Chapter 21

TWENTY-ONE

“Is he sure this is where his contact is meeting us?” Louis asks for the hundredth time. I scan the busy market, on the lookout for any threats. The sunglasses and scarf wrapped around my head obscure who I am, but I’m still on alert, waiting for Davis’s men to pop out. Jonas is inside the bazaar a bit farther up, and Dimitri is in the van with Isaac, while Louis and I are close in case this goes wrong.

“He’s sure. We need the weapons before we get there,” I reply, and Louis nods, knowing I am right. Not only is Jonas’s contact going to sell us everything we need gear-wise, but they will also get us the false identities we need to get into the labs. Obviously, with one look at most of us, Davis will know who we are, but that’s an issue for another day.

Picking up the small, green-quartz elephant figurine, I let the sunlight catch it. “Do you think Nova will like this?” I ask Louis.

“Here he is.”

“Louis,” I demand, “do you think she will like this?”

He blinks, coming out of his work, and looks at the elephant and smiles. “Why does it matter?”

“It matters,” I say as I look down at it, curling my fingers around it. “I want to show her we didn’t forget or let her go. I want her to know that I thought about her every minute of every single day and that she will never be alone.”

He’s silent for a minute. “It’s perfect, Nico. She will love it.”

Nodding without looking at him, I hand over some money, and we get moving again, scanning the streets as we wait for word that Jonas got what he needs. A plan has started to form from the location information we received from the airfield. It’s going to be next to impossible to break in and free her.

We need to be smart, hence this meeting.

This won’t be an overnight job. We are planning for every possibility so we never lose our girl again.

We wander around the market for hours before Jonas finally joins us. “All good,” he says, carrying two duffle bags over his shoulder and another two on his wrists. I take some, and so does Louis. “Let’s get going.” We weave our way back to the van, and as soon as we are inside, we head back to the plane, ready to get to the location.

Once onboard, I sort through the weapons with Jonas, my eyebrows rising at the explosives inside.

“You never know.” He shrugs.

“Jonas, this is enough to blow up a city,” I say carefully, knowing he’s always a little unhinged, but since Nova has disappeared, he’s become very unhinged.

“Good.” He nods.

I share a look with Isaac but shrug. Jonas is good with explosives. He won’t blow us up, right?

“Okay, now that that’s all sorted, we have one last decision left. Who’s going in?” Louis asks as he joins us.

Everyone volunteers, but I wait for them to quiet down. “It has to be me. I was one of the first to fail, which means their files on me are old. Davis didn’t pay much attention to me along the way or even at the house. He would probably recognise me up close, but I won’t let him. It has to be me. I look the part and can act it. Dimitri needs to be on the outside as our point of contact. Louis, you need to direct us and put us in position. Jonas would end up killing too many people, and he needs to be our backup plan. Isaac is too kind and would try to save everyone. It has to be me.” I know I’m right, and as they share a look, it’s obvious they clearly know it too.

“It means going into the belly of the beast, Nico, and probably facing a lot of your past and fears,” Isaac remarks carefully.

“I know.” I nod. “I’ll be fine. I have to be, for her. Beast or no beast, nothing will stop me from getting to our girl.”

And that is what it comes down to.

I would face every single bad memory, fight a million armies, crawl through a million tiny spaces, or face torture and imprisonment again if it meant freeing my girl and kissing her.

Isaac said the belly of the beast, but they haven’t seen a beast, not yet, so I’ll show them one.

And they took the beast’s girl.