JAMES
FIFTEEN
Every dangerous man has a weakness. Mine blindsided me when I stopped watching my enemies and started watching her.
Assistant Director Declan Reid is as dirty as they come.
Nobody holds his family hostage when he burns Stephanie and Camryn’s planned location and collects a cool million in an offshore account for the information.
He needs to meet his maker sooner rather than later.
The girls are still two hours away from the pink house, which gives me a little time to figure out if anyone else is involved.
Now they are limited on where they can hide while I deal with Christopher, because the coward has disappeared off the fucking grid.
I need to flush him out without alerting the rest of the organization.
He’s not stupid; he knows that his new target, while not written on a list of people to never touch, is still someone he shouldn’t even look at.
I shift in my chair and call my sister.
“James, tell me she’s safe.”
I’m not surprised she knows about the attempt to take her. I might be good with technology, but my sister is on another level, and no amount of FBI firewalls can stop her.
“She is.”
“And unharmed,” Hunter adds. Her brother is perfect for my sister, but annoying to me.
“She has a couple of scrapes and bruises. I had her looked over by experienced medics.” I make it sound like she fell over and got a boo-boo, not a near miss with several bullets and bruised ribs that, from experience, hurt like a bitch.
Also, those medics have sadly dealt with horrific injuries with the people I send their way.
They are just one of many teams I have around the country, because when you take someone’s favorite toy away, they rarely give it up without a fight.
Putting them in the system will get them straight back to hell, and whatever they experienced before will pale into insignificance.
“Tell me where she is,” Hunter demands.
“Don’t be stupid,” my sister cuts in. I’ve always loved her no-filter approach.
I don’t regret protecting her from the awful future that was planned out from her birth.
If she hadn’t escaped, she would never have risen to become a force for good, and countless people would have suffered without her skills.
“Is she with you?” he asks.
“Absolutely not.”
Now that would be stupid for so many reasons, especially the way she makes my blood heat with one look.
“Keep it that way,” he snaps.
“Hunter,” Eleanor chastises. “He would never hurt her.”
True. But she’s not picking up on the subtext. “There are no plans for her to be with me.”
“Why isn’t she calling me?” Hunter demands.
“They’re on the move. She’ll call once they’re sure they’re safe.”
“What made her unsafe?”
The world. “Moles. I’m working on it.”
Hunter swears a storm.
“Do you need anything?” my sister checks.
“I’ve got it handled for now.” One of my computer screens registers a call from the AD to a judge. “Got to go.”
I end the call with no niceties. My sister doesn’t need them, and my attention is all for the moves this idiot is making while believing he isn’t being watched or monitored.
For an AD, he’s shit at doing things under the radar.
The bureau probably realized too late into his career how poor an agent he is, and instead of dealing with his idiocy, they promoted up and out of the way of victim’s lives.
Or maybe he rubbed noses with the right people.
I turn up the volume, even though it’s recording.
“I sent you the address,” the AD explains, causing me to frown.
Who are you, Judge Tom Harris? My fingers fly over the keyboard, breaking into his weak encrypted messages with ease. Sure enough, the AD is sharing the pink house’s location with this judge in Florida, which is prime hunting grounds for Christopher. I don’t like this.
“We lost good men the last time. What’s different?” Judge Harris demands.
We? I cross-reference the deep search of the judge’s name with Christopher Burnside’s. Sure enough, they appear at multiple events together.
“The girl has one injured agent with her. When they reach the house, there won’t be a team to help them. I sent them elsewhere.”
Fucker.
“And the agent?”
My blood turns cold, and a heavy emptiness descends, the terrifying one that allows me to work through several ways to kill a man with no feeling.
I’ve had to hone this skill to survive. I don’t get a thrill from drawing someone’s last breath, as it was never mine to take, and anyone who believes otherwise needs to be on the funeral pyre.
“Do as you please. Just make her disappear.”
I scan through the mugshots of the top men in the sick organization I head up to check I haven’t overlooked the judge’s membership, even though I could list the members by heart and know his name is not among them.
“Done. He’ll be pleased,” the judge says with a hint of glee.
My eyes narrow as I dive into Christopher’s enormous file.
There are forty men in the top layer of the organization who have access to the many cult settlements located across various states.
They play leading roles through controlling the women and girls who are born and brought up to believe this is the way of the world, or by recruiting other powerful people to bolster our wealth and create a layer of protection by entangling those who have a lot to lose in the sick acts that would land them in jail.
Christopher is both. He dips his toes into cult life, delighting in how we’ve created a warped reality for those born into it where they don’t question him, but also through ensnaring girls and women from the general population.
He is someone who has gathered more men than any other, and it looks like this judge and the AD are his newest recruit hopefuls.
This is why it takes time to dismantle something that has tentacles in every pie. But right now, my priority is one woman. A woman he can’t have no matter what.
Because she’s mine.
Moving out of the office and into the vast open-plan lodge I’ve made my home, I call Camryn’s secure line, ready to deliver news that I think she knows is coming but is going to rock her faith in a system she’s spent her whole adult life fighting for.
“Yo, Dave, my man,” Stephanie answers.
My eyebrows lift as I grab a soda from the fridge and take a seat on the oversized U-shaped sofa which surrounds a large log burner. “Hey, is Camryn with you?”
“Yep.”
“Can I speak to her?”
“Nope.”
Why is she acting like a brat? And worse, why does it make my blood heat? No, blood needs to remain north, so all my brain cells can stay on task.
“And why is that?”
“She’s getting nuggets.”
“Is that a metaphor?”
“Congrats on the use of a big word, champ. But what on earth would getting nuggets be a metaphor for? Enlighten me. I’ll wait.”
Definitely a brat. The corner of my mouth quirks up. Does she like her hair pulled? I pinch the bridge of my nose and squeeze my eyes closed, hoping to erase that image. She laughs, the sound both husky and light at the same time. Not helping, Stephanie.
“I’m here,” Camryn cuts in. “Here, eat the ten-nugget box and see if that helps.”
Helps what?
“Yum. BBQ sauce.”
“Most people say barbecue,” I utter.
“Idiots,” Stephanie declares. “Strawberry milkshake, too? Ooh, Agent Sinclair, you’re really treating me.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“Painkillers made her loopy,” Camryn explains.
“Shush, I was already loopy,” Stephanie whispers. “Don’t you know I spent most of my adult days in an institute?”
She gasps. “Are we in Idaho? Fun fact—it’s the potato capital of the US.”
“Focus on the food and leave the map and sightseeing to me,” Camryn says. Wait, why are they in Idaho? That’s not where the safe house is.
“You can’t sightsee a potato.”
“Pink is not your favorite color,” I inform her.
“Got it.”
Zero surprise in her voice. In the short time she’s had to consider all the facts, Camryn has correctly deduced where the problem lies. She followed her gut because she had no intention of ever going. What isn’t apparent is her plan.
“Why are you in Idaho, Agent Sinclair? And how far have you gotten?”
“Sorry, bad reception,” Camryn says, her voice perfect and clear. “I’ll update you shortly.”
I blink as the phone cuts off and any notion of tracking them disappears. I glance around my sanctuary, the one no one knows about. It’s my escape.
She can’t know. Right? And she wouldn’t dare.
Fuck. She totally would.