I didn’t reply, then licked my teeth and tasted blood.
“I see,” Jin replied. “It’s a good thing my men can follow some direction, as they picked up a few samples of what you dropped on-site. It’s being analyzed in my lab upstairs as we speak.”
“We’ve already sent the antidote to the FDA for approval,” I said. “In case you were thinking of stealing it.”
Jin laughed. “What would I need antidotes for? My business is not in curing the world of illness. I’ll make sure your antidote isn’t approved by the FDA. In fact, I’ll see to it that your entire lab is shut down.” He rose and dusted off his trousers, the movement efficient but somehow elegant. “I’m impressed, however, if you actually did succeed in producing an antidote for a virus that I personally know didn’t exist outside a test tube until recently.” He paused, then smiled graciously, as if I should be grateful for the compliment.
I jumped to my feet, dragging the chair with me, and rammed my head into Jin’s torso. He shoved me by the shoulders so the legs of my chair jounced back to the ground, jarring my entire frame. My shoulders screamed from the impact.
“You have nerve,” Jin said. “I’ll give you that.” He pulled on his sleeve cuffs, ran his hands over his expensive suit jacket. “I kill people who get in my way.”
“Kill me, then.” I sneered at him, not caring if I died as long as I could protect my friends.
He raised his eyebrows. “Not before you answer some questions first.” Jin slanted his head, scrutinizing me with those sharp eyes. I’d seen Daiyu do the same to me, and I couldn’t suppress a shudder from the intimacy of it. “I want to know,” Jin said, “why you seem so familiar to me. Why you sound so familiar to me.”
I shook my head to bring myself back into focus, but said nothing.
He hauled me up by my shirt collar, grasping hard enough that I choked. “You’re that punk kid that stole three hundred million from me,” he said. It wasn’t a question. “The features are a little off from the image, but . . .” Jin narrowed his eyes.
I should have been afraid. Instead, I felt the fury rise in me, being face-to-face with the man who had ordered Dr. Nataraj murdered, who might as well have helped kill my own mother the way he kept meis down like roaches beneath the heel of his expensive shoe. A man who cared more that he had money stolen than a daughter kidnapped. Jin didn’t loosen his chokehold on my shirt, and my vision began to swim. Mustering the last of my strength, I reared back and head-butted him again right between the eyes. Pain exploded in my forehead; Jin reeled back, cursing.
I stumbled and fell into the chair hard, laughing. But no sound came. My limbs had turned boneless, and my ears rang.
Jin was rubbing his forehead, and I regretted I hadn’t hit his nose or mouth to draw blood. Still, I felt a smug satisfaction to see him in pain.
“I will root out each and every one of your friends,” Jin said in a cold, calm voice. “They won’t die as pathetically as you will, but they’ll spend the rest of their lives in a jail cell.”
It didn’t matter what he threatened me with. But sick fear cramped my empty stomach when he mentioned my friends. What could I do? How could I warn them? I was good as dead.
The door pushed open, brushing Jin’s shoulder, and Da Ge entered with a bottle of water. His eyes darted around the room, taking in how my position had changed.
“I’m going home for the night,” Jin said.
Da Ge shoved my chair back, pressing the bottle against my mouth, not caring that much of the water splattered down my chin and onto my clothes. “Want me to kill him?” he asked.
I gulped at the water, trying to drink enough and not choke. But my eyes never left Jin. Jin half turned, and his gaze swept over me once more. “I’ll have lab results tomorrow from the syringes we picked up on-site.” He glanced at his Vox, strapped to his wrist by diamond-studded gold links. “Kill him after I question him in the morning.”
He gave a nod, as if wrapping up a business meeting, and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
? ? ?
Da Ge threw the empty water bottle into a corner, and it rattled noisily. Checking to make certain my feet and hands were bound securely, he then stuffed the dirty rag back in my mouth without saying a word. He clicked the buzzing lights off when he exited, so I was left in complete darkness.
I let my head drop, exhausted, praying that sleep would knock me out of my misery.
Again, I dozed off, but I didn’t know for how long when a pulsing alarm, like a polite car horn, began to blare. “Attention,” a soothing female voice said in precise Mandarin. “Please leave the building via your nearest exit. You have ten minutes.” The fire alarm had sounded. I immediately thought of my friends and the discussions we had just a few days back.
If I had recognized Da Ge, I had no doubt that Victor did as well. Which meant they would have been smart enough to tap into the security cameras to search for me within Jin Corp, and bullheaded enough to attempt to break in and rescue me if they had seen me on-screen.
My chest shook with laughter, smothered by the rag stuffed in my mouth.
Then I suddenly realized what the break-in meant. My friends couldn’t use the fire alarm ruse twice. Not without arousing suspicion from Jin security. We were planning on bombing Jin Corp within the week. Would they be doing it tonight instead—trying to save me and plant the bombs? I would. Especially knowing Jin kept more of his avian flu virus on-site. No opportunity wasted. We all risked our lives when we had agreed to this, I had said to Victor. The mission came first. If they couldn’t find me, I’d blow with the building.
The sleep spell had worn off, leaving my head and bruised face thrumming with pain. I struggled against the ropes that bound my hands, my arms uncooperative, my hands tingling, as if being stung by a thousand ants. Wiggling my fingers, I wrenched against the restraint, but it was useless. The fire alarm blared on, unrelenting and insistent.
I had faith that Lingyi would have sent one of our friends to find me, but whether I would be found in time was a different matter. Switching tactics, I tried smaller movements, testing the ropes, attempting to ease any kind of give along my wrists. I still had a knife tucked against my upper thigh, but it might as well have been on the moon.
A sudden loud popping noise, and the metal doorknob clattered onto the concrete. Yellow light filtered in from the fist-size hole. Hope surged in my chest. Was it Arun? Victor and Iris would be detonating the bombs. The door pushed open, flooding the chamber with dingy light, and the figure that stood against its glow was immediately recognizable to me, even though she was in suit.