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“What’s with the alert?” heasked.
“Dimayev is ontherun.”
Both Tanner and Aiden stared at me indisbelief.
Aiden growled. “Whatthefuck?”
“My thoughts exactly,” I said. “We need to get Nina and hunker down until they find him.Where’sshe?”
“She was in the library a few minutes ago.” Aiden scrolled through his screen. “I’m pinging her by the service entrancerightnow.”
“What the hell is she doing over there?” Tannerasked.
“No clue,” Aiden said. “She was supposed to meetmehere.”
“Link up.” I fished my earpiece out of my pocket and, fitting it over my ear, turned to Tanner. “Aiden and I will get our hands on her. Find the truck. Meet us by thegarages.”
Tanner clicked on his coms, whirled on his crutches and disappeared into the house. Aiden had already taken off at a gallop, adjusting his coms as he went. I ran after him, around the gardens and to the back of themansion.
The night was cold and my breath puffed out in bursts of vapor. Fury roiled in my gut. A few moments ago, Dimayev had been a thing of the past and I’d been appreciating the sight of Nina enjoying herself, plotting strategies on how to get her to stick with us. Now I had to take her away and lock her up again. She wasn’t gonna behappy.
As I turned the last corner, I found Aiden crouching with something in his hand, studying the trampled ground. His head snapped up and his gaze hit me, eyes alight with rage. He opened his fist to reveal Nina’s pink cell. “They’vegother.”
The earth trembled beneath my feet. The ground gave way and my gut dropped with the plunge. I bit down on the inside of my cheek and tasted blood. I swear, if that motherfucker hurt her, I was gonna rip him apart. I dug my nails in my palms and wrestled to control my rage.Mission mindset, Zar. We had to getherback.
“Who, what andhowlong?”
“Two vehicles,” Aiden studied the dirt. “Big. Heavy. Loaded. Not long, three, fourminutes.”
Fuck. It took less than a millisecond for a bullet to leave the barrel. The mere thought made me wanna fucking puke.Get it together. If he’d wanted to kill her, we would’ve already found her body. There was a narrow, dangerous window of opportunity to act and by God, I was gonnatakeit.
Tanner’s souped-up Silverado roared down the driveway and skidded to a halt right next to me. The scowl on my face must’ve told Tanner everything he needed to know. He leaned over and pushed the passenger door open. Aiden leapt in the back seat. I jumped in the seat next to Tanner andbarked. “Go.”
Tanner stepped on the gas and drove down the ranch’s driveway, dodging a few latecomers to the wedding. “How the fuck did thishappen?”
“Major SNAFU, professional extraction job, he’s got maybe eleven hours on us,” I summarized what little we knew as I slid my hand in my jacket, pulled out my MK23 from my shoulder holster, andchamberedit.
“Eleven fucking hours?” Aidan swore under his breath, tearing open the weapons compartment behind the back seat and laying out our gear. “Insidejob.”
I concurred with a grunt. With a pull and a click, Aiden loaded Tanner’s MK11 sniper rifle and settled it wordlessly between our seats. Before I asked, he passed me my MP5 and clipped a magazine inhisM4.
Tanner halted at the ranch gates, where security was manning the event, and rolled down his window. “Has anyone left the ranch in the last fiveminutes?”
“A pair of black Suburbans just flew by,” the rent-a-copreported.
“How many peopleinthem?”
“Several.” The guy lifted his cap and scratched his head. “Maybe sixpassengerseach?”
Fuck. “Whichway?”
“East toward theinterstate.”
Tanner stepped on the accelerator and went from zero to a hundred. I clicked on mydialer.
Josh picked up at the first ring. “What’swrong?”
“They’ve got her.” I couldn’t fucking believe I was saying those words. “We’re in pursuit.” I visualized the long winding road between the ranch and the interstate, which followed the contours of the river. We fished the river all the time, so I knew the area like the back of my hand. The river flowed wide, full and fast under the new bridge and into the narrowing canyon where the old bridge still stood, right above the falls. There was only one place where we would be able to stop Dimayev. “We need the road closed at the newbridge.”
