Spy Games (Tarnished Heroes #1)(78)

She blinked at the two men, and her stomach dropped through the floor.

Zhang Wei. She’d expected him as much as she feared him.

And Wang Ping.

Panic tightened her throat. Water pooled in the corners of her eyes. Dammit.

For several long seconds, Wei and Ping stared at her, their gazes cold. They knew who she was—what she was. Was there any point in denying it? Should she?

“Ms. Collins, we will dispense with the formalities,” Ping said at last. He gestured to Wei, then sat across from her.

“What’s going on? Why am I here?” She asked the questions she had to, but the fear wasn’t faked.

Wei reached past the door of the next room and brought back the briefcase.

Dented, silver, plain, she’d had it with her for most of the last few years. It often collected dust in her closet or under her bed, wherever she had space to keep it until her next round trip.

Sarah swallowed and stared at it.

There were no identifying markers, no name etched onto the outside, or even a tag to label it as hers were it lost.

“You are a CIA operative, Ms. Collins. We know the truth.” Ping gestured at the case. “We also know you’re keeping secrets. Open the case.”

“What? That’s—that’s not mine. You’re crazy. Let me go.” She shook her head and glanced around.

Three doors, two portholes.

There were just the two men and her. She could hear movement, the scrape of a foot, someone close by. Listening? Waiting to join in?

She kept her bound wrists in her lap. The zip ties were problematic. Too tight to wiggle out of. Too thick to break. She’d need something to cut them with, and then figure her way out if she could get that far. No, her best chance was to fake it until she made it out of here. Play the ignorant card hard and keep her answers simple.

“We know you are CIA, Ms. Collins.” Ping reached into his jacket and pulled out a large tablet. He used his thumbprint to unlock the device and bring up a video. Or what appeared to be a video. “Open the case, or your family dies.”

Sarah gasped and her body went cold.

Matt paced the length of her parents’ living room while Emily and her mother sat on the sofa, the baby in her arms. Little Jonah was no doubt shadowing Dad in the kitchen, hoping for candy.

“What—what have you done to them?” Sarah’s hands shook.

They were supposed to be gone. At the lake house. But Matt had said they’d been delayed. Why hadn’t they gone when Rand told them to leave? Why had she ever thought working for the company was a good idea? Now her family would pay the price.

Unless she traded the lives of company agents for her family.

How did she make a choice like that? She’d sworn an oath, but compared to her family, was it worth it?

“Just unlock the case, and they’ll be fine to go about their day,” Ping said. He swiped his finger across the screen and showed her another camera angle, this one of the kitchen.

Dad knelt down on Jonah’s level, helping him unwrap one of those caramel candies he loved so much.

How had they gotten all of this done? When? Her parents hadn’t mentioned anything about a breakin. Then again, with someone like Wei, he could probably get in and out without being noticed.

They’d wanted the car noticed.

Which meant all of this, every bit of it, was planned. Staged. And she had to out-think them. Somehow. Someway.

If she triggered the failsafe on the case and destroyed the protocols, then what would happen to her family? How did she know they weren’t bluffing? Wei was here, which meant he wasn’t there to do the killing.

“What have you done?” She had to think. Be smarter. But her head ached, and she felt as though her thoughts were mired in sand.

“You mean, what will happen if you don’t cooperate? I’ve been doing this for a long time, Ms. Collins. Longer than you’ve been alive.” Ping again swiped his finger over the screen, a couple times, views of other rooms passed up until he got to another shot.

This one was of a small, copper pipe in what appeared to be the basement.

Something with a red, flashing light was taped to the pipe.

“If you choose to not open the case, we will detonate this small charge. It won’t take much to cause an unfortunate explosion due to an overlooked gas leak.”

Real-life gas leaks were not the same kind of foundation-shattering blasts they were on TV, but they could still kill everyone in the house. It could be devastating.

She opened and closed her mouth.

What should she do?

She couldn’t put her family in danger. She couldn’t withhold information that would kill them. There was no point in refusing to admit the truth anymore, was there?

She couldn’t give up the protocols in the briefcase. That would cost more lives than just her family, and they were likely to kill her and them anyway just to tie up loose ends.

Her best bet, the one thing she hoped would happen, would be for her family to leave the house. Head for the lake and safety. Then, she could feasibly give them something, right?

“Ms. Collins, the briefcase.”

“I…I can’t.”

Ping nodded at Wei, who took a step toward the door.

“How do I know you’d let them go?” she blurted.

“I am a man of my word,” Ping replied.