CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
GAGE
“D on’t fuck around down there,” I bark. “You need to follow orders so we all make it out of there alive.”
Ainsley gives me a brusque nod that she’ll comply, but I know she’s internally rolling her eyes. It makes me want to fucking strangle her. And then kiss the shit out of her.
Yes, I’m a goddamn headcase, floundering because I don’t allow my heart anywhere near my missions, and right now, it’s flopping around outside my chest.
Seated before me in a Twin Otter jump plane.
It’s two a.m., and we’re currently making the climb to our full altitude over Theo Vittori’s Montana property. All of us are quiet and hyper-focused on our job, the flight being too noisy for much conversation.
We aren’t certain what we’re walking into. Ainsley gave us as many details as she could from a conversation she’d overheard Nick have. It wasn’t much. But it takes very little to track someone down. You’d be surprised what can bloom from a few dropped seeds. She knew the size of the property, that it was a few hours’ drive from Yellowstone National Park, and that Theo had bought it a couple of years ago. That was enough. It was a tedious search, but that’s where Liam thrives. Even though it had been purchased under an alias, he was able to dig up sales records to determine where Theo’s safe house was and obtain the land survey and the cabin floor plan.
We accessed the most recent satellite images, which were from a week ago. There were four SUVs on the one-hundred-twelve-acre property. If that’s still the case, we’d expect somewhere between six to sixteen fighting-age males and possibly his wife and daughter. Innocents onsite always complicate matters.
I threw out every reason imaginable for Ainsley not to accompany us, hoping something would stick. Not one. She fought tooth and nail for her right to face Theo since she hadn’t gotten that opportunity with Tony. I argued that she had shot her father, Nick, and two other admins, so she still had a higher body count, but that didn’t convince her. Nor did it convince Wells and Ivy, who ultimately made the decision. Because despite my willingness to take her consequence should we fail, it’s still her deal with KORT.
My last-ditch effort was to have Dr. Landry tell us she still needed to take it easy, but he examined her and gave her the all clear. So, here we are.
We’ve gone over the plan fifty times, starting thirty-six hours ago. So, yeah, I’m sick of me too. Ainsley is fierce. She can handle herself in perilous situations. But she isn’t military-trained, and that is generally the skill set that keeps us steps ahead of our marks.
I’ll be stationing her outside the cabin with Ty on overwatch, high up in a tree, where she can be another set of eyes. And not a target. Once we secure the cabin, she and Ty can join us. That was my compromise.
Who am I fucking kidding? Compromise is a stretch. I called this shit a month and a half ago. Scratch that. I called it more than a decade ago. She’s got me by the balls. Fucking owns me. Always has. Always will. I keep telling her to hold on, but the truth is, she’s the one driving us, and I’m the one white-knuckling it.
Well, maybe not always.
“Up,” I tell her as I tug her off the bench with me.
“Always such a bossy dick,” she shouts over the commotion of the wind and engine and shouting orders of the pilot and the men around us as they jump into action.
“Your bossy dick,” I counter, dragging her to the open door and pecking her cheek.
She glances back at me, the slightest hint of hesitancy in her wild icy blues. “What now?”
Despite everything I’ve preached about us holding on, I don’t give her much time to think about it when I hurtle us forward. “Now, we let go. And fly.”