Chapter 42
Austin
Thanks to the USB drive with the case notes, we could ID the men hunting Nina.
“Their names are irrelevant. Just trust that we’ll stop them.”
Officers Kane and Gable were former CIA field operatives. The Singers suspected they were corrupt, but the evidence had mysteriously disappeared just before they resigned.
They now ran a clandestine mercenary business disguised as a topnotch personal protection agency.
According to their website, they offered protection to anyone who needed it anywhere in the world, no questions asked. Which explained the seemingly unlimited supply of foreign, well-trained, unidentifiable men at their disposal.
Reading between the lines, they accepted huge sums of cash to protect people who didn’t deserve protection.
People who actively worked against the United States. Our enemies, foreign and domestic.
The men hunting Nina had deep pockets, a trained militia, and dangerous contacts across the globe.
Nina didn’t need to know any of that.
“How?” Nina asked, sounding small and fragile.
“Why don’t you tell her what else you found?” Gibson offered, giving me a chance to change the subject.
“There’s more?”
There was a lot more, but we didn’t have time to cover everything, so I summed it up.
“Your parents left you a sizable sum of money.”
She slowly turned her head towards me, her lids fluttering over her eyes as if they couldn’t focus.
“What?”
“They started a trust fund for you.”
From the looks of it, they’d cleared out their savings and started the fund with over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
My analytical brain estimated the worth.
“We haven’t verified it yet, but that alone will be worth about half a million dollars.”
Nina coughed. When she took a sip of water to soothe her throat, she choked on it.
I’d expected her shock, but not the extent. Had she really not considered that her parents might’ve left her money?
She blinked a few more times before asking, “They left me how much?”
“Between the trust fund, their life insurance, and bank accounts, we estimate they left you close to a million dollars.”
“A million dollars?”
The only evidence that Nina was still alive was the soft rise and fall of her chest.
My hand moved to her arm of its own volition as leaned towards her. The need to comfort her, to touch her, growing with each passing second.
“Nina?”
Her lids danced over her eyes. Her lips parted and closed and parted again. Slower than should have been possible, she turned her face towards me and said, “Are you fucking kidding me?”