Chapter 64 TUNNEL
The tunnel swallowed every sound except their breathing.
Lea felt George’s arm tighten protectively around her as the distant footsteps echoed again, slow, deliberate, almost dragging. The kind of steps that belonged to someone who wasn’t in a hurry… someone who knew they didn’t have to be.
Billy shifted his stance in front of them, gun raised but lowered slightly at the barrel, his chest rising and falling in controlled, steady breaths. He looked tense, but not surprised. And that, more than anything else, made Lea’s skin prickle.
“Billy,” George murmured, voice low but firm. “You know who that is?”
His jaw clenched. “Maybe.”
Footsteps grew louder, then stopped completely. The tunnel’s stale air felt like it was pressing against them from every direction.
Lea swallowed, every instinct in her screaming to run even though she knew there was nowhere to go.
The silhouette finally stepped into the faint wash of George’s flashlight beam.
A tall man. Broad-shouldered. Dark coat soaked at the edges like he’d walked through rain, even though outside had been dry. His face stayed in shadow, not fully hidden, just angled down.
He wasn’t wearing a mask.
He didn’t need one.
Billy let out a slow breath. “I thought you were dead.”
“Well,” the man answered, voice smooth but cold, “you were supposed to think that.”
Lea’s breath caught. Not because of his voice, but because of the way Billy reacted, not fear, not anger… dread. Deep, quiet dread.
George stepped a little in front of Lea. “Who the hell are you?”
The man lifted his head then, letting the dim light spill onto his features.
Sharp jaw. Dark eyes. A small, pale scar down his left cheek, thin, almost surgical.
Billy spoke before he could. “His name is Corin Vale.”
George’s expression didn’t change, but Lea watched the tension coil through him like piano wire. He knew the name. He didn’t show it, but she could feel it in the way his hand twitched toward his weapon.
Corin smiled faintly, like he’d been waiting for this moment. “George Halden. Always the loyal one.”
George didn’t answer.
Lea tried to swallow. Her throat felt dry. “What do you want?”
Corin looked at her, really looked. Not in the hungry way some men looked at a woman. Not in the angry way of someone seeking revenge.
He observed her.
Measured her.
“Everything,” he said simply.
A chill crawled across her shoulders.
Billy exhaled sharply. “No. You’re not dragging her into this. This is between us, not her.”
Corin raised an eyebrow. “Between us? Billy, you can barely stand up straight.”
Billy stiffened.
Lea realized suddenly why Corin looked familiar.
Not the face. The posture. The effortless control in his voice. She’d heard it once, not spoken, but written.
George’s classified file, the one she had accidentally glimpsed months ago before they separated. A name highlighted. A name George had slammed his laptop shut to hide.
Corin Vale.
George’s last mission.
The one that haunted him.
Before she could speak, Corin stepped closer.
“Lea,” he said calmly, as if greeting an old friend. “You’ve been very difficult to reach.”
George barked, “Don’t say her name.”
“Why?” Corin asked, amused. “She doesn’t even know what she is to you, does she?”
Lea felt the words hit her like a cold rush.
Billy stepped forward, as if ready to block Corin. “Leave her out of it.”
Corin turned his head slightly. “Billy, you’re alive because I allowed it.”
Billy’s fingers tightened around his gun.
Lea couldn’t understand their dynamic, enemies, allies, something in between. But the tension between them was thicker than the wet air around them.
Then Corin said something that punched straight through the dark:
“You shouldn’t have saved her, Billy.”
Lea froze. “Saved… me?”
George’s head snapped toward Billy. “Explain. Now.”
Billy didn’t look away from Corin. “He was supposed to take you that night.” His voice hardened. “I stopped it.”
Lea felt the world sway.
Corin’s voice remained eerily calm. “Because you grew… attached.”
Billy looked ground into stone. “No. Because I’m not a monster.”
“Oh,” Corin murmured. “That’s adorable.”
George exploded forward, but Corin raised a single finger, not a defensive gesture, but a warning. And somehow, it made George stop.
Not out of fear.
Out of calculation.
Corin tilted his head slightly. “George. Why do you think they targeted her?”
Lea felt George’s anger falter. “What?”
Corin smiled again, thin, humorless. “You were the goal. She was the leverage.”
“I told her that,” George growled. “You wanted me.”
Corin’s eyes glittered. “Yes. But for the wrong reason.”
Billy spat, “Just tell him.”
Corin didn’t break eye contact with George. “Lea was supposed to die.”
Lea sucked in a breath, but George spoke first, voice sharp with disbelief.
“No.”
“Yes,” Corin said. “And Billy disobeyed that order.”
George turned on Billy. “You were going to?”
“No.” Billy snapped. “I wasn’t. I told you, I protected her. I didn’t know Corin planned to...”
Corin cut in casually, “You were never protecting her, Billy. You were trying to fix your own mess.”
Billy’s voice dropped into something dark. “No. I made a choice.”
Corin looked almost bored. “A sentimental one. You care for the girl.”
Billy didn’t deny it.
George stepped forward again, voice low and lethal. “If either of you touches her again, I swear”
“George,” Corin interrupted gently, “you already lost her once, didn’t you? And now you’re about to lose her again.”
Lea’s heart lurched.
George’s face went still.
Corin walked another step close, hands empty, movements unhurried, like he owned the very ground beneath them.
Billy lifted his gun higher. “Don’t.”
Corin ignored him.
He moved until he stood directly in front of George. For a moment, neither man spoke.
Then Corin leaned in slightly, voice barely above a whisper, enough for only the three of them to hear.
“She’s the only thing that breaks you.”
George’s entire body stiffened.
“And that,” Corin continued, “is why I’ll take her.”
Gunfire shattered the moment.
The sound tore through the tunnel, exploding like thunder. Lea screamed as George pulled her down instinctively, shielding her with his body. Billy spun around, firing back toward the shadows behind Corin where the shots had come from.
Corin didn’t flinch.
In one smooth movement, he stepped backward into the darkness until he vanished entirely, like smoke dissolving into air.
More gunshots erupted from the far end of the tunnel, flashes of light, ricocheting metal, shouts echoing off the walls.
“Move!” George shouted, dragging Lea behind a concrete pillar.
Billy dove beside them, reload clicking fast and precise. “He brought his people.”
George snarled, “Of course he did”
“George,” Lea cried, grabbing his sleeve. “He said”
“I know,” George breathed. “I know.”
There were footsteps pounding now more than one set. At least four. Maybe more.
“We’re boxed in,” Billy hissed.
“No.” George shifted, eyes darting down the tunnel. “There’s an access hatch fifty meters ahead. If we can get there...”
A bullet slammed into the wall inches from Lea’s head, concrete bursting in a cloud of dust.
She coughed, heart slamming against her ribs. George pulled her lower behind the pillar, his breath hot and ragged near her ear.
“We’re getting out,” he whispered. “I’m not letting him take you.”
Billy lifted his head just enough to fire another controlled burst into the advancing shadows. A pained cry rang out.
George grabbed Lea’s hand. “When I say run...”
Billy cut him off. “They’ll shoot her first if she moves.”
“I know,” George said, his voice turning ice-cold. “That’s why you’re going to distract them.”
Billy froze, eyes flashing. “You want me to draw fire?”
“You owe her,” George growled.
It wasn’t a threat.
It was truth.
Billy swallowed once, jaw tight. Then he nodded.
A grenade clattered somewhere deeper in the tunnel, not thrown toward them, but used as a signal. A deafening blast followed, dust rolling down the walls.
Corin’s men were getting closer.
Billy looked at Lea. Just once. A flicker of something passed in his expression, regret, determination, something quieter beneath both.
Then he stood.
And ran.
Gunfire followed him immediately, a hail of bullets that lit up the tunnel in jagged flashes.
George didn’t waste a second. He grabbed Lea and pulled her the opposite direction.
“Run!”
They broke from cover as the tunnel filled with smoke and shouting. Lea stumbled, but George kept her upright, dragging her toward the shape of a metal service door barely visible through the haze.
Behind them, Billy shouted something, she couldn’t hear the words over the echo of gunfire.
George slammed into the door with his shoulder. It groaned, metal scraping, then gave way.
They stumbled inside.
A narrow stairwell. Rusted. Dark.
George shoved the door shut behind them and slid the bolt into place just as bullets struck it from the other side, rattling the frame.
Lea jumped at the sound.
George pulled her close, grounding her. “I’ve got you,” he said again, breath uneven but steadying. “I’ve got you.”
Lea pressed a shaking hand to his chest. “What does he want with me, George? What did he mean”
George cupped her face, not gentle, not rough, desperate. “I’ll explain. All of it. But not here. Not now.”
More gunfire hammered the door.
The bolt shook.
George grabbed her hand. “We keep moving.”
They raced up the narrow stairs, their footsteps echoing. The tunnel roared behind them, a storm let loose in a metal cage.
Corin’s voice drifted faintly through the chaos:
“George… you can’t outrun this.”
Lea felt her blood run cold.
George didn’t slow.
At the top of the stairs, he shoved open another door, and the two of them burst into the night air.
Not safe.
But alive.
For now.