“I followed them down here and heard enough. I knew my father was capable of questionable choices in his business practices, but”—she gave a rough shake of her head that I could see even with her helmet on—“I had to come back and free you.” She tugged hard at the rope. “There are no blurred lines when it comes to murder. Even my father should know that.” The bitter note of her tone didn’t disguise the hurt and disappointment I heard there.

But he doesn’t care, I thought. Anything to further his own agenda. Did Daiyu just find out tonight that her father was capable of murder?

“He’s ordered people killed before.” It was cruel to say it so bluntly, but she needed to know the truth. Especially now, when Jin Corp was about to blow.

“I had no actual proof before, but now . . . ,” she replied. I barely heard her above the steady drone of the fire alarm. The rope slid off my ankles, and she pulled me gently to my feet.

I swayed, then felt Daiyu beside me, wrapping an arm around my torso, steadying me. Her closeness comforted and disconcerted me all at once.

“Three minutes,” the polite female voice reminded us. “Please exit the building. You have three minutes.”

“Imagine my surprise when my Palm told me my security code had been accessed at the front entrance,” Daiyu said. “I knew it had to be your friends—the ones Da Ge didn’t capture.”

My vision darkened for a moment, barely perceptible in the dim room, and I felt light-headed. She had let me see her code during that personal tour, hadn’t she? Even though Lingyi had already hacked the info. How long had she been tracking our use of it? And why? How much did she know?

I shoved away from her. “You remembered it was me,” I said in a hoarse whisper. Me who had kidnapped her and held her for ransom.

“I knew,” she replied.

Those two words punched like bullets into my chest. And I felt my breath sucked from my lungs, as if I were being bulldozed flat. I would have doubled over if these last months of training, of pretending to be someone I wasn’t—someone smoother, harder, more confident—hadn’t become inextricably tied to me. I had turned into Jason Zhou, was more comfortable as him, than I had ever wanted to be. While I was angsting over lying to Daiyu, she had been playing me all along.

“We have to go.” My tone was firm, not giving away the tumult of emotions that were overwhelming me. “They’re bombing the place.”

“You used the fire alarm to clear the employees out,” she murmured. “Nice.”

“Two minutes,” the polite female voice reminded us.

Once the building was cleared, the bomb would likely go off within a few minutes. I knew that was how Victor had planned it.