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Wes looked up from his laptop. “I’ve hacked into the system—it’s pretty damn basic—and I’m going to loop them.”
“Roger.” Brand reached into his pocket and handed out small comms units.
Lex slipped one into his ear and tried to calm his racing heart as the garage and rear scrapyard came into view. “Any ideas for Plan B?”
No one said anything. They were all too focused on the insane size of the salvage yard. So much twisting metal soared straight up to the blue sky. Rusted cars stacked upon old truck cabins piled on broken trailers.
“I’m thinking we split up into pairs to cover more ground faster,” Brand said, his attention on the absolutely huge maze of towering crap looming over Mack’s shop. “When you said massive, Battle, I wasn’t exactly expecting it to be the size of Manhattan.”
“That’s what she said,” Jayson murmured.
“Plan B?” Lex asked again, looking around at his friends’ faces.
“How about blow shit up?” Xander suggested, lifting a duffel bag loaded with explosives. “Isn’t that the standard Plan B around here?”
“Sometimes it’s Plan C,” Chaz said.
Fucking great. Lex squeezed his eyes shut and prayed he could get Summer out of there before shit started exploding.
Chapter eighteen
One of the suits yanked Summer forward, pushing her toward the garage entrance, and she stumbled a step. Her duct-taped hands flailed in front of her before she quickly regained her balance, and an overwhelming sense of doom filled her. The rolled-up door resembled a dark maw of some carnivorous creature, ready to eat her up, and as they stepped inside, the gloomy interior did little to quell her rising fear.
“Dougherty!”
She cringed as one of the suits yelled in her ear. The second suit moved up beside them, towing Scott. The Broker’s men pointed their guns straight ahead, sweeping their weapons back and forth as they searched for the garage owner. At least they weren’t pointed at her, but the tape around her wrists had to go. She hated feeling so helpless.
“Get out here, Dougherty! The Broker wants his container!”
Silence.
Summer scanned the darkest corners, searching for Dougherty. Then she heard the creak of a door opening and the scrape of feet on cement as The Mechanic stepped out of an office hidden behind a row of stacked tires.
“I don’t have it,” Dougherty stated. Instead of a cigar, he had a toothpick sticking out of the corner of his mouth. Despite having two pistols pointed at him, he looked oddly calm. A little too unconcerned.
“Well, if that’s true, then this asshole here must have it,” the suit said, shoving Scott forward. “And since you hired the prick, you deal with it.”
“I don’t have it! I swear!”
“He’s lying,” Dougherty drawled.
“Maybe he needs some incentive to tell the truth.” The other suit’s fingers squeezed into the flesh of Summer’s upper arm. She yelped, trying to twist away. “How about we start cutting off her fingers. Might help you remember what happened that night. Because someone is lying, and we’re here to find out who.”
Oh, God. She curled her fingers inward, not liking that their fate rested on Scott. Nope, not good at all. Time to speak up. “Scott didn’t take it,” she said, trying to sound assured. Confident and certain. She nodded to Dougherty. “His men did.”
The moment the words left her mouth, several goons stepped out of the shadows in various corners of the garage, including the thug with the ace of spades tattooed on his cheek. “You killed my partner,” he snarled. Moving fast, he swung his hand up, and Summer’s heart sank when she saw the gun. Pop, pop! The suit holding her arm let go and went down with a pained shout.
Oh, shit! Everything seemed to happen at once, and she and Scott immediately scrambled to find cover while more gunfire erupted. Dropping to the ground, she crawled forward, praying she was low enough to avoid getting hit. Her only thought was to get as far away as possible and hide.
Scurrying forward as best as she could with her hands bound, she ducked behind a large tool cart and immediately began searching the trays for a knife. Scott appeared beside her, bumping into her as her fingers wrapped around a box cutter.
“Give me your wrists,” she ordered, clicking the blade up. He thrust his hands forward and she sliced through the duct tape. “Now me.”
He took the blade and cut her free. Ripping the tape off, she balled it up and tossed it. Gunfire and yelling continued to pierce the air as she racked her brain for a plan. They had to get out of there, and now, during all the commotion, seemed like an opportune time.
Grabbing the blade back from Scott, she kept it as a weapon, but she hoped like hell she wouldn’t need to use it. Her gaze roamed all around, searching for a back door, when the garage became deathly silent. Not wanting to draw attention to their position by moving too much, but needing to know what was happening, she peered around the corner of the cart.
Both suits were down, lying in pools of blood. Oh, God. Her pulse thundered as Dougherty and his men stalked forward, checking to make sure The Broker’s men were dead. Ace fired an extra round into each of them, and Summer jumped at the sound. Beside her, Scott hissed out a breath.
