Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 144571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 723(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 482(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 723(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 482(@300wpm)
Kala stepped back, allowing them to open the cage door. She watched the hand movements of the guard. It was how she’d gotten out of here the first time.
But they’d changed the locks. Now they used biometrics, so she would need someone’s thumbprint. The good news? It didn’t have to be attached to a living hand.
Devi was shoved in.
“I’m saving Devon for later,” Huisman explained. “I think Zach is going to want proof of life, and he’ll be far more reasonable if she’s as perfectly pretty as she is right now. She’s the bait. Though if it doesn’t work, one can also make the bait bleed. Chum the waters a bit. However, I thought I would start with you.”
Excellent. If they were going to let her out, she had a shot. Adrenaline started to pump through her, and she took a long breath, centering herself. She would have to be careful because the room was tight, and if they started firing it could hit Devi. But she could do this. There were only four of them, and Lena didn’t count. Lena would run the first chance she got. Huisman might, too. He tended to run rather than fight. Coward. She would take him down, and he wouldn’t get back up this time.
And then the dart hit her. Taser. Straight to her chest. She heard Devi’s startled scream and then she was falling to the floor, every muscle in her body seizing and shaking. Her head hit hard, and her vision started to fade again.
“You idiot. I didn’t give you the order,” Huisman was saying.
Someone pulled the dart out but her body kept shaking.
“It doesn’t matter,” Lena replied. “You would be better off putting her down. She’s nothing but an animal. She’ll turn on you in the end. If you ask me, she should have been put down as a child. There are some animals that can’t be tamed.”
As the world started to go dark, she heard the most terrifying words come from Huisman’s mouth.
“That sounds like a challenge.”
Chapter Eighteen
“You’re sure she’s there?” Drake looked through binoculars at the big house located on the outskirts of Winchester, Virginia. The small, sleepy town was peaceful at this time of the night. The moon was out but it was in a half phase, and the woods around him were dark.
Cooper was sure there was no peace tonight for his future wife. Did Kala even know she was back at the place of her original trauma? Had she woken up and looked around and screamed in despair?
Check that. His baby wouldn’t freak out. She would wake up and plan how to slaughter her enemies.
He hoped she knew he was coming for her. Well, he hoped she knew they would do anything to find her. She slept through meetings. He was pretty sure she had no idea what Lou had created.
“Her tracker places her there, and I have zero doubt it does everything Lou says it does.” Big Tag had been quiet on the plane. They hadn’t even used their own plane. Big Tag was worried that Huisman had people watching the team, so they’d all gone into the MT building as though headed in for a long meeting, and he’d slowly gotten them all out undercover. A few years back, he’d found a tunnel that led from their building to one two blocks over. No idea why it was there, but they used it when they needed to.
They’d gone to an executive airfield where a Bond Aeronautics jet was waiting. It was owned by Big Tag’s brother and sister-in-law and wouldn’t show any of them as passengers. Cooper had flown the jet with quiet precision, happy he had something to focus on during those hours.
“She’s in there,” Lou insisted. She’d changed into all black, while TJ was in dark fatigues. “They moved her from one side of the house to another.”
“Well, at least we know where they’ll keep her,” Charlotte said. She sat in the back of the van Drake had picked them up in, checking her guns.
“We have a go from Langley if you’re sure,” Drake informed them.
“I wish you hadn’t told them.” Big Tag sounded irritated. Drake had met them at the DC airfield with two vans and all the equipment they would need.
“You know I have to,” Drake argued. “This is an op on American soil. If something goes down, we’ll need an umbrella. The good news is this place is isolated. The nearest neighbor is two miles away.”
Drake should know since it used to be his house. Or rather his mother’s. At least some of this was the boss’s fault. “Well, I kind of wished you hadn’t decided to sell it. Or maybe you could have checked and seen who the buyer was.”
“Coop,” Kenzie began.
He wasn’t having any of it. “Nope. I’m kind of done with the older generation telling me I should be more careful. I have a brother I didn’t know I had and a bio mom who likes to blow shit up because they thought my father was close enough to the Taggarts to protect me. No one vetted them because apparently I was a cute baby and they didn’t want to ask questions. And now Kala’s in a place where she’s already been tortured once because Drake here couldn’t be bothered to read a contract.”