Page 17 of High Stakes

Titus nodded slowly, chewing another bite of steak.

“What if the tech gets damaged?” I asked. It was something I’d wondered about, but never voiced.

“That won’t happen,” Victor answered confidently.

“How do you know that? I mean, if we fall or something, couldn’t we damage it?” I prodded.

“It would take a hell of a fall,” Victor joked. He looked at Kael. “Kael has calculated this to within a specific second. If all goes as planned, you will appear out of nowhere in front of your targets, strike and end them. If you do as you’ve been trained, they won’t even have time to react.” Victor calmly took a sip of wine.

“Unless something goes wrong, like you alluded to earlier,” I added. “What if we land somewhere other than the target area? What if there’s a glitch?”

I could almost hear his teeth grind. “That’s why you were upgraded. That’s why you’ve trained as extensively as you have, Asset Eve. To be the strongest, fastest, most formidable opponent we can offer. Even if everything goes right…” He sat up and leaned his elbows on the table. “Even if you land and strike and kill your target in the first two minutes, you still have to escape, find the tallest precipice, and jump. There’s no other way to get back to this time.”

Kael smiled and gave a condescending sniff. “Your enhancements will allow you to escape once you’ve completed your mission. You wouldn’t want to pop into a party with a thousand vampires, slay their leader, and have nothing but human speed and reflexes to rely on, would you?” He chortled. “And as far as your second line of questioning, I assure you that the technology is precise and has been tested at length.”

“Tested? You mean you’ve already sent someone back in time?” I queried.

Kael fixed his steely gaze on me and pulled his baggy sleeve back to reveal tech in his right hand. “Not only have others travelled, I tested it myself. I travelled back twenty-four hours into the past to make sure it worked. You are only traveling back seven days. I can assure you there is nothing to worry about, Eve.”

Abram stared fixedly at his plate until Victor excused us from dinner. “You need to get plenty of rest tonight,” was his parting advice.

While the guys stood and shook Victor’s hand in turn, Kael scooted out his chair and reached for mine. With his free hand, Kael pushed his glasses up onto the bridge of his nose. “The upgrades are your escape, Eve, but they are also your backup plan. We didn’t want to send any of you back to face the three oldest vampires without a fighting chance, on the million-to-one chance something happened to go awry.”

I nodded, only partially convinced.

“You will return tomorrow and be all anyone in this country can talk about, Eve,” Kael offered softly. “I know what it means to you to kill him, but I hope you know what it will mean to us all.”

Swallowing around the thick knot in my throat, I thanked him and moved to say my farewells to Victor as the guys moved away to say good evening to Kael.

“Eve.”

“Victor.”

He took my hand in his and leaned into my ear. “Do not fail me.”

I tried to pull away, but he squeezed tighter until pain lanced through my fingers. “I won’t. Just get me there and I’ll kill him. I swear,” I panted. There was something on his hand preventing me from turning off my pain receptors.

Something oily.

“If you can’t kill him,” he breathed, “don’t bother coming back.”

With that, he stepped back and smiled at me as if he were wishing me luck, but there was something in his eyes that made my skin crawl.

Chapter Seven

As soon as Victor let me go and pulled Abram to the side, I followed Titus out of the room, pretending nothing happened. I told Titus I’d see him in the morning and took off toward the staircase. He shouted a teasing, “Give him a goodbye kiss for m—,” his words cutting off when the steel door closed behind me.

Maru was on the roof where I thought he’d be, hands braced on the ledge. The city spread out around us as far as the eye could see. The buildings closest to the compound were lit, but the farther away you looked, the less electricity remained. What lay beyond was nothing but shadows and death. Silver moonlight shone on the skeletal remains of crumbling buildings only visible in daylight or when the moon was full, like tonight.

Maru shook his head when he saw me, a teasing grin tugging at the corners of his lips. “How’d they manage to get you in a dress?”

“I wasn’t really given a choice,” I grumbled, making him laugh. Beside him, I looked over the ledge, down at the dark glass encasing the compound. “Maru... are you the least bit worried?”

He looked at me over his shoulder. “I’m terrified for you.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t understand how any of this could be possible,” he admitted. “They act like nothing can go wrong, but they can’t know that for certain. Kael is arrogant, and arrogance is foolish. Arrogance can get people hurt, or worse... Beyond that, I’m afraid for you because of him.”

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