Taken With Trouble (CAUGHT IN CHAOS #2)

35. Chapter 34

Chapter 34

Liam

I knew I shouldn’t have come back and now I’ve got a shiner to prove just why it was so foolish.

Agent Harris means well, but the man hasn’t run out of steam since I stepped down here forty-five minutes ago. I didn’t come back for him; I came here for her. Then I proceeded to break her heart with lies. Out of necessity. When she told me she wanted Caleb involved, I saw my chance and I took it. I had to convince her that bringing her along was purely selfish. I want her to go back to hating me. To resist fighting me when I insist Caleb take her and leave. Because my heart refuses to stop causing a circus in my chest until I know she’s safe.

Time is running out for my grandfather. I need to get out there and rescue the man who raised me, or die trying.

Caleb mutters another curse, something about how I don’t know anything about women and how he’s going to haul me to prison himself when this is over.

It’s not a mystery that I hurt Serena. Her pained face appears in my mind again, and I pinch my eyes closed before opening them again.

“Well, this has been enthralling. Let’s do it again sometime,” I say.

“Stay. ”

My eyes fly to the doorway. The commanding voice isn’t coming from Caleb. It’s Serena. Something’s shifted in her. Her hard edges have become razor blades. This woman is ready to fight, and I want her on my team.

I fall into my seat, eagerly looking at her.

She holds up the Spartan box and a cell phone so old it looks like it existed in the Dark Ages.

I clutch my chest. “Is that a flip phone?”

“It was all I could afford at the time. But this is the evidence we need. I’m assuming this is what they want?”

I clench my jaw. “They only asked for the box.” Technically. And her. But that part is non-negotiable for me. “That’s all I need.”

She shakes her head. “They want this, Liam. If you show up without it, you’re as good as dead.”

I know. I never planned on them letting me out that door. But I will never tell her what they really want. My life for hers. The way it should be.

“They’ll check the box,” Serena continues, “which is why we’ll make a copy.”

I pull a flash drive from my pocket. “I came prepared.”

She rolls her eyes. “Of course you did.”

“Terry,” I call and the little man emerges. “We need a computer.”

“When do you have to meet them?” Serena asks.

I glance at the clock and suck in a breath. “Thirty minutes.” I work quickly on the computer, getting into the old device and locating a video that’s so absurdly grainy it should be a crime. How did she live like this? Good thing I have software to fix that. But that takes time I don’t have. I upload it to my software anyway and set it up to download once it’s finished.

“Hadley and Ford will be at the safe house in London soon,” Caleb says to Serena while I work.

I don’t know the men, but I assume one of them is the man Serena is in love with judging by the blush on her cheeks. I’m not jealous.

Lies. I’m very jealous and nearly break the USB drive.

“They’ll have to wait,” Serena says, her voice a whisper, but I hear every word. “Sebastian wants me. I have to go with him.”

My fingers freeze on the keys.

“Absolutely not,” Caleb grunts.

“I have to face my past.”

There’s no world in which I allow that to happen, but she doesn’t have to know that. I swallow and force a smile onto my face, channeling my inner jerk. “Serena makes a point, after all, this was her mess to begin with.” My words taste like acid, and both agents glower at me. I only look at one, though. To be clear, it’s the pretty one. “You better get a gun. Sorry we lost Hank, but Terry has a few weapons you might like just as much.”

Serena’s eyes narrow even further. Can she see right through me? I must be losing my touch.

Terry, who was in the garden moments ago, runs into the room. “Oh, I’ve got some lovely guns. Come pick your poison.”

Serena shoots me one last glare before following Terry upstairs.

I look at Caleb, hoping that after all the things I’ve done to him, he follows this one request for me.

“You’re leaving without her,” he says. It’s not a question.

“Don’t let her follow me.” I look to where she’s disappeared. “Wait at your FBI safe house, I’ll bring myself there afterward. If I don’t make it by eleven, it means they killed me. Take her home. Get her there safely.”

He clenches his jaw. “I’m her partner. I’ll protect her.”

He better. I’m trusting my whole world to him.

The software is nowhere near done cleaning the video. I have to go before Cruz gets back. I can hear Terry droning on about his favorite gun, which means I’ve got at least five minutes. I unplug the phone and stick it in the Spartan box. “When the video is done downloading, take that flash drive straight to the Feds,” I tell Caleb, and then I race from the house, with the phone safely tucked in the jewelry box, leaving half of my heart in that little cottage as I drive toward Greenwich.

The meeting place is at the bottom of an office building in an obscure part of town. That isn’t what scares me, though. What scares me is Sebastian continuing his pursuit of Serena and not releasing my grandfather. Which is why, for the first time, I’m glad Caleb is here to force her home, a continent away from those after her.

If I hadn’t brought her to Europe, she would be safely hidden within the bureau. It’s my fault, which is why I have to fix it. But I don’t know that I can.

The best I can do is get her out of here.

I try to convince myself she’ll be okay surrounded by agents. Even so, unease claws at my chest.

More times than I can count, I consider turning around and running back to Serena and thinking of another way to do this. Together. But my foot remains pressed on the gas as I fly over the motorway.

My grandfather was my saving grace every summer—the father figure I wished my own had been. There are two people I love in this world, and only one of them is safe right now.

The city streets widen to industrial roads, and buildings get bigger the closer I get to the meeting spot. Anxiety burns my chest, but whether out of fear or heartbreak, I’m not sure. I clench the steering wheel, trying to compose my breathing as I drive. Now is not the time for my faulty heart to give out on me. I open the pouch with my medicines and pour them into my hand, swallowing them around a drink of water so old it tastes metallic and sour. I gag but force them down anyway.

The sun has disappeared, and ominous streetlights beckon me on. There’s an eighty percent chance I die tonight, but I won’t turn around.

I drive right into the deserted parking lot of the warehouse and turn off the ignition.

Here goes nothing.