Oscar followed her down, slipping on his boxers when he reached the bottom. No more than three minutes had passed since Wayne had woken them up, but the peaceful night’s sleep he’d been having with Selene by his side seemed hours ago.
After revealing more than he’d intended about his relationship with Faith, the two of them had moved upstairs to the bedroom. He wasn’t sure who had made the first move. Maybe they’d both shifted closer at the same time. All he knew was, one second, they were unpacking the few clothes they had in their possession, and the next, they were naked on the bed, kissing and touching as if their lives depended on it.
Oscar was no stranger to one-night, even two-night stands, and while he knew they were in serious danger and this was far from a vacation, he was unnaturally happy to have this time with Selene. He wasn’t anxious for it to come to an end. Which was ridiculous, considering the very deadly threat to their lives.
“Do you think it’s Luca?” she asked.
“I think we should assume so and be pleasantly surprised when it’s not,” he snapped.
Selene merely raised an eyebrow, the corner of her mouth twitching. “Is something wrong, Oscar? You’re normally so easygoing and sunny…”
“Ha. Ha.” Actually, her teasing did help him relax. He’d warned her about his temper, yet his gruff tone didn’t seem to bother—or even faze—Selene.
They were silent for a moment, both straining to hear anything. In the silence, he started to work through the possibilities and iterations of what could be happening.
And the more he thought about it, the more he second-guessed the current plan of hiding in the basement.
“If it is Luca…” He glanced at Selene.
Her brow was furrowed. “He said their job was to protect us. But shouldn’t the priority be to take Luca into custody?”
“Exactly what I was fucking thinking.” Oscar scrubbed his hands over his face. “If he gets out of the car with a gun—”
“More likely a bomb.”
“—will they kill him to keep us safe?”
“And if they do, our chance at answers about that bomb dies with him.”
They glanced at each other and then both bolted for the stairs.
The guard by the window, Bill, glanced over when they emerged from the basement, his gaze hard. He gestured emphatically for them to go back down the stairs.
Oscar ignored him and ran at a crouch through the living room, scooping up the laptop from the floor before Bill could stop him. Cradling it with one arm, he ran back to Selene. Together, they looked at the camera feeds displayed on the computer.
A nondescript car sat about fifty yards from the house. The farmhouse, owned by Bennett Security, was regularly used as a safe house, so it had cameras set up around the perimeter. One of those cameras was capturing this feed. Because the car was still a fair distance from the camera, the picture was grainy.
Despite that, they could see the driver, who had both hands on the wheel, and as they watched, he bowed his head.
“Tired? Praying?” Selene whispered.
Wayne, who Bill must have signaled to come back downstairs to deal with them, clamped a hand on Oscar’s shoulder. “Sir, you need to get back in the basement, where you’re—”
“What are you going to do with him?” Selene demanded. “We need information from him.”
“Information?” Wayne frowned.
“Fuck, they’re not members of the cult, so they weren’t told shit.”
“What cult?” Wayne demanded.
“The fucking cult I just joined like a moron.”
Selene put her hand against his back, rubbing it in a circle, while addressing Wayne. “The man you’re protecting us from may have answers we need.”
“About a cult?” Wayne asked.
“Ignore the cult comment. He wakes up grumpy.”
Oscar snickered at her comment. It was rare for someone to not only find his gruffness inoffensive, but funny. Selene not only didn’t care when he snapped, she found a way to make him laugh.
“We need you to capture him,” Selene told Wayne. “But be careful because he may be wearing a bomb.”
In the silvery blue light that filtered in through the windows, Oscar thought he saw Wayne’s face go pale.
“You want us to capture a suicide bomber?”
“What?” Bill hissed, turning away from the window. “There was no mention of a suicide bomber.”
“This…this is what secrecy gets us.” Oscar kept his attention on the laptop. The man-who-might-be-Luca still sat in the driver’s seat, bent over the wheel.
Selene hastily explained. “We don’t know that he’s a suicide bomber. All we know is he kidnapped a