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His arrogant words halt her hip movement. Her eyes fly open, and the icy glare sends shivers down my back. Typical narcissist that he is, he doesn’t pick up on her demeanor change, rather continues to watch my reactions while he thinks he’s getting her off. She tilts her head back to look up at him, catching his attention on me. Her face twists as she yanks his hand out of her pants and she whips around, slapping him across the face and standing.
He retaliates by getting in her face. His fingers squeeze her cheeks in a vice grip, pushing her down on the coffee table. “What the fuck was that for? I’m so tired of your bullshit tantrums,” he seethes, his face beet red in the shape of a handprint.
Darkness crosses her face as her hand darts up with the syringe and stabs him in the neck. “I don’t beg for anyone, you bastard.” Sheer terror sweeps through me as he stumbles back, yanking the needle out of his neck. Panic shoots from his eyes and she meets it with a dark glare.
“That’s it, babe,” she says, mockingly. “Show her what it feels like to die.” Her voice doesn’t hold one ounce of remorse as she watches him crawl toward the kitchen with an air of desperation. I can only see his feet when his body stops moving, collapsing to the ground. Tears burn my eyes. This has to be a trick. She couldn’t have just killed a man and be okay with it. I flinch as she steps in front of me. “See what you made me do,” she mutters, kicking me in the stomach. I writhe with pain as it shoots through my body. I pull a few deep breaths through my nose, working through the pain, hoping another kick isn’t coming. Instead, she walks around me, lifts me off the floor and sets me upright.
“He was a means to an end, anyway.” She waves her hand in the air, plopping down on the couch and zipping her pants back up. “He was my way to get to you. It’s too bad he ended up being an asshole. We had something good going, or so I thought.” She shrugs. “He was great in bed though, which makes this suck. How’s Max in bed? I bet he’s a wild horse.”
She smiles, tucking her legs underneath her, an excitement in her voice like we’re two best friends having a sleepover and talking about our guys. I’m sure Addison and I have had this exact conversation. Except she hadn’t just killed a man.
“Speaking of Max, where is he?” She looks at her phone and frowns. “Why hasn’t he moved? His car is still at the hotel.” She doesn’t know he’s out of the country. She groans, pushing up off the couch and pacing. “Nothing is going as planned.” She glances at Brett laying on the floor. “I need him to be on his way to start.” My eyes widen. Start what?
She walks out and goes into the spare bedroom. Panic rises and I glance around the room, wondering what she went to get. When she comes back out, she passes me, humming a song and walks into the kitchen. Whatever she had in her hand was too small to see.
I jerk my head toward the kitchen when someone knocks. It has to be Stone. He’s probably wondering why I haven’t left today. And if I don’t answer, he’ll let himself in. Shanna puts her finger to her mouth, gesturing for me to be quiet. She digs through her bag and pulls out a gun. I violently shake my head. No! Don’t do it.
Another knock. She points the gun at the door. I don’t want to make noise, but if he lets himself in, hopefully my strangled scream will at least warn him. When another knock happens, quicker this time, my heart sinks. He won’t wait much longer. We both stare at the door with apprehension.
Silence. She glances at me, and I shrug, blowing out a breath of relief through my nose. Shanna walks to the door and looks out the peephole and turns toward me, smiling. “Oh. Looks like it was a delivery guy. I wonder what you ordered? Some lingerie for Max?” She says, unlocking the door. I tilt my head, confused. I didn’t order anything. She peeks out the door before opening it all the way and grabbing the package on my doorstep.
She opens the package and pulls out a white stuffed bear. “Isn’t that cute?” She rolls her eyes and digs through the paper, finding a note. “Ain’t Max the sweetest?” She says in a condescending tone. She walks over and holds the card up for me to see. “Too bad you guys won’t be okay.”
I read the note. We’ll be okay ~ Max. Relief hits me full force, I swallow hard to bite back the tears, blinking a couple times. Max didn’t send that note. He never signs with his whole name, which means it’s a decoy.
And now he knows I’m not in here alone.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Max
“I think we have our in,” Kase says from the other room.
I spit my toothpaste out and rinse before walking in there. We’ve been watching all morning and minus a UPS delivery, there’s been zero action. Kase formed an extraction plan if we can’t find a way in without force. His plan is the last option, but as the morning wore on, it’s become more likely.
He’s packing up when I enter the room, holstering his guns and sheathing his knives. “What’s up?” I say, confusion in my voice. We both agreed if we carried out his plan, we’d wait until night. It’s only two in the afternoon.
“The two guards just left with the woman. And not with Rex.”
“Let’s go,” I clip, grabbing my gun and phone off the table. I pull my shirt over my holster and we’re out the door in less than one minute. Time is not on our side with so many unknowns. Usually we would watch for schedule patterns, but I’m not giving Rex that much of my time. We’re doing this today. Last night, Kase found a dirt road where we can hide the car off the main road. We make the last ten-minute hike up the hill in five.
They’ve been gone fifteen minutes and I hope we have at least another fifteen. I send up the drone and find he’s in one of the back rooms, which is perfect. Blowing a hole out of the wall in front of the house would cause too much attention. The house is far enough on the hill, people below will think a car backfired.
Kase sticks a small amount of C-4 on the brick wall next to a window. Sticking my hand through the bars adjourned to the window, I tap a couple times. The curtains move and Rex comes into view. His eyes widen and he says, “Finally.”
I shake my head in disbelief and have half a mind to flip him off and walk away. “Ready when you are,” Kase says, standing ten feet back with the detonator in his hand.
“Step back,” I say to Rex, motioning for him to move away from the wall. The curtains close and I step aside, motioning to Kase the all-clear.
Within a minute, there’s a hole in the wall, smoke permeates the air surrounding us. Rex doesn’t wait for the air to clear, he comes barreling out of the hole, coughing. “Big brother, I’ve never been happier to see you.” I stare at him through narrowed eyes. His response, normally snarky when I bail him out, is suspicious. “Dude, that woman is a psycho,” he clips, pointing at the house. I chuckle, bending over to work on his ankle monitor. “It’s not funny, jackass. She’s held me captive for over a month.”
I get ready to cut off the transmitter but glance up at him. “I need you to pull your shit together. Once I cut this, it’ll ping her, I’m sure. So, we have to move as soon as this is off.” With limited resources and time, replicating the wireless frequency so it wouldn’t alert anyone when removed isn’t possible.
He takes a deep inhale, pops his neck and nods. “Ready.”
Kase is already down at the car on lookout. I press down on the bolt cutters, snapping the bracelet in half. We don’t waste any time making it down the hill. Rex stays right on my heels until we see Kase.
“No one’s come yet,” he says, jumping in the car.
