Right. They weren’t military. Argh.
Roman shrugged and stepped toward the door. “Selene, you need to let us out.”
“I came to say I’m sorry. Actually, I came to ask some questions, but if I were you, I wouldn’t answer them, and even though you’re a better person than I am, I’m betting you won’t, either.”
Tate circled his hand in the air. This time, Roman understood and nodded.
“What questions?”
There was a beat of silence. “It’s just...I’m sorry. Tell my family…”
“I am your family,” Roman said, his lips near the small gap between doorframe and door. “Selene, don’t do something you can’t come back from.”
“I fell in love.” She laughed, the sound barely audible. “Totally, stupidly in love.”
“This is heartbreaking,” Scarlet whispered. “I had contingencies for multiple bad reactions from Oscar, but this…”
“What were your questions?” Roman asked, trying to keep her talking.
“It doesn’t matter. But if you can...if there’s anything you can do, without getting yourself in trouble, to make sure they don’t come after us…” Selene’s voice was soft and muffled by the door. Tate inched forward so he could hear better.
“I know the price for disobedience,” Selene said after a momentary pause. “Oscar and Luca…they’re not legacies. They know what will happen but not the way we do. I realize that we’re dooming ourselves, but a few months...years...with them is better than a long life without them.”
Behind him, Scarlet made a soft, sad sound. Tate glanced back to see there were tears on her lashes and she had one hand over her mouth. He wasn’t unaffected by the romantic, tragic picture Selene’s words painted.
Roman, however, thumped his head twice against the wall beside the door. “For God’s sake, Selene, just go talk to the Grand Master so this misun—”
Too late, Roman caught himself, teeth clicking together as he closed his mouth.
The silence from the other side of the door was deafening.
“This misunderstanding?” Selene asked, her voice calculating.
“You need to go to Boston, like the letter says.” Roman was backpedaling, hard.
Scarlet put a hand on Tate’s arm and mouthed, “Should we tell them?”
Tate shrugged, but Roman shook his head.
“What aren’t you telling me?” Selene demanded.
“Nothing. All I had to do was give you the letter.”
“Roman, you tell me right now.”
“No.”
“Tell me.”
“No.”
Their tone of voice had lapsed into a familiar, familial, rhythm.
“I’m going to make you tell me.”
“Selene, open the door and let’s just go to Boston. We’ll even—” Roman glanced at Tate, then Scarlet. “We’ll even let Oscar travel with us.”
That had not been a part of the plan. Oscar was supposed to find his own way there, but given the circumstances, Tate was sure they could justify the deviation from orders.
“Ha, like I’m going to fall for that.” Selene paused. “Last chance, Roman. What aren’t you telling me?”
“Last chance or what?” Roman’s exasperation was in the emotional driver’s seat. “You’ll do something dumb? Too late.”
“Ohh, you’re calling me dumb? Still pissed I scored better than you on the AP Calculus test, aren’t you?”
“Grow up.” Roman’s deep, demanding voice somehow managed to make that childlike phrase sound stupidly sexy.
“You grow up,” Selene retorted.
Tate put his hands over his face and wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh or cry. This was not the Roman he’d come to know over the past couple of weeks. His image of the cool, dangerous, accountant shattered. Strangely, he found this side—though somewhat outrageous—even hotter.
“I’ll be right back and you are going to tell me what I want to know.” Selene sounded coldly dangerous.
“Oh, I’m really freaking scared,” Roman replied in an exaggerated bored voice.
“Uh, maybe don’t antagonize the person threatening torture,” Tate said. From outside the door, he heard the sound of light, fast steps. Selene was leaving.
“This is completely ridiculous.” Roman crossed his arms, his expression stubborn—an emotion Tate hadn’t seen from him before. Standing there, he resembled some kind of barbaric, take-no-prisoners, accountant.
Was that even a thing?
Only Roman could blend dominance and geekiness so flawlessly.
“I would really rather not be stun-gunned again,” Scarlet said, but there wasn’t fear in her voice, just a sort of irritated resignation. “It hurt.”
She pulled the hairband from her hair and attempted to gather the thick, wavy, unruly tresses back into some semblance of a ponytail. She missed a large chuck of hair on the left-hand side, but Tate didn’t mention it because it looked cute on the typically put-together woman.
Tate cracked his knuckles, sensing they were close to seeing some action. He preferred that to remaining locked in a room with no way to break out. “They’ll have to open the door if they’re going to try to threaten us to get information. Once they do, I’ll take them.”
“Unless they stun you first.”
“They took me by surprise,” Tate growled. “It won’t happen again.”
Tate was a dangerous guy. That was a fact, not bravado. Since leaving the military, he hadn’t needed to be dangerous on a daily basis, considering most of his work as the Grand Master’s pet henchman involved serving as a bodyguard at a hotel. But he’d spent a lot of years as a sniper, one with fifty-four confirmed kills under his belt, and from the wary way Scarlet and Roman were looking at him, it was clear that right now he was more deadly Marine than German philosophy grad student.
Tate started to glance away, not wanting to see two people whom he thought of as friends, whom he’d planned with, traveled with, flirted with, look at him like he was dangerous, but after that momentary stillness, Scarlet licked her lower lip and Roman blew out a slow, uneven breath.
“He just got like...scary hot, right?” Scarlet asked.
“Yes. Yes, he did,” Roman replied.
Scarlet gave him a long, considering look. “Real kidnapping sucks, but maybe when this is over, we could pretend—”
As much as Tate really—really—wanted to know how Scarlet’s sentence ended, he held up a hand to silence her. He’d finally heard the sound he’d been listening for.
Footsteps.
Scarlet and Roman positioned themselves against the wall where he pointed, and Tate took up a position just behind the door. When they opened it, his foot would stop them from swinging it all the way open. The bottleneck of the half-open door would make it impossible for Oscar to avoid sticking some part of his body into the room, even if it was just to reach around and blindly shoot the Taser. This time, Tate would be ready.
The footsteps stopped outside the door, the old wooden floor creaking enough that Tate was sure it was all three of them, Oscar, Selene, and Luca. He braced himself, listening for the sound of the door being unlocked.