by Leigh Tudor
Loren was losing patience. “Just stop with the threats. I had a lot of time in the last few hundred miles to think about our current situation.” And listening to the conversation between Alec and the driver. And placing one targeted call on a trucker’s phone who grinned at the opportunity to “share his device with a lady with such a purty mouth.”
“We both know you’re in deep trouble with very bad people who wouldn’t think twice about cutting your balls off with a rusty knife and spoon-feeding them to you. Or else, you wouldn’t have come looking for me.”
Bancroft swallowed, his eyes darting to the left and right. “How do you know about that?”
“Easy. I fly under the radar and am constantly underestimated.”
She was getting a headache. It had been a long day. While in transport, she woke from the sedative, unclipped one of her hair barrettes, and when Alec and the driver started a new conversation, she crafted it into a shim. Within seconds, she released herself from the handcuffs and rubbed at the sting in her wrists.
Forcing herself to remain in the same prone position until the next distracting conversation between Alec and the driver took some time as neither one of them was rousing conversationalists. Once dialogue ensued, she fiddled with the DVR. She rewound her image from when she was under sedation and set it up so the image remained frozen on the screen as well as on the camera monitor sitting on the dashboard.
She was then free to peek out the back window of the ambulance doors, waiting until the van failed to make it through a stoplight. The ambulance took a turn and slowed to allow the van to catch up. Taking advantage of the reduced speed, she jumped out the back, scooting behind a decorative boulder at the end of a residential driveway.
Holding her breath, she waited for shouts and an impromptu search party, sure that someone from the van had seen her risky duck and roll onto the asphalt.
Ten minutes later, she broke into a home with some pretty impressive landscaping and hot-wired the Jeep Cherokee sitting inside the garage. And after calculating the speed necessary to make up for the lost time, it wasn’t long before she was nearing the van.
Tucking her hair behind her ears and tugging down on the confiscated Carhartt hat she’d found in the glove compartment, she hunched down in her seat, and within seconds of her calculation, she’d passed the van and then the ambulance.
Pulling into the gas station, she parked in a space near an outdoor restroom. She had about ten minutes on them, having driven above the speed limit and taking a shortcut indicated by the vehicle’s GPS. Her stomach made a wounded animal sound, and she realized how hungry she was. Rifling through the middle console, she smiled as she found two one-hundred-dollar bills folded over and tucked into some side netting. And after jotting down the address on the vehicle registration card, she made a mental note to pay the owner for borrowing a few things.
She smiled to herself, thinking Cara would be relieved knowing that.
And then she casually stepped out of the Jeep and into the restroom.
Sometimes, it was just too easy.
A long day, despite her ability to outsmart a fair number of alpha males.
Now she was full of confidence, and after her phone call, she held the upper hand. Refusing to back down, she insisted Jasper hand over the keys. Hairs on the back of her neck bristled, well aware that Alec’s eyes watched her every move. “Jasper, if you want me to get you out of whatever mess you’re in without your balls becoming a midday snack for a cartel drug lord, you need to hand over the keys.”
After watching the van and ambulance pull away onto the highway and retrieving Trevor’s phone in a nearby ditch, the two former soldiers silently trudged across the street to a small, dusty roadside diner.
Trevor took a sip of the scalding coffee and welcomed the burn. His so-called partner made a beeline to the head after ordering his food, leaving Trevor to ruminate over what was turning out to be another setback in a fast-failing mission.
FBI brass clearly communicated that this was his last chance to infiltrate what he was sure to be the apex to a number of high-profile crime rings. And once again, he was outsmarted by a small woman, riddled with muscles, shrouded in bleached blond hair, and armed with an intellect possessed by less than zero point one percent of the world’s population.
He closed his eyes as he felt the skin disintegrate from the roof of his mouth, thanks to the scalding hot beverage, and wondered if he could withstand the pain if he were to upend it over his body.
Because this new round of failures wasn’t about him.
It was about her.
Haley.
And if he failed, he would never forgive himself. Because it was fast becoming more and more difficult to give a damn about living without her in his life.
He couldn't care less if he failed M2M and the Feds.
He only cared that she had to live another day in that fucked-up, so-called research facility. And Ava Halstead, now Loren Ingalls, had been his last chance to get inside, blow that shit up, and save Haley.
He checked his phone, the screen cracked thanks to Loren graciously pelting it out her window as they pulled past the gas pumps and skirted onto the highway.
He stared at the broken screen, knowing full well he needed to advise Director Birch of the recent events but put it off, knowing the outcome.
He took another long-suffering drink.
He had managed to keep the case alive and him the relevant operative by achieving small, consistent victories. The first was by bringing the details to M2M and convincing them to hire him and lead the case. And then with M2M backing his case, they approached the FBI, only to discover they too had been making headway in gathering intel on the research facility. By compiling their information, Trevor had helped strengthen their case against Bancroft.
He then achieved a major milestone by fabricating a makeshift organization that pandered to high-profit, low-profile projects. He successfully made first contact with Bancroft and convinced him to take a chance on his group of mercenaries for discreet missions. By feeding the doctor information on the Ingalls sisters, he slowly earned Bancroft’s trust and received the call on Ava’s whereabouts. And finally, he convinced M2M to hire Alec, the target’s boyfriend, and someone who could verify or disavow a shit ton of information that seemed to take on a life of its own. Information that sounded more like urban legend than any true sense of reality.
The feds were chomping at the bit to take over the case. And this latest setback may be what finally takes him out. Once they learned he’d been played by Ava, now Loren, he’d be taken off the case and redirected elsewhere by M2M.
Director Birch had warned him many times that the agency wanted to take another direction. Rather than stealthily working their way into the research facility that was proving difficult if not impossible to infiltrate and exposing Bancroft’s sketchy business dealings, they wanted to work on each random lead outside of the facility, working their way from the outside to the inside.
But that would take longer.
And his throat ached and his head pounded at the thought of Haley spending another day away from him.
But he could be dogged and relentless.
By God, he would breach that insurmountable fortress, even if it was the last thing he accomplished on this earth.
Because the FBI’s strategy would ultimately lead them away from the research facility and his little girl. Which he absolutely knew was a monumental mistake.
He knew, with unwavering doubt, that getting inside that compound was the quickest way to expose dozens of criminal organizations. With the same level of conviction, he also knew that somewhere in that facility was a remote server that stored tons of incriminating evidence.
Terabytes of intel gathered, monitored, and relentlessly protected by the girl wonder herself. The ultimate leverage used to protect her and her sisters from less than honorable, vindictive factions.
He leaned his elbows on the table and rammed both thumb
s in his eye sockets.
She was his in. And she was rambling down the road, driving the ambulance she escaped from like a world-class magician.
He fisted his hands to his mouth.
That wasn’t true.
In hindsight, how she managed to escape was not born from sleight of hand or death-defying stunts.
Nope.
She easily escaped based on the simple fact that people had always underestimated her.
He wondered if the same were true of her sister Mercy.
When he saw the younger sister for the first time, fighting her way through the men in the lot of the hardware store, he thought for a moment that he was watching a younger version of Wonder Woman, with shorter hair and an even shorter temper.
Outside of her impressive physical attributes, he was most mesmerized by two things. Her unwavering determination to get to Loren, and the ease at which she protected the other sister Cara, who walked unperturbed as Mercy eliminated the offending attackers as if they were no more than bothersome gnats.
Alec scooted in the booth across from him just as the waitress set down two plates of burgers and fries.
Alec took a bite and pointed the burger toward Trevor. “I think it’s time we had a come-to-Jesus meeting.”
Trevor lifted one eyebrow as he bit into a fistful of french fries. “You figured that out by taking a shit?”
“Don’t discount the intellectual power of elimination.”
“So, you go to the shitter and come out evolved?”
Alec took a bite of what was easily one-third of his burger. “We need to find a way to get Loren back and form an alliance.”
Trevor swallowed and picked up his burger. “Hate to break it to you. But this is a highly researched and orchestrated FBI mission. Not an episode of Survivor.”
“Highly orchestrated?” Alec asked with a snort. “I think we both know better than that. Where’s your backup? Where’s your comm team? How about a tactical team, outside of me?”
Alec leaned in as Trevor shoved another french fry in his mouth. “We both know this is a long-shot attempt to keep your case alive with little to no help from your friends at M2M or the FBI.”
Trevor picked up his burger. “This is a mission that requires subtlety as opposed to helicopter raids and missile launchers.”
“No, it’s a mission that would have been successful if we would’ve leveraged Loren as a Trojan horse rather than a sacrificial lamb.”
“Is this your subtle way of saying ‘I told you so’?”
“No, it’s my way of saying you should’ve listened to me in the first place since I happen to know the target intimately.”
“Which is . . . another way of saying ‘I told you so.’”
Alec threw his burger on his plate, scattering fries on the table. “Look, I’ve listened to all your jacked-up lies and sketchy disinformation. And I followed your lead because I thought I could keep Loren safe if I were in control of her whereabouts as opposed to that fuckwad in a lab coat. But had you filled me in ahead of time, I would’ve insisted we explain our motives to Loren and leverage her capabilities rather than forsaking her safety. Thanks to you and your weak-ass M2M company, my girlfriend is on her way to a lab that potentially cut into her brain and made her do God knows what. So if you want my continued participation in this fuckup of a mission, we’re going to be real partners working collaboratively and with full disclosure of the facts.”
Trevor sat back against the vinyl seats, barely noticing the twinkling of the diner’s doors as someone walked in and strode up to the counter.
Trevor couldn’t deny that Alec was right. What Alec didn’t know was that he had already planned to pull Loren in as an ally, but she’d escaped the ambulance before he could cut a deal with her. As far as full disclosure, the truth of the matter was that there weren’t more facts to disclose.
Other than Haley.
And there was no way in hell he was going to divulge information regarding his daughter. Because then it would be the same with Alec as Birch. The assumption that this was a last-ditch effort to save someone he loved rather than a solid mission with the necessary foundational data that validated his strategy.
Before he could reply, a small black leather glove with the cut-out fingers smacked down on the table between them.
“Why don’t one of you douchecanoes tell me where my sister is?”
Both men had a hand on their weapons inside their coats before identifying their adversary.
Mercy stood between them, wearing black leather pants, a cropped camo jacket over a black T-shirt, and sporting what Trevor’s niece referred to as a “smoky eye.”
A cross between a ninja and an overage emo reject from high school.
Trevor wondered if the two sisters had some sort of thing for wearing kid-sized clothing that, at the moment, happened to be doing a great job of showcasing her frontal assets.
Trevor continued to hold the grip on his weapon as Alec released his. There was no way he’d make the same mistake of underestimating one of these feral women.
Alec sighed. “Mercy, what the hell are you doing here?”
“I’m here to take my sister back to Wilder. Where is she?” She straightened, setting her hands on her slender hips and keeping her eyes glued to Alec’s.
Alec glanced at Trevor.
Her eyes followed, landing on Trevor. He breathed in, having a visceral moment looking into bright amber eyes against a tanned olive complexion.
“Who’s this?” she asked, her thumb motioning toward Trevor as she turned to Alec.
Alec responded, taking another bite of his burger. “Forrest, meet Loren’s pain in the ass sister, Mercy.”
Ignoring Trevor, she looked around the diner and then leaned her arms on the table and narrowed her eyes at Alec. “You lost her, didn’t you?” A slow smile cracked her face, causing Trevor’s dick to collide with his zipper. He chalked it up to not having been with a woman in over eighteen months.
“She got away, didn’t she?”
Alec dropped his burger on his plate for a second time, but this time, he pushed it away. “She did.”
“Well then,” she said, her smile turning menacing as she removed her jacket and chucked it on the seat next to Trevor without looking at him. “Give me one good reason I should let you live, Wilder.”
She scooted one hip and knee onto the table, the opposite boot planted to the floor while facing Alec. Trevor had a backside view of the strip of skin between her two sizes too small T-shirt and the low-rise waist of her jeans. Her leg, hanging off of the side of the table, swung back and forth with the harmless demeanor of a middle schooler.
She was anything but.
She was brash and rude, further evidenced by the piece peeking from the back of her low-cut pants.
And packing.
“Tell me,” she said, stuffing a french fry in her mouth. Trevor swallowed as she licked her fingers. “Why should I allow your heart to continue beating when you decimated Loren’s?” She picked up another fry, pointing it at Alec. “See, she loved you. Trusted you. She thought you loved her back; thought you were going to make all her dreams come true. But just like all the other male chromosome butt-munches in her life, you used and abused her.”
She slid off the table, leaning close to Alec’s face, just as she plunged a knife from out of nowhere into the table in front of him.
Trevor glanced around the diner, but neither the customers nor the waitresses appeared to notice the altercation just a few yards away.
“So, I’m gonna need you to give me a good reason I shouldn’t take this knife and shove it up your tight bum.”
Alec smirked, and Trevor thought he had to be out of his mind to provoke her.
“Bum?” Alec asked with a lift of his eyebrows.
Hers came together. “Eff you, Wilder. You know I’m trying to curb my language,” she said, pulling the knife out of the table and sliding it back into her boot. “I’ve managed to curse
my way into three years of purgatory sitting in a church pew. I’m not about to add to it.”
“No one would know,” Alec said with a shrug. “I won’t tell.”
Mercy rolled her eyes and then sneered. “It’s a thing called principles, Wilder. Something you wouldn’t know anything about.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Now, follow me outside so I can end this. I’ll even give you a knife so it’s a fair fight.”
She checked her black matte watch. “But we need to wrap this up so I can make it back in time to watch The Bachelorette with Loren.” She scowled at Alec with a death-wish glare. “But trust me, you’re going to die a slow, painful death, you miserable piece of feces.”
Alec chuckled, shaking his head. “Feces.”
“I’m warning you, Wilder. You’re ticking me off.”
“Oh, am I ticking you off?”
“Are . . . are you effing with me?”
Trevor had to put a stop to this macabre argument and potential schoolyard brawl.
“Okay, let’s everyone calm down.”
Mercy’s head twisted toward him, her eyes the color of an autumn storm. “Did you just tell me to calm down?”
Trevor refrained from responding on the chance that it could make her come all the way unhinged. Not to mention, he didn’t have the time or intention to fight a woman to the floor in a diner.
Alec pulled himself from the booth, hovering over the girl who couldn’t be more than five and a half feet and now looked to Trevor like Wonder Woman gone rogue.
“Come on. Let’s go outside,” Alec said, turning her by her shoulders toward the front entrance, “and let’s discuss this like adults.”
She wrenched away from him. “Why should I?”
Trevor interrupted as he stood, throwing two twenties on the table. “Because your sister escaped, purposely placing herself back into Bancroft’s custody and leaving us stranded in the middle of nowhere.”
“What?” Mercy turned to Alec for confirmation. “She’s with Jasper?”
Alec gave her a single nod.
“But why?” She ran her fingers through her hair in disbelief.