Chapter 67 THE MISSION
The phone rang only once.
That alone told Lea everything she needed to know about Billy Ernest, he had been waiting for this call. Maybe expecting it. Maybe hoping for it.
Cassian didn’t look at George or Lea. His expression was unreadable as he held the encrypted phone between two fingers, letting the tension coil through the bunker like a living thing.
Click.
A breath. A faint scrape. And then
“Well,” Billy said, his voice low and edged with something razor-thin. “This is a surprise.”
Lea stiffened. The sound of him alone felt like a hand closing around her spine, not violent, but inescapable.
Cassian didn’t bother with pleasantries. “We need to talk.”
A soft chuckle drifted through the phone. “I doubt that.”
George stepped closer, jaw clenching. “Billy…”
“You?” Billy interrupted sharply, tone slicing. “You’re there?”
Lea felt the shift in the air, black ice beneath thin snow. Billy’s voice dropped into something quieter, more dangerous.
“Is she with you?”
George hesitated only a heartbeat. “Yes.”
Billy exhaled, not in relief, not in anger. Something else. Something Lea didn’t have a name for.
Cassian cut in before the silence deepened. “Corin is moving. He’s not playing games anymore.”
Billy scoffed. “Corin never plays games. He burns the board.”
His words hung darkly in the air.
“We need your help,” Cassian said.
Lea expected Billy to laugh, mock, reject them outright. Instead, he said nothing. The quiet on his end of the line felt thick, deliberate.
After several long seconds, Billy spoke again, slower this time.
“If I help you, it won’t be because of him.”
A pause.
“It’ll be because of her.”
Lea’s heart thudded painfully.
George reacted instantly. “Stay away from her.”
Billy ignored him. “Put her on.”
George didn’t move. His whole body went rigid, protective in a way that nearly blocked her from view.
Cassian raised a brow. “Let her decide.”
Lea took a breath, stepped forward, and held out her hand.
George met her eyes, conflict tightening every line of his face. “Lea”
“It’s fine,” she said softly. “I need to hear him.”
George hesitated… then slowly placed the phone in her hand.
The moment she pressed it to her ear, her pulse roared.
“Lea.”
Just her name, spoken in a quiet, bruised voice, made the world tilt.
“Billy,” she whispered.
His breath shook slightly through the speaker. “Are you hurt?”
The question stunned her. For a heartbeat, she forgot how to breathe.
“No,” she said. “I’m fine.”
A long silence followed, charged, uneasy.
“Good,” he murmured. “If Corin had gotten to you, I…”
He didn’t finish.
She steadied herself. “Billy, why are you involved in this? Why did you even come after me in the beginning? You said you weren’t my enemy.”
“I’m not.”
“Then what are you?”
Another silence. She could almost hear him thinking.
“I’m someone who made a mistake,” Billy said quietly. “And I’m trying to unmake it.”
Her fingers tightened around the phone. “By kidnapping me?”
Billy’s voice cracked, barely audible, but there. “I wasn’t supposed to hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you. But I couldn’t let Corin take you first.”
Lea’s breath hitched.
Cassian and George exchanged a look, but they didn’t interrupt.
Billy continued, his words slower now, like each one cost him something.
“You remind me of someone,” he said. “Someone I failed. Someone I can’t fail again.”
Lea felt something hard twist in her chest. “Who?”
But Billy didn’t answer that.
Instead, he said, “Corin is three steps ahead of you. And he’s not coming after you alone.”
George stepped forward, voice sharp. “What does that mean?”
Billy ignored him again.
“Lea,” he said, “you need to get out of that bunker. Now.”
Cassian’s eyes narrowed. “Explain.”
Billy’s tone dropped to a whisper, deadly serious.
“Corin planted a tracker on you.”
The room froze.
George surged forward. “That’s impossible…”
“It’s not,” Billy snapped. “Check her coat. Left inner lining. He marked her at the gas station when his man grabbed her.”
Lea’s stomach lurched.
Cassian moved first, swift and precise. He grabbed her coat from the chair and immediately slit the inside seam with a silver blade.
Something tiny, metallic, no bigger than a fingernail, fell onto the table.
A tracker.
Lea felt sick.
“Corin’s men are already on the way,” Billy said. “You have maybe ten minutes.”
Cassian cursed under his breath and sprinted toward the far console.
George’s voice was barely controlled fury. “Billy, if this is a trap…”
“If it were a trap,” Billy snapped, “you’d already be dead. All of you.”
George didn’t answer.
“Listen to me,” Billy continued. “You need to take her and move now. Not the main exit. There’s a secondary tunnel behind the generator room.”
Cassian slammed a button on the wall. Red emergency lights flared instantly.
“You’re right,” Cassian muttered into the phone. “They’re close.”
Lea’s pulse spiked. “Billy”
His voice softened again, unexpectedly. “Stay alive, Lea. Please.”
The line went dead.
Just like that, the bunker erupted into motion.
Cassian tossed George a set of keys. “Tunnel’s two floors down. Lead her. I’ll stall them.”
George grabbed Lea’s hand. “Move.”
Alarms blared. Lights strobed red. The bunker vibrated with the sound of distant impacts — Corin’s men were already breaching the outer perimeter.
Lea stumbled as George pulled her into a sprint, down a narrow hallway that shook with every echo.
“Billy saved us,” she blurted, breathless.
George didn’t slow. “Billy saved you.”
The words cut through her harder than the alarms.
They rounded a corner just as a steel door exploded inward behind them. Shouting voices filled the corridor.
George yanked her toward a stairwell, slamming the door shut behind them. His arm locked around her waist as they flew down two flights, boots pounding metal.
“George” she gasped.
“I’ve got you,” he said.
But she could hear it, the fear he tried so hard to bury.
They reached the bottom floor. The hallway here was narrower, colder, lit only by emergency strips of red light.
Cassian’s voice crackled suddenly through the intercom.
“George.”
George stopped. “What?”
“You HAVE to trust Billy.”
George’s jaw clenched. “Why?”
“Because,” Cassian said, breath ragged, “he’s not the only one coming for Lea.”
Static crackled.
A gunshot exploded somewhere above them.
Then Cassian’s voice, strained, fading, forced out three words that turned George’s blood cold.
“Lea’s file resurfaced.”
George froze.
Lea did too.
“What file?” she whispered.
George didn’t answer.
Cassian did.
“The one George hid from you.”
Silence.
Lea felt the ground tilt.
But Cassian’s next words hit harder. Deadlier.
“Lea… someone powerful wants you alive.”
George swore under his breath. Violently.
Lea stared at him, heart pounding. “George… what did you hide from me?”
He shook his head. “Not now.”
“Yes,” she said, voice rising. “Now.”
The bunker shook again, closer this time. Dust rained from the ceiling.
George grabbed her shoulders.
“Lea, if I tell you right now, you won’t run. And we need to run.”
“But, ”
He cupped her face, breath harsh. “Please. Just trust me.”
Her chest tightened. Because the worst part wasn’t the fear…
It was that she did trust him.
Even when he wasn’t giving her the truth.
Shouting voices echoed down the hallway, Corin’s men.
George took her hand and pulled her into the tunnel entrance.
They disappeared into the darkness just as the bunker doors were blown open behind them.
And somewhere above, in the smoke and chaos, Billy Ernest moved like a ghost through the breach, dead set on reaching Lea first.