Vengeful (Villains #2)(108)

Chaos erupted, and in that chaos Victor cut left, onto a different path, aiming for the street side of the park. Halfway there, a second figure rushed toward him, a woman with cropped dark hair.

She didn’t draw a weapon, but she had one hand to her ear and her lips were moving.

A group of cyclists whipped around the corner and Victor cut across the path just before they passed, a sudden, whooshing barricade that bought him just enough time to step between two carts and out of the park.

Victor moved swiftly, cutting across traffic and down a side street, seconds before an unmarked van skidded around the corner at the other end. It drove straight at him. He reached for the man behind the wheel, turning the dial up until the driver lost control and the van veered, slamming into a hydrant. Victor heard more footsteps, the hiss of radio static. He ducked into the nearest subway stop, swept past the turnstile and down the stairs, taking them two at a time toward the train pulling into the station below.

He made his way to the very end of the platform, but instead of boarding the train, he slipped past the pedestrian barricade and into the mouth of the tunnel, pressing his body against the wall as the bells chimed and the subway doors hissed shut.

A man reached the platform just in time to watch the train slide by.

Victor lingered in the tunnel, watching the man scan the cars, hands on his hips, his black hair edging to gray.

Stell.

Even after five years, Victor recognized him immediately. He watched as the former detective turned around, finally, and stormed back up the stairs.

Victor knew he should try again to get to the Kingsley—but first, he needed to have a word with the director of EON.

The next train pulled in, and Victor slipped into the press of bodies following in Stell’s wake.





X





THE LAST AFTERNOON


EON


DOM stared at Stell’s bank of computer screens.

Figure it out.

His mind spun like tires in mud, searching for purchase, his attention flicking from the desk to the door to the grid of camera footage on the far wall. There, upper right, three soldiers in full gear moved down a white hall. In another window, the familiar shape of Eli Cardale sat waiting.

Fuck.

Dom turned toward the trio of screens on Stell’s desk. He didn’t know the first thing about hacking into computers.

But he knew someone who did.

Mitch answered on the second ring. “Who is this?”

“Mitch, it’s Dominic.”

A shuffle of movement. “This isn’t a good time.”

Footsteps sounded in the hall beyond Stell’s office. Dom pressed the cell to his chest and held his breath. When they were gone, he raised the phone, talking quickly. “Sorry, but I’m working on Victor’s orders.”

“Aren’t we all.”

“I need to hack a computer.”

The metal sound of a zipper sliding. “What kind?”

“The kind at EON.”

The line went quiet, and Dom assumed Mitch was thinking, but then he heard a laptop click open, a booting sound. “What kind of encryption?”

“No idea.” He tapped the computer away. “It’s just a password screen.”

Mitch made a sound like a muffled laugh. “Governments. Okay. Do exactly what I tell you . . .”

He started speaking a foreign language—that’s what it sounded like, anyway—but Dom did as he was told, and three agonizing minutes later, a green ACCESS GRANTED appeared on the screen, and he was in.

Dom hung up, brought up the grid of folders, each one marked by a cell number. Every other computer in EON had a folder like this one. And every other folder started with Cell 1.

But Stell’s computer had another option—Cell 0.

Dom opened the drive and Eli Ever—Eliot Cardale—appeared onscreen, sitting at a table in the center of his cell, turning through a black folder. As Dom keyed in the codes, his vision sharpened, his focus narrowing the way it had when he was in the field. Time seemed to slow. Everything fell away except the screen, the commands, and the blur of his fingers across the keyboard.

A second window appeared with the cell block controls, scanning past lighting and temperature to security, emergency, lockdown.

Dominic couldn’t prevent EON from letting Eli out. But he could slow them down. He was just about to key in the codes Mitch had given him, send the whole cell into lockdown, when someone cleared their throat behind him.

Dom spun around, and saw Agent Rios standing there, looking unimpressed. He didn’t have time to wonder where she’d come from, didn’t even have time to step out of time—into the safety of the shadows—before Rios slammed a cattle prod into his chest and Dom’s world went white.

*

ELI was getting restless.

He scanned the images in the black folder one last time as he waited for Stell.

The director had made the plan very clear—Eli would be escorted from the facility under guard and, upon completion of the mission, returned to his cell. If he disobeyed in any way, at any point, he would be returned to the lab instead, where he would spend the rest of his existence being dissected.

That was Stell’s plan.

Eli had his own.

Steps sounded beyond the wall, and he set his file aside and rose, expecting as usual to see Stell. Instead, when the wall went clear, he saw a fleet of EON soldiers dressed in black, their faces hidden behind sleek, close-fitting masks. Even with the visors up, only their eyes were visible. One pair green, one blue, one brown.