“Motherfucker didn’t know who he was dealing with,” Drea muttered as she rifled through her bag. She held up a syringe and a scalpel. “You ready?”
“Get it out,” she told Drea.
Key climbed over the seat to help them. Both he and Drea gloved up after Drea numbed the area.
“It’s still going to hurt,” she warned Avery.
“Doesn’t matter,” Avery told her, and Drea didn’t hesitate with the scalpel. With the car jostling, which couldn’t be helped, her concentration had a razor focus.
Key was holding a pressure bandage at the ready and Avery hissed as she felt the probing of Drea’s fingers. The car shimmied hard and Drea pulled away.
“Jem, you have to stop. For just a few seconds,” Drea said. “I don’t want to damage anything by mistake.”
Jem cursed and braked hard. Drea didn’t hesitate. Avery concentrated on Drea’s face instead of the pain, and Drea’s eyes widened.
She nodded, talked to herself under her breath as she gently moved her fingers around in the underside of Avery’s arm. In the next ten seconds, she pulled out completely, handed the chip to Key and held the pressure bandage to Avery’s arm.
“We got it,” Key said.
The truck began to move again, fast, and Jem said, “And I know just the place to put it for the perfect distraction.”
The truck bounced along the ruts and Drea just held her arm as both women had their eyes on the ceiling, as if they expected the chopper to come through the roof of the truck at any moment.
Key was wrapping the chip to the side of a gun; then he moved to the window, opened it and waited until Jem said, “Now, Key.”
Avery propped herself up to see what was happening, but it was so dark she couldn’t.
“There’s a river,” Drea told her. “We’re driving right alongside it.”
“It’ll keep the chip moving,” Avery said with a nod. The truck continued at its frantic pace, but the sound of the chopper got fainter.
“It’s following the chip.” Jem sounded relieved, and Avery figured he was talking to the other car. “She’s okay.”
“I’m okay,” she called. Because she was. The fight inside her had been renewed even as her head spun with the knowledge that Landon had known where she was the entire time.
Chapter Twenty-five
Staying together might be the worst idea ever, but now that none of them was carrying a GPS chip inside their body, no one thought to voice a difference of opinion.
Avery didn’t even know what time it was when the truck stopped moving and Jem helped her into a new safe house. Later, she’d ask what state and city they were in, but for now, she went into the bathroom and let Drea stitch her up.
Gunner stood in the doorway, watching, until Drea asked for his help. He caught Avery’s eye, waited until she nodded before coming forward to assist.
Within half an hour, Avery had a new bandage, some more pain medicine and a newfound sense of teamwork, especially when Gunner said, “We need to meet now. Whether you’re up for it or not.”
Good. He wasn’t treating her like glass. “I’m definitely up for it.”
“Drea, you can join us,” Gunner told the doctor. “You deserve to know what’s happening before we go farther. And if you want out, as in away from us, no one will blame you.”
Drea nodded, stripped her gloves. “I’ll be right there.”
Avery let Gunner guide her into the kitchen, where everyone else was sitting around the table. Grace had made some eggs and bacon and toast. She pushed coffee in front of Avery when she sat, and Avery drank it gratefully.
Despite what they’d been through that night, coming out safe on the other side always made for more of a happy atmosphere, no matter how bad the danger still was. This time, there was no immediate danger, but it was imminent just the same.
“Where do we start?” she asked quietly, as if she was waiting for any of them to tell her she wasn’t ready for this.
But no one did. Gunner was sitting next to her, but he turned and spoke directly to her. “We don’t know if Donal’s killed Drew and is impersonating him, or if the men are working together. It doesn’t matter, because the plan’s the same. Rather than going directly after Landon, our best bet it to start by taking out his customers. Then his suppliers. Hit him where it hurts, which makes things safer for us.”
“We’ll have to do it fast,” Key said.
“Set up on different sides and blow them all at once,” Jem agreed. “As dangerous as being separate is, staying together is worse.”
“Avery and Gunner shouldn’t be together,” Dare said.
“Landon will expect that,” Avery said. “Which is exactly why I’m not letting Gunner out of my sight.”
“Way to take his manhood,” Jem said. “You’ve got to let him say that about you.”
“If that’s the way it’s supposed to be, forget it.”
“Guess I have a bodyguard,” Gunner said, a small smile on his face. “That plan works for me.”
“So we blow things up and then what?” Grace asked. “Go right after him?”
“I don’t think so,” Dare said slowly. “Let him stew. Let him reach out to other contacts.”
“Contacts that we’ll infiltrate,” Key added.
“It’s a semi-long-term approach. Six months of planning,” Gunner said. “Which means we need a place that’s secure as shit. Because we need to be together for the planning.”
Grace was pacing and then she snapped her fingers.
“Honey?” Dare said.
“I think I know the perfect place,” she said.
Dare pressed his lips together grimly before saying, “Absolutely fucking not.”
“We all sacrifice,” she started.
“And you already have,” Dare pointed out.
“Get the feeling we’re missing something?” Jem asked.
Grace told them, “Right before Dare and I came back here, I found out that Rip left everything to me.”
Avery’s eyes widened. “Everything as in . . .”
“The island. The money. Everything. A locked will. The attorney doesn’t even know what it says. Just sent me to open a safe-deposit box. Everything was put into my name, although that information is guarded by the banks under a different name. He thought of everything.” Grace paused. “We were going to tell you guys right away, but there was so much else to work on. It wasn’t an urgent matter, but now . . .”
“We go to the island. Clean it up, security-wise, and it could work,” Jem said.
“You don’t think Landon will watch the island?” Dare demanded.
“Why? We’d never thought of it,” Key said, and Gunner got up so fast his chair slammed against the wall behind him. Avery went to get up, but Grace put a hand on her shoulder.
“I’ve got this,” she told Avery, and Avery knew it was important enough to stay put and let Grace work some magic.
• • •
Gunner was in the living room, pacing, when he saw Grace push through the kitchen door. Of all people to send after him now, she would definitely be the most effective.
He wondered if she’d gotten Dare to say yes in that short time. In which case, the guy was definitely whipped.
Like you’re not.
“Grace, I appreciate you coming out here, but—”
“You were trying to tell me that you were Rip’s son, that night, at Darius’s, when I had the fever,” Grace said, and no, that wasn’t what he had expected.
He thought about the first time he’d met her, how sick she was. How Dare told him about the scars that covered her body.
How Gunner already knew that living with Powell was like a death sentence, with the majority of time served on death row with no hope of actually escaping. “Maybe. I wanted you to know you were
n’t alone.”
But that wasn’t the only reason. What good would telling her have done? For her to know that maybe there was someone out there who knew what she’d gone through, because he’d been there. . . .
“There was nothing you could’ve done. No way you could’ve known. If anything, my mother and I got you chased out,” Grace told him firmly.
“You’re a mind reader now?” he asked to try to break the tension.
“I’m good with feeling guilty over things I had no control over. I recognize that instantly,” she shot back.
“It wasn’t that. Powell had a business deal gone bad. I was a fair trade.”
“I’m sorry. So sorry about what happened to both of us. I know going back to that house will be as hard on you as it will be on me. Maybe I had no right to make that decision before speaking to you.”
“Going back there is going backward, Grace. Touching that place . . . it’s fucking poison,” he told her.
“No place is poison, not if we don’t let it be,” she said.
“I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Jem told them. Gunner had seen him come into the room, and Dare probably had too, but suddenly Crazy Man was the voice of reason. Again. “First, we need someone to pose as a job—a criminal who needs to leave the country.”
“How about a criminal’s wife?” Grace asked. “That would make things less suspicious.”
“Woman, you are really pushing things tonight,” Dare growled. “You did not just offer yourself for the job, did you?”
“He’s never met me in person. He’s seen me on the tape with a gag in my mouth,” Grace pointed out.
“A guy like Landon can use facial-recognition software,” Key reminded them.
“And he already has,” Gunner told them.
“How do we know that for sure?” Avery asked.
“Because I was identified.” Gunner went into the kitchen, came out and sat on the couch. He typed in the code and then turned the screen outward to face them.
Avery blinked. “It’s us.”
“Like the fucking Brady Bunch,” Jem muttered, and indeed, the screen was split into six boxes, showing Gunner, Dare, Grace, Jem and Key. The last box was blank at the moment, but the shots had been taken from when they’d been on Powell’s island.
“Can’t we wipe Landon’s computers?”
“I already did. Doesn’t mean he doesn’t have copies. Everyone uses facial-recognition software these days,” Gunner said.
“But if we disguise Grace’s face, put some fake cheekbones and shit, it’ll throw the software off,” Jem said. “She’s our best shot.”
“She’ll have to change the way she walks. The best software does more than faces,” Gunner said.
“I can change anything if it means getting rid of this guy from our lives,” Grace promised.
“Or I could help.”
• • •
Jem turned at the sound of Drea’s voice. She’d remained in the doorway of the kitchen but now moved forward and Jem willed her not to say anything more.
Which obviously didn’t work when she said, “The asshole who hurt Avery doesn’t know me. I could do it.”
“No way,” Jem said before Avery could open her mouth.
“Why not?” Dare asked, arms crossed.
“She’s not trained, for one,” Jem pointed out.
“I can shoot. I can use a knife. Well, a scalpel. Same thing really,” Drea said. “And I know how to fight.”
“Sweetheart, this fight would be like nothing you could’ve ever imagined,” Jem promised her.
“It’s one meeting,” Grace pointed out. “She’d pass his scrutiny in a second.”
Key nodded and Jem walked toward Drea, hand on her biceps, and tried to steer her out of the room. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Offering to help.”
“I already told you, you don’t owe us.”
“I heard you, Jem. But what if I want to help you?”
“Too dangerous.”
“You need me to get to him. I’m your best option. He’s suspicious already—you said so yourself.”
“We’ll just go with our original plan of making his life a living hell,” Jem said.
Avery shook her head. “It’s going to take too long, Jem.”
“Dammit.” He was having more of a problem with the women in his life being in the line of fire than he’d thought. He’d always been equal opportunity, felt that if women could do the job, they could have it. And he knew Avery could. But that didn’t stop him from freaking at the thought of her getting hurt again. Same went for Grace, and now for Drea.
“This is for Avery. And Grace. And for me,” Drea told the group, but really, she was speaking to him. All he could do was nod his acceptance, even though he wasn’t accepting it at all.
Chapter Twenty-six
Goddamn, it had been a long day. All the sitting around and talking rather than getting out there for some action was making the men act like caged lions. Pretty soon, they were going to start wrestling in the middle of the living room to blow off steam.
It was close to three in the morning after Jem had finished doing some research with Key, left his brother still working to relieve Dare and check on Drea.
She was in bed, but reading. Looking wide awake and fucking adorable in his T-shirt and a pair of sweats that were broken in just right.
“Can’t sleep?” he asked.
“Lately, it’s the last thing on my mind.” She accepted the mug of hot chocolate he handed her and tucked herself under the covers. She’d left room for him in the bed and oh yeah, he liked that.
Too much. It was fucking with his game. “Look, I appreciate what you did back there—”
“No, you’re pissed about it.”
Her honesty disarmed him. She was such a straight shooter. “Yeah, I am. Worried more than pissed but . . . dammit, Drea, you’ve got to stop putting yourself directly in trouble’s way when I’m trying to get you out of it.”
“I guess I’m good at finding trouble.” She let her gaze fall on him meaningfully.
“Aw, come on, that was too easy.”
“You walked into it,” she pointed out. “Can you tell me a little more about this Landon guy you’re all discussing? What he does for a living?”
“He’s a smuggler. He helps criminals leave the country, but he also stops human traffickers. Lots of shades of gray,” Jem explained. “We’d have no problem with him if he didn’t keep trying to kill us.”
“He’s the one who hurt Avery?”
“Yes. Now can you understand why I don’t want you anywhere near him?”
She nodded. “But Grace can’t do it. And you don’t have anyone else.”
“We’ll find another way. There’s always another way.” Only this time, there really wasn’t, and Drea knew that as much as he did. As much as they all did.
• • •
Avery dreaded reading Adele’s missing journals, but once she’d forced herself to start, she was angry she hadn’t done so earlier.
It’s the worst thing that could ever happen to a woman, and they know that. It’s why it’s their best weapon. But after months of healing physically, I’m going to accept that I’ll never be the same. That’s all right. I’m still strong. I’m just different. And to change is to live. To survive.
She was a survivor.
“It’s a shame she never had kids,” she’d told Grace after she’d finished the first journal. “She would’ve been the best mom.”
“She was,” Grace said, hugging her arms around herself.
It was then Avery remembered how much they’d all lost. If they hadn’t been broken by now, she had to assume they never would. “I forgot how long you spent with her.”
“I didn’t read thes
e journals until she’d left. But then I understood why she got me—didn’t yell at me about being promiscuous. She understood it was my way of taking back my power,” Grace said.
The planning was happening around her. Gunner briefed her at night, and sometimes she fell asleep while he was talking. That was all right—it was as if what he said was solidifying in her brain, adding fuel to the fire. And every day, the need for strict vengeance wore a little thinner. The need for justice grew stronger. It was a much better balance.
After a month, they moved locations. A different state, a better safe house that Jem and Key vetted for a week before they allowed the others to move here.
It was all temporary, Avery knew. Her ultimate goal was to get Gunner back to his tattoo shop. Back to at least drawing, which she hadn’t seen him do once.
She’d forced herself to look in the full-length mirror daily since Drea took the bandages off. Wanted to know exactly what Landon had done, wanted to watch the black stitches dissolve and the bright red scars fade to pink and then eventually white, knowing her anger wouldn’t fade as quickly. Not until Landon paid, and paid dearly.
He didn’t have family. No one close to him that she could hurt him with, beyond Gunner. Even if there were, she didn’t think she could do that.
But not having anyone to care about was how the man stayed on top for so long. You couldn’t care about anyone or anything that could be used against you. And that was S8’s fatal flaw. She couldn’t see that changing any time soon. It was the only way to keep their consciences in check, the only way they’d ever be able to love.
“We could retire to an island. Work enough to live and then just hang out,” Jem had suggested yesterday.
“You? Hanging out? Doing what, lying in the sun? I give it less than an hour,” she’d scoffed.
“Maybe I’d love it.”
She knew she wouldn’t.
She traced the scars now, her fingers trailing as her eyes never left the mirror.
Every night, she curled up next to Gunner, fully clothed. And every night, he’d held her through nightmares that went from multiple ones nightly to one per night and then a few times a week. Body and mind seemed to heal at the same time. Having Grace and Dare and Key there helped. She could concentrate on healing, without worrying that everyone was in danger.
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