19. Michael
The car has been painfully quiet for the last ten minutes. Apologies don’t come easy in our unit, especially when both of us have valid reasons for staying close to Dana.
I should have seen Logan’s decision coming; neither of us got what we wanted in the end.
“I don’t know about him.” Jack keeps his attention on the road, his knuckles blanched around the wheel.
He doesn’t have to name names. I know he’s talking about Dale.
Dana filled us in on the town’s grow op on the drive back to the cabin.
Hidden in the mountains, under the guise of a lavender farm, most of the townspeople are growing cannabis, felony number one, which they sell. Felony number two.
Neither Jack nor I asked Dana any follow-up questions, and there was a reason for it. The moral dilemma alone is crushing. Not to mention the ramifications for everyone in town—everyone Dana has come to care about. The people who, so far, have been helpful and protective of her.
To start with, this isn’t our fight. We’re here to protect and extract Dana. Anything else complicates things.
Do I wish I never knew about the grow op? Hell yes. I think we all do, because now we need to deal with it, or look the other way, and what does the latter say about us if we do?
“We don’t know enough about him.” I’m as surprised as Jack looks at my defense of Dale.
I didn’t like him before I stepped into his bar last night, but I wasn’t being fair; I was resentful.
I screwed up, and I let everyone down. Dana is in this mess because of me. When she ran last year, it was on my watch. She’s been living like a destitute hermit in a run-down shack because I failed to keep her secure. I had one job, and she had no one.
I’m not saying I’m on Dale’s side, but the one thing he has gotten right is being there for Dana. This town sticks together, and that’s what she needs right now.
I change the topic. “What about the, um—penny?”
Jack doesn’t immediately answer my question. He tightens his grip around the steering wheel, his tendons almost bursting out of his ghostly white knuckles.
“I can’t believe she—” He pinches his lips together before baring his teeth in a silent sneer. “I mean, what the fuck is she thinking?”
This isn’t about Dana.
A war is raging right now in Jack’s head, and there are more than two dogs in that fight. For the last year, Jack has been grounded. Jessa was hidden, and she was safe, and it gave him a sense of security—which is now crumbling around him with every hour that passes.
Between the time we learned Jessa was gone and right now, a lot of information has changed on us. We now know Matteo is most likely closing in, and we’re down two team members. I wonder if Jessa even knows there is a hit out on Dana, but I won’t vocalize my thoughts because doing so would mentally incapacitate Jack.
If Matteo happens to catch Jessa’s scent, it will be over. He’ll take her and cut his losses with Dana. Jessa confessed to being Zane before he thinks she ended her life. He would have everything he needs, and we would never find them.
Jack would lose Jessa all over again.
This was supposed to be an easy extraction, but I’m quickly learning nothing about Dana is simple. Add Jessa’s unknown location to the mix, and we are all out of our element.
Watching Dana fight for Jessa a year ago struck a deep chord with me. I have no doubt that, given the chance, she would have traded places with Jessa to save her life without a second thought. Loyalty like hers is rare, and Dana deserves to have her own support system in place.
I wish I could have told her all of that before she ran away from us that day.
As I struggle to say something to help settle Jack’s nerves, familiar scenery catches my attention.
“It should be just past there.” I point to a curve in the road straight ahead, and Jack slows his speed as I check my gun.
The dust catches up to us as we pull to the side of the road, right behind the vehicle Grey and Eagle were driving this morning. Last night, there was an abandoned car right around here, but it’s gone now. We walk from back to front on either side of the SUV, and I make a mental note of the tire tracks leading away from the front of Grey’s vehicle.
Jack pulls on the handle of the passenger door, and it opens, freezing me in place as we meet each other’s eyes. Leaning on the open door, he scans the landscape along the side of the road.
The tree line leading into the mountains in the distance is dense, but the brush stretching out before it is a little thin, and our eyes land on something moving in the shrubs at the same time.
Keeping his eyes on our target, Jack lifts his hand over his shoulder, signaling me to move in on his six, and I release the strap holding my gun in place. Twigs crack every few steps, announcing our approach as we move through the bushes, but the figure stays still.
At forty feet away, Jack stops and pats his shoulder before tugging on his jacket. I look around him at the person kneeling in a small clearing.
He’s wearing Grey’s jacket, but it isn’t Grey. It’s someone who wants to let us know he knows where the rest of our team is. This must be our third killer. Maybe he’s decided to take a different approach to get to Dana by offering her as a trade for our own guys.
Dust kicks up as a vehicle drives down the road in the distance.
“I want to see your hands!” Jack shouts, his gun trained on the man in front of us. The guy stays in his spot, reaching up in surrender to show us he isn’t armed, but we keep our weapons trained on him.
“Where are they?” Jack wastes no time.
“They’re safe,” he answers. Then he pauses, as though he expects his response to soothe us into dropping our weapons and calling it a day.
“And—what? You want to trade them for Dana?” Shouting over Jack’s shoulder, I get a good look at his face. There is nothing out of the ordinary except the smug smile stretching across his lips at my question.
“No.” He twists one wrist in the air, and his sleeve falls up his arm, exposing a watch he glances at before continuing, “We won’t need to trade her. Our team should be moving in on her as we speak.” I exchange a concerned glance with Jack.
“Jack.” Lowering my voice, I take a couple of steps back toward the road, preparing to tear out of here and back to the cabin.
“You guys okay?” The gentle lilt of a female voice startles me. I let my guard down. I forgot about the car passing by on the road.
Spinning, I aim my gun, ready to push our way back to Dana, when a familiar face comes into view. Her expression falls instantly as she gasps, covering her mouth.
“What are you doing here?” I keep my arms raised but point the barrel away from the girl who was in front of Dana’s shop on the night of the shooting.
“I—I—” Her eyes wander over my shoulder to Jack and the man on the ground before snapping back to mine. “I saw your car, and I remembered it from last night. I thought maybe Kim needed some help. I—” Uncertainty etches across her face.
She knows they were all supposed to lay low, but her worry over Kim caused her to screw up.
“What’s your name, dear?” the guy asks arrogantly from his spot in the clearing.
For someone who isn’t armed, he sure has a lot of confidence.
“Listen to me—” Dammit, I forgot her name. “You can’t be here. You need to get back in your car and drive away. Just go.” I lift my chin, gesturing for her to leave us, and she takes a slow step backward.
“I’m afraid she isn’t going anywhere,” says the guy with no weapon.
She stops moving at his warning.
Jack stays still with his gun drawn, but he makes no move to approach, and I wonder if he’s thinking the same thing I am.
This guy isn’t alone.
“She has nothing to do with this.” I step in front of the girl, blocking her from his view. The man cautiously stands, his arms still high above his head, and he purses his lips, nodding his head as I speak. He already knows this.
He whistles, and two bright red dots appear on the ground between us, slowly moving from him to Jack before parting to circle around our feet. They continue their path toward the girl. Thankfully, they stop a foot in front of her, and she stares stiffly down at them.
They have multiple shooters at different vantage points, and any sudden movements will surely end one of our lives.
“An unfortunate turn of events. But I can’t let any of you leave.” Testing the waters, the man slowly lowers his arms, and neither of us makes a move to stop him. He knows he has us. “Remove your magazines, rack the slides, and toss your guns.”
There are at least three of them, and two of their guns are trained one foot away from Dana’s friend.
We’ve already lost this standoff.
I follow Jack’s lead, disarming my weapon and throwing it a few feet away. Then I hold my hands out to my sides at a forty-five-degree angle, balling my fingers into fists in frustration.
The language this guy is using isn’t lost on me. Standard criminals say drop your guns. It’s simple, effective, and it’s what we would say if we were taking someone down. Rack the slide is familiar jargon. We’d only say it if we knew the person we were talking to. He’s talking like he knows who we are. The thought is unsettling.
We miscalculated this operation. We came in thinking there were four individual targets for us to disarm. Working alone is almost always the main characteristic of a contract killer—almost.
This killer is connected and highly organized.
“Turn around and face…” He shifts his attention from us to the girl. “I didn’t catch your name.”
“Kaley,” she answers timidly.
“Kaley.” He tries out her name with a smile, as though we’re all sitting around having a casual conversation. “Gentlemen, turn around and face Kaley. Get beside each other, then on your knees. Keep those arms up, and we all walk away from this.” The way he emphasizes all draws my attention to the young girl, who’s watching us as we turn to face her.
Her eyes are bugging out of her head, and she looks torn between freezing in place and running away.
“Don’t move.” I make eye contact with her, and she nods once, tears rimming her eyes.
“He’s right, Kaley. Just stay there.” The guy agrees with me.
A sharp whistle from over my shoulder calls to everyone around us. Rustling from a couple of different directions announces the presence of more people, and I watch Kaley stiffen as her eyes jump around to the things we can’t see. “We aren’t interested in any of you. Cooperate, and everyone wakes up in the morning.” I can tell he’s turned his head as his voice travels in a new direction. “Disable their GPS, both vehicles.” Movement in my peripheral vision catches my attention.
“Kaley, this is Kai. She’s going to get you into our car. You will be safe with her.” A woman no older than Dana approaches. She’s wearing a combination of black and camouflage, but I don’t have enough time to examine her before Jack’s arms are bound behind his back and he is pushed forward to lie flat on the ground. I watch our guy hold his arm steady with one hand; he’s got a syringe in the other. “Don’t worry. She won’t be harmed,” he mutters as he works.
The needle enters Jack’s arm, and I watch as the clear liquid turns pink before the contents are administered into his system. Whoever these guys are, they are pros. The way they talk and the way he made sure he had access to a vein before injecting him makes me uneasy.
I wince at the sting of the zip tie on my wrists. Then there’s a push on my back, and my chest hits the ground. Pebbles dig into my cheek as I meet Jack’s eyes.
There’s nothing to say.
I failed—again—and now both Dana and Kaley, who she has come to care about, are in danger. My mind goes to the worst places. Will they kill her where she is, or are they in contact with Matteo? If it’s the latter, will I witness her execution?
I need to come out of this sedation ready to fight to save her—if saving her is still an option. There is no point in resisting now. These guys won’t let us leave, and I’m no good to Dana dead.
My disappointment is reflected all over Jack’s face as he takes deep, steady breaths to try to stay alert. I know he’s thinking about Jessa, wondering where she is or if she’ll be caught before she finds her friend.
My own breathing slows as the space between my face and the ground becomes numb. I barely register the pat-down Jack and I are receiving.
“Get them up and into their SUV. We need to get ready for our buyer.”
The drugs are working. The conversation around us fades in and out, and I barely notice two bodies on either side of me, holding me up by my arms. I feel like I’m floating through the forest.
“That’s it. Keep walking, big guy. Help us out.”
Distance, time, and sound warp around me.
Am I moving on my own?