Resistance (Replica) (29 page)

Agnes processed his words for what felt like five minutes. He figured he was lucky she was taking a moment to think about it before sounding the alarm. She’d probably never broken a rule in her life, and the very thought of standing by and letting him do something so obviously against the rules probably made her feel faint with horror. Nate wondered if he was enough of a bastard to try to knock
her
out as he had Fischer.

If that was the only way to get to Nadia, then yes, he was. He only hoped that thought didn’t show on his face, because the last thing he needed was for her to become even
more
frightened. Then she would run for sure, and he wouldn’t be able to get close enough to knock her out.

“I know I’m asking a lot,” he said, “but please go back to your seat and forget you saw me.” Letting her go would probably be foolishly trusting of him, but he wasn’t going to hit a girl unless there was no other choice.

To his surprise, perhaps even
shock,
Agnes nodded to herself and then started coming toward him.

“I’ll take his feet,” she said, bending down and grabbing Fischer’s ankles.

Nate stood there for a moment, blinking stupidly. “I’m not asking you to
help
me. I’m just asking you to keep quiet.”

Something flashed in Agnes’s eyes, and he realized that had been the wrong thing to say.

“That’s probably the first time anyone’s ever told me to keep quiet. Usually, they’re badgering me to talk, then looking down their noses at me when I can’t think of what to say. If Nadia’s in trouble, then I want to help. She’s the only person in all of Paxco who hasn’t treated me like a pitiful dimwit.”

Nate winced, realizing he’d treated her even worse than that.

“Besides,” she continued, “just because I’m shy doesn’t mean I’m a coward. Now let’s hurry, before he wakes up.”

Nate could see he’d gotten her back up and he was stuck with her help whether he wanted it or not. Which was probably just as well. Fischer had to weigh about 250 pounds, so dragging him anywhere wasn’t going to be easy.

Keeping a careful eye on Agnes, Nate stuck his hands under Fischer’s shoulders and heaved backward. Agnes picked up Fischer’s feet and pushed. Hauling Fischer’s dead weight took all of Nate’s strength, and he was sweating and panting by the time they got the bodyguard all the way into the men’s room. He stood up to leave; then, on a whim, he bent and removed the gun Fischer always wore in a shoulder holster. He doubted he would need it, and didn’t actually know how to use it, but it couldn’t hurt to be prepared for any eventuality.

No doubt Agnes thought her part in this was over now except for a little fibbing to cover for his absence. But really, he couldn’t let her go back to her seat. His only chance of getting to Nadia was if his father didn’t know he was trying it. Maybe Agnes wasn’t a coward, exactly, but she
was
timid. If his father started leaning on her even a little bit, she’d tell him Nate had run off to help Nadia, and there’d probably be a whole security team waiting in ambush at the Sanctuary when he got there. No, he had to buy himself some time, and that meant she had to come with him.

Nate jumped over Fischer’s body and grabbed Agnes’s wrist, dragging her out of the men’s room. Her skin was cold to the touch, and he felt a shudder run through her. Perhaps she was already having second thoughts about getting involved.

“Come on,” he said, as if she’d already agreed to go with him. “We have to hurry.”

He started toward the door to the Chairman’s private entrance, expecting Agnes to resist his pull. But she didn’t.

“How are we going to get past the man at the door?” she asked instead.

Nate hadn’t given his plan a whole lot of advance thought, and until Agnes mentioned it, he’d forgotten that there would be a guard outside the door. Of course, that man wouldn’t be Nate’s personal bodyguard, so it wouldn’t be his duty to follow Nate, or to stop Nate from leaving.

“I guess I’ll just order him to stay put,” Nate said, though he didn’t like it. Too much chance the guard would find his behavior suspicious enough to report on it.

Agnes took him by surprise and snatched her hand from his. He made a startled sound of protest and prepared to lunge after her, but she wasn’t heading for the box. She was heading for the bar, where she picked up the first bottle of wine she could lay hands on and grabbed a couple of glasses. She came back to him and handed him the bottle.

“We just want to have a private drink with no one watching us,” she informed him. “The door to the outside is locked anyway, so we’ll be perfectly safe.”

Nate was sure he looked like an idiot with the way he was gaping at her, but who would have guessed she had this in her? Not only was she willing to break about a thousand rules of polite society to help a girl she barely knew, but she had plotted their escape in about two seconds. She still looked pale and frightened, but she showed no signs of balking. And she hadn’t even batted an eyelash at his assumption that she was coming with him.

Color blotched Agnes’s cheeks, and her shoulders slumped in a defensive posture as she lowered her gaze. “I-I know I’m not the kind of girl … er … that I’m not someone you’d…”

If it were physically possible for Nate to kick himself in the ass, he’d have done it. Agnes was taking his obvious shock as distaste for the idea of implying he felt any kind of romantic attraction to her. And why wouldn’t she, when he’d made no effort to hide that he found her unappealing?

“Don’t be silly,” he told her with a dismissive wave of his free hand, trying to be casual. “I was just surprised again that you’re willing to go out on a limb for Nadia. And the idea is perfect.”

Agnes smiled tentatively at the praise. Nate shifted the bottle of wine to his left hand and then held out his right elbow to Agnes. She squared her shoulders and raised her chin as she slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow and allowed him to lead the way.

*   *   *

Nate
was only mildly surprised to find that Agnes’s plan worked. People were certainly used to him being reckless and irresponsible, and they were also used to taking orders from him. The man guarding the door to the Chairman’s lounge gave Nate a funny look when he glibly repeated Agnes’s lie, but he made no attempt to stop them from leaving. Agnes leaned into him and uttered a completely fake-sounding giggle as they descended the stairs. Nate cringed a bit at her bad acting, but there was no sign that the guard found it suspicious.

When they reached the first-floor entrance, Nate glanced at his watch and saw that the ten minutes Dante had given him were almost up. He wanted to burst through the door and sprint out to the car, but if he wanted a clean getaway, he couldn’t afford to attract attention. And if he wasn’t careful, the guard at the top of the staircase would hear the opening and closing of the heavy door and know that Nate and Agnes weren’t cozying up in some safe, private corner as they’d claimed.

He put the wine bottle down, and Agnes put the glasses down beside it. Then he pulled on the door, trying to be quiet and gentle about it.

Even the Chairman’s private entrance had to conform to the city’s fire code, so the door opened freely from the inside even though it was locked. There was a soft electronic beep as the lock disengaged. Nate hoped that high-pitched sound hadn’t been loud enough to be heard from the top of the stairs.

The door weighed a ton. Nate motioned Agnes through, then slipped out himself, easing the door shut behind him. However, it was impossible to close a door that heavy without making a thunk. He would just have to hope the guard either didn’t hear it or didn’t think it was his business to investigate the Chairman Heir’s activities.

There wasn’t a whole lot of traffic, either on foot or by car, at this hour, but it
was
Manhattan, which meant there were still people around to observe Nate and Agnes’s exit. Even if their faces hadn’t been famous, they were pretty conspicuous in their elegant opera clothes.

Together, they hurried toward the curb just as a nondescript brown sedan pulled up. Agnes’s steps slowed.

“Keep moving,” Nate urged, giving her arm a little tug. “That’s our ride.”

She looked over her shoulder. Nate supposed it was natural for her to have second thoughts at this point, but he didn’t have time for them.

“It’s not like you can get back inside anyway,” he said, tugging a little harder. “Too late to change your mind now.”

“I’m not changing my mind,” Agnes said, and she sped up again.

Nate could see Dante, staring at them with a fierce glare as they approached. Nate was afraid Dante might see that Agnes was coming and decide to floor it and go off on his own, but despite the pissed-off look on his face, he waited. Nate opened the back door for Agnes, and she slid in. He went to get in the back himself, then thought better of it and took the front passenger seat because he didn’t feel like talking to the back of Dante’s head.

Dante hit the gas before Nate had finished closing the door, and he was pleasantly surprised he didn’t fall out.

“What the
hell
?” Dante shouted at him, then glanced at the rearview mirror and said, “Excuse my language, Miss Belinski,” in a much more measured tone of voice.

Nate buckled his seat belt hastily, because Dante was driving like a maniac. “She wanted to help,” Nate said, figuring it was best to keep it simple. “I didn’t have time to talk her out of it, and I didn’t want anyone asking her questions about where I’d gone.” He half-turned in his seat so he could see Agnes.

“Agnes, this is Dante. He used to work for the Lake family, and now he works for me.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Nate saw the glare Dante shot his way. He’d accepted the job on Nate’s staff because it was convenient, but he was never going to let Nate forget how little he liked working for him.

Agnes rearranged the preposterous pink flounces of her dress, her restless hands betraying her nerves though her face looked relatively composed. “You don’t have to lie to me, you know. If there are things you don’t want to tell me, well, just don’t tell me.”

Nate opened his mouth to protest that he wasn’t lying, but for once he decided to actually think about his words before he spoke. A hasty, indignant protest would just cement her conviction that he was lying to her, and considering how testy the dynamic between himself and Dante was likely to be over the course of the long drive ahead, she’d have a lot of trouble swallowing the idea that Dante was his servant.

“I’m not lying,” Nate said. “I’m just leaving a whole lot out. Dante
does
work for me, but for reasons I can’t explain, he knows I won’t fire him, so he feels free to treat me like an equal.”

“Uh-huh,” Agnes said, clearly unconvinced.

Nate expected Dante to get out of the city as fast as possible, so when the car made a sudden turn into a parking garage, he turned his attention away from Agnes.

“What are you doing?” he asked Dante.

“We have to change cars,” Dante explained. “Too many people saw the two of you getting into this one. We don’t need anyone tracking us. And both of you, take the batteries out of your phones.”

Nate uttered a curse. He should have thought of that himself. The secure phone wasn’t a problem, because no one who’d be looking for him knew he had it, but his personal phone was. He fished it out of his pocket, keeping an eye on Agnes to make sure she followed suit. Her phone was in one of those silly little clutch purses ladies carried, and when she took the battery out, she handed it to him. He raised his eyebrows.

“I don’t want you thinking I’m going to put it back in the minute your back is turned,” she explained.

He accepted the battery, though if Agnes were going to betray them, it seemed like she’d have done it by now. Then he pulled out the secure phone. This was just the kind of emergency he’d had in mind when he’d asked Dante to smuggle a phone to Nadia, so he punched in the number and held his breath.

“Who are you calling?” Agnes asked.

“Nadia, I hope,” he said. He had no way of knowing if she still had the phone, but he had to try. He cursed when he reached voice mail.

“Try again later,” Dante suggested. “She may not be free to answer right now.”

Nate resisted the urge to bite the asshole’s head off for stating the obvious.

The garage was deserted, and though most of the spaces on the lower floors were filled, as they climbed, there were fewer and fewer parked cars. When they were near the top, Dante pulled up beside another bland-looking sedan, this one blue.

“You must pay your servants awfully well,” Agnes commented. “Not just one car, but
two.
I’m impressed.”

Apparently, when she wasn’t in some kind of fraught social situation, Agnes wasn’t quite so shy about speaking up. He didn’t know how to explain the cars. Dante certainly wouldn’t be able to afford a car on a servant’s wages, and the cars were both too cheap for Nate to claim them as his.

“Please stay in the car, Miss Belinski,” Dante said as he turned off the ignition and opened the door. “I need a private word with Mr. Hayes.”

Amazing how much contempt Dante managed to get into his voice while technically addressing Nate in a proper fashion. Nate thought Dante was as surprised as he was when Agnes said, “No, I think not.”

She opened her door, but remained in the car, clearly planning to get out if they did and stay put if they didn’t.

“It’ll just be for a minute,” Nate said, figuring Dante wanted a chance to let him know how displeased he was at Nate’s decision to bring Agnes along.

“No, it won’t,” Agnes countered. “He’s going to suggest sticking me in the trunk while you two ride off to the rescue.”

The mingled surprise and guilt on Dante’s face proved she had guessed right. And Nate supposed it made good sense. She would be nothing but a liability on this mission, but they couldn’t just let her go because of what she might tell people. It would be a really shitty way to treat her after she’d helped him, but it was logical. Of course, since she had guessed what Dante had planned, there was no way they were getting her into the trunk quietly.