Red Awakening (Red Zone 2)

He had a point, and with her fear of heights, she wasn’t sure she could go through with it anyway. Wrapping the towel around herself, she inched in the direction of the room with the dumbwaiter. That’s when she heard an almighty roar.

“Keiko!”

Mace had arrived.

Her eyes stung with tears of relief, but she couldn’t just let him rush into danger. Not without warning him. “Get help!” she shouted. “Don’t come out here. They have guns.”

It was too late. He hadn’t heard her. Or he’d ignored her and decided to play hero instead. Either way, he came barreling through the patio doors and straight into the middle of things.

“Don’t shoot him,” Keiko screamed.

But no guns were aimed at Mace. Instead, he took in the situation with a sweep of his eyes.

“Are you okay?” he asked her.

She swallowed hard, glancing between him and the team of criminals. A horrible, insidious awareness began to fill her stomach. Mace didn’t show any of the reactions she would have expected of him. He didn’t seem surprised to find her surrounded, being held at gunpoint by strangers. In fact, the main emotion painted on his face was one of regret. Cold, raw dread started to flow through her veins, making her heart beat faster.

“Mace?” she said. “What’s going on here?”

A flash of…something…flared in his eyes before he covered it with a wince. Had it been pain? Guilt? None of it made any sense.

“I’m sorry,” he said to her. “I tried to stop them before this happened. If you’d just stayed in the foyer where I put you…” He trailed off before turning to Eyepatch. “I must have lost my damn comm unit on the ride over. I thought I’d put it in my pocket, but it was gone. Otherwise I would have told you there’s been a change of plans.”

The words felt like tiny pins pricking at her heart as their meaning penetrated. And then, the world tilted and the air became dangerously thin.

He knew her kidnappers.

He was one of them.

“You don’ get to change the plan, mon ami,” Eyepatch said as Keiko stood frozen in shock.

Mace grimaced. “I do when I know there’s another way. We don’t need to go through with the…plan. If we tell her the truth, she’ll help us.”

Plan? What plan? What had they intended to do that was so awful he couldn’t say it in front of her?

“And you got that from the hour you spent with her?” Eyepatch’s eyebrow arched skeptically.

“I’m telling you.” Mace ran a hand through his hair, making it stand on end. “She isn’t who we think she is. She’ll listen to us.” He looked around for a minute as though desperately searching for words. “She’s a good person.”

“Feet pue tan,” Striker cursed. “You slept with her. In the car? It had to be in the car.”

“That’s got nothing to do with this,” Mace said. “I’m telling you we need to change the plan. We can get her to help us without resorting to…”

He trailed off, but the word hung in the air above them. Keiko heard it as though it had been broadcast through speakers—blackmail. He was talking about blackmail.

The shock of his intent jarred her from her frozen state. “You were going to blackmail me?” she shouted at him.

He winced and held up his hands, as though in supplication. “I was against the plan from the beginning.”

That didn’t help, and it sure as hell wasn’t a denial. “But you went along with it anyway? Which means you set me up. You played me.” She stalked toward him, clutching the towel around her, wishing she was fully dressed and wearing the killer heels that provided some much-needed height. “Was having sex with me part of your plan?” A horrifying thought occurred to her. “Were you faking it?”

“What? No! I wasn’t faking anything. My reaction was all you. And sex was never part of the plan.” His hands fisted at his sides, but there were no signs of remorse on his blank face. “Things got out of hand.”

“Things got out of hand?” Now she was furious. “You accidentally had sex with me? But, really, you didn’t mean to?”

“No. Damn it. You’re putting words in my mouth. I wanted you. I still do. You know that.” He gestured to his friends. “I tried to stop this from happening.”

“This? You mean you and your friends blackmailing me.” She scoffed at him. “You didn’t try very hard.”