Page 55 of The Santas Who Stole Me

She moves, and I hear a rattle.

“It’s me. The guys are upstairs. Are you in handcuffs?” I haven’t touched her, not trusting my rage. I ignore every fiber of my being that wants to pull her close and clench my fists at my sides.

“Keeper?” She stirs, and the rattle is louder now, scraping against the cement. “I’m chained to the floor.”

I can almost make out the outline of her foot and the cuff, so I pull her leg to me, feeling the metal. I need something to cut these and a light. Shit. “Let me grab something to get that off you.”

“Please don’t leave me. He’s going to come back.” My failure to keep her safe almost chokes my throat, stopping my words, but I push them out for her reassurance.

“I would never leave you. Give me a minute, and we will go together.” Before she can answer, I’m back through the side doors, grabbing the bolt cutters and dropping my feet back to the dirty floor.

The lights cut on, and my legs stay rooted in place at the scene before me.

“Sweetheart, you didn’t tell me we had company. I left for the raid at the diner but came back when I saw your guests trip the security alarm.”

That explains why the house wasn’t locked. I stare at the black barrel pointing at Georgie and begin to walk her way. Chad is deranged with his calm voice, as if we’re setting up a dinner party instead of staring at a woman he has chained to the floor.

“I noticed my colleagues upstairs are nowhere to be found. Did you scare them off?”

I take another step, desperate to get between her and the gun. Chad’s dark hair is disheveled, and his gleam is solely focused on Georgie, or so I think until the gun jerks my way.

He tilts his head. His dark eyes don’t meet mine, but they look over my shoulder.

Zeke walks to my side, his murderous intentions filling the small basement.

I don’t have time to think about where Calum is, but I know no matter what happens, I’ll keep my promise. Georgie is getting the fuck out of here.

Chapter Thirty-One

ZEKE

“Sweetheart.” His voice fills the coms, and I motion to Calum that I’m going to the basement. He nods, dropping the last of the bodies and shoving one in the pantry. There were five guards total, including the man who came out of a car stationed at the front. The security was a complete waste of effort, since there was plenty of cover sticking to the shrubs and the shed in the neighboring yard.

The moment I heard Georgia through Keeper’s coms I felt relief like I have never known. That is until I heard Chad call her sweetheart. Calum is silent on his way to the stairs that lead to the basement. We signal to each other the plan. After all of the jobs we’ve done together, we can work seamlessly. I rush to the back, unsure of what is happening with Georgia. Chad must have slipped in when we were in the kitchen moving the bodies out of the way.

Walking behind Keeper, I pull my gun on Chad who stands on Keeper’s right. I’m hoping my presence is enough of a distraction to allow Keep to get to her. It worked as planned, because his gun is on me now. My head tilts to the side, eyeing Chad, trying to figure out what will make him pull the trigger. He isn’t displaying many emotions now. In fact, he looks almost friendly. Still, I notice the slightest tremor in his voice.

“Oh sweetheart, you are so smart. You brought the men here to help with the FBI investigation. You always were the best asset we had at the bureau. She gave me some good clues about what you and your band of merry men have been up to. I have to say, you have your security tight around your accounts. It is fascinating; a technical company like the one you report to the IRS. I can’t imagine it does that well with so few employees.”

Chad is indeed pleased with himself for knowing how I avoid tax evasion with one of our companies. It’s not a closely guarded secret. The company information is public knowledge obviously for reporting purposes. Killing makes a sizable salary, but it’s all for shit if you don’t have a way to clean it and get it into usable funds. Still, with the tech company, there is no record of our real names or a way to trace us on social media. I don’t know how he made the connection, which makes my palms twitch more than I would like to admit.

Georgie is staring at the ground, her hair covering her face, without acknowledging any of us. Keeper hasn’t made it any closer after Chad’s little speech.

“What the fuck do you mean asset?” Keeper asks. His fingers move to the knife shoved in the back of his pants, and the other hand grips the bolt cutters.

“Informant. How do you think I got approval for the raid to try to dig up dirt on the cartel? Good old Georgia came through, although I’m not sure she really knew who her friends were. Either way, the FBI thanks her. Well, they would if they knew it was because of her I found one of the Vega Cartel’s business fronts. I forged evidence to get the approval for the raid, but with people like that, it will be easy to find more dirt once we take the place.” He’s so confident and delusional. I don’t believe Georgia helped him get any information on us.

She has no clue about the Vega connection to Marge. I only just figured it out. Regardless, the Vegas don’t get caught, false evidence or not.

“How about this, Georgie tell them what you did, and I’ll let them go. They can run off and leave us together. I will fail to mention them in my report on the diner takeover.”

Georgie peers at him through the breaks in her hair covering her face.

“Is that true? What did you tell him?” Keeper asks.

“It’s true. I made that call to him to try to get back together, and once I figured out what you all were doing, I helped him. So leave now.” She hides her sniffle and shifts her legs, causing the chain to rattle.

Even hiding under her hair, I can read her like a book. Shifting eyes before she pushed her tongue against her cheek in her mouth. She’s a terrible liar.