Chapter Sixty-Four
How crazy are Dax and Gigi…?
The question might haunt Chance for the rest of his life. It was certainly on repeat as he pressed the gas pedal and sped out of DC after he and Courtney hadn’t been sure how crazy the tabloid-obsessed couple was. Without a plan, Chance had called had been to Jared.
Boss Man had answered on the first ring. He didn’t question their combined situational assessment and conclusion: Jane was in danger. No one had seen that coming, and that would be another thing that would haunt Chance.
They left DC and headed toward National Airport. Between Jared and Courtney and their fleet of helicopters, they promised Chance they could get him to Jane faster than he could drive to the Thanes.
Chance rounded the corner of the highway, passing under the Virginia is for Lovers welcome sign. His phone rang. The Bluetooth speakers picked the call up as he sped by the Pentagon. “Yeah?”
“Pull onto the left shoulder and stop,” Jared ordered.
“Stop?”
“Yeah, pull the fuck over.”
“Hell,” he muttered. “Roger that.” He tore onto the shoulder. Debris and rocks rolled in the wheels and under the truck as he slammed on the brakes. “Stopped.”
“Then get out,” Jared said.
Chance didn’t have time to question. He tucked his Glock in a holster and grabbed the keys and his phone and squeezed out his door.
He wouldn’t have parked so close to the cement barrier wall if he knew he’d have to hoof it.
Then he looked up, feeling the stealth helicopter before he heard it as the beast lowered into the closed HOV Express lanes.
“Holy shit.” He jumped the cement barrier and ducked for his next ride.
The hatch door opened. Two men greeted him by way of handing him gear and weapons. They had a way about them. Chance could tell they knew his world well. Each seemed to know that this was one of those jobs where names weren’t mentioned because this job never officially existed.
He grabbed a headset and listened as the pilot called in their liftoff.
“Midas?” Parker’s voice reverberated.
Chance took a deep breath, reassured to have someone he knew on standby, even if it was only by radio transmission. “Midas checking in.”
Parker gave a quick update and run-down.
They opted out of making an emergency call to the police until they knew the situation.
Jared had reached out to Pennebaker, who reached out to Sal.
They’d be their eyes on the ground until they touched down again.
If they saw anything suspicious from the outside, the men had the wherewithal to pull in the cops.
Otherwise, they wouldn’t enter and would wait for Chance to call the shots.
His instructions were simple: assess for immediate danger and collect intel.
Use Sal and Pennebaker as backup. Lean heavy on the man who went by “Winters.” The other man, call sign “Cash,” would “disappear and do his job.” Judging by the sniper rifle at his side, Chance gathered Cash would be their eyes and cover.
What could’ve been a forty-five minutes or longer drive was whittled down to eighteen. The pilot had shaved an additional two minutes when he announced they’d arrived.
The hatch opened. Cash slipped out like liquid spilling into the night. One second he was there, the next second, gone.
“Midas, Winters,” Parker called. “Don’t rack up a body count.”
Winters glanced at Chance. “Formality. Mostly.”
He snorted. They bumped fists, pulled their night-vision goggles on, and hustled toward the house that Chance couldn’t stand.
Except for her legs, Jane was ready to run.
She kept up her unconscious performance as wooden hangers were tossed aside and dully clicked together, though she’d been able to covertly take in the room.
Gigi’s clothes were in tatters, torn and shredded.
Her makeup had been thrown. Strips of a red-carpet dress hung on a lamp, and one of Gigi’s dangerously high Louboutins had been used to murder a keepsake pillow.
Then the ripping and hanger-tossing stopped.
Dax, Gigi, and Lark milled about, inspecting their work.
How long had they planned this? How much longer until Jane needed to run?
She tried in vain to move her thighs. It was as though her brain couldn’t connect correctly with those limbs.
Her toes would wiggle and ankles roll, but that wouldn’t help if she couldn’t get off the bed.
Jane’s brain wasn’t a hundred percent either. Two of them approached her again, but she couldn’t tell which two. Dax had to be one. He was close enough to block the light on the nightstand.
“So.” Gigi sat on the edge of the bed. “What’s next?”
“The pills,” Lark instructed.
“Yeah. The pills.” Dax knocked one of the bottles over and cursed. “My hands are shaking. I’ve never felt a rush like this.”
“Think of the one to come,” Gigi cooed.
“Think of my bonus,” Lark added, just as sing-song as Gigi.
They laughed. At her. At the situation and how brazen they were.
Jane couldn’t understand, but also knew they’d get away with it.
She had thought them fools, but they’d constructed the perfect crime.
There was the reporter who saw Jane’s reaction to the pictures.
The cocktail that had been left by the door. Even her fingerprints on the hangers.
Jane almost gasped. They didn’t know about Chance. He had to know something was wrong by now.
The lamp jumbled on the nightstand, and Dax muttered, pushing it out of the way. The mattress dipped as he sat by her head.
“Can someone move her over?”
Gigi and Lark rolled Jane. She tried to act limp, but even if she hadn’t, they were too keyed up to notice.
Pills rattled from their container. Dax expertly crushed them. Why wouldn’t her legs work?
“Think that’s enough?” Dax asked.
Lark leaned over Jane. “Hmm, think so. Maybe do one more. Just to be safe.”
“I think that’s enough, really,” Gigi countered. “It’d be enough to kill me.”
They laughed again. She wanted to scream, but instead, she focused on the impossible task of moving her legs.
“Don’t be greedy,” Dax snickered. “You have more than enough.”
They laughed again.
Jane’s leg jerked out, surprising the hell out of her. But not nearly as much as them. They jumped and screamed. Jane didn’t move. Her face pressed into the mattress. She tried not to move again.
“What the fuck,” Gigi gasped.
“I think that happens sometimes,” Dax added.
“How would you know? Go around knocking out women often?”
Dax nervously laughed. “Take it easy, Gigi.”
“Poke her,” Gigi demanded. “With a pen. Or a pin.”
“No,” Lark cut in. “We cannot leave a mark on her. Not a single bruise. Nothing.”
Gigi sighed. “I don’t think they’ll even check.”
God, fuck you, Gigi! Jane’s other leg twitched.
Well, hell. The jig was up. They’d poke her, or she’d keep twitching. Either way, Jane was done lying on her face. She screamed and threw herself off the bed.