The Long Game

And if they didn’t let me go through with it, someone would die, and then another and another, until the terrorists got what they wanted or the FBI decided to risk a high rate of casualties and take Hardwicke back by force.

“I also received another message.”

That statement brought me back to the present. I didn’t know what the terrorists had asked Vivvie’s aunt to do, or how they had passed along their instructions. All I knew was that I’d been told to wait until Ivy had been gone for two hours to get in touch.

“It seems I am to help you make contact with Daniela Nicolae prior to her release,” Priya continued. “That is assuming, of course, that her release is somehow secured.”

“Ivy’s working on it,” I said.

One hour and twenty-one minutes.

“Is that all they asked you to do?” I asked Priya, trying to focus on Vivvie’s aunt and not the ticking clock. “Getting me in to see Daniela?”

“No,” Priya said shortly. “I am to ensure that both you and Daniela are delivered to them.” She paused. “And I am, of course, to hand myself over as well.”

I paused. “What do they want with you?”

“I made many enemies before I came here.”

She’d come here for Vivvie, left her old life—whatever that entailed—behind for Vivvie. I didn’t have to ask whether she would hand herself over to these people for Vivvie, too.

“What will they do to you?” I asked Priya, leaning my back against the door to my room, my heart battering my rib cage as I remembered Dr. Clark killing Anna’s Secret Service agent and the offhanded way Mrs. Perkins had put a bullet between Headmaster Raleigh’s eyes.

On the other end of the phone line, Priya answered my question with silence.

I slid slowly down the door until I was sitting on the floor, my legs pulled to my chest. “What will they do to me?”

I’d tried not to ask myself that question. I’d tried not thinking about Ivy’s relief that I was home safe, or Adam’s request that nothing bad happen to me ever again.

“If they get what they want?” Priya said, taking her time replying to my question. “They will do nothing to you. They will let you go.”

And if they only get part of what they want? If they realize the program Ivy plans to give them is a fake? If the kingmaker can’t arrange for the $20 million transfer? If the secretary of state isn’t inclined to pull any strings to secure the release of Senza Nome operatives abroad?

“You do not have to do this, Tess.”

I got the feeling that saying those words had cost Priya more than I could fathom.

“They asked you to bring me,” I said.

If Priya didn’t do what they asked of her, Vivvie would be the one to pay the price. I couldn’t let that happen, no matter the icy chill that seeped into my skin at the thought of going back in.

“Women like this Clarissa Perkins,” Priya said softly, “they excel at knowing where the tiniest pressure can create the most pain.”

Vivvie was Priya’s weak spot—and one of mine.

“I take it that Ivy is not aware—”

“She wouldn’t let me out of her sight if she was,” I said. I was Ivy’s weak spot. I always had been. “I’d find myself knocked unconscious and on a plane to Aruba before I got within five miles of the school.”

Ivy had thought, when she’d agreed to let her parents raise me, that lying to me was necessary. She’d thought it was the right thing to do.

I wondered now if that lie had hurt her, the way letting her believe that I was safe and that I was staying hurt me. If I went back in and never walked out of Hardwicke alive, she’d know that I’d chosen to go. She’d know that I had lied to her, and that I’d chosen to leave.

I’m sorry, Ivy. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to leave you.

I wished, for the first time, that I could be the daughter she wanted. The one she deserved.

A knock on the door jarred me from that thought.

“Just a second,” I called.

Priya must have heard both the knock and my response because she saved me the trouble of ending the call. “I’ll be in touch.”

The line went dead. I took two seconds to try to wipe the remnants of our conversation from my face, and then I opened the door to find Bodie standing on the other side. I took the serious expression on his devil-may-care face.

“There’s news,” I said.

Bodie snorted, the way he always did when I jumped to a conclusion and found myself on solid ground. “Yeah, kitten, there’s news.”