fingers wrapped around my wrist, grip firm but not painful. “Maeve.” His eyes searched mine with an intensity that knocked the air from my lungs. “You can still back out. No one would blame you.”
And he was right. I knew it. He wouldn’t blame me. My brother wouldn’t blame me, either. In fact, he’d be furious to know I was putting myself in danger like this in the first place. He’d want me as far away as possible—to protect me.
