Chapter Twenty
Baltimore
East Coast
Afternoon
There was nothing Eve Rankin liked more than raising hell, making money, and taking out the trash. The trash in question this time was none other than Veruca Filmore, and she had what was about to happen to her coming.
When you burned people, specifically other mercenaries, you ended up ten toes up and pushing daisies.
One of the big rules of mercenary work was you didn’t betray or talk about mercenaries, and Veruca did both.
So, now, she was about to have her day of reckoning.
That was if her husband didn’t lose his goddamn mind first. It appeared that he was on the scent.
When her phone rang, she saw his face, and wasn’t going to answer at first, but that seemed all kinds of wrong. When you were married, you had a person you were accountable to, and that person was him.
So, she took the call.
“Hey,” she said, answering the video call as she sat in her rental car.
Dakota was all smiles.
“Hey, gorgeous. I miss you. What are you doing?” he asked. “Are you in a car?”
Oh, boy.
Apparently, Maura and Jagger hadn’t been in contact with him.
“Yeah, I’m in a car,” she said.
At her tone, Dakota lifted a brow.
“Where’s the baby?”
She laughed.
Oh, her ass was grass. She was about to watch the man lose his ever-loving mind.
“Back in New Orleans with everyone else at Area Fifty-Two.”
That hung there for about three seconds.
Then, he went there.
“Why is my wife talking like she’s not also back in Area Fifty-Two with our son and daughter?” he asked.
She smiled.
“Well, Honey…”
And she didn’t get to finish.
“Oh, Jesus H. Christ. I got the ‘honey’. I had better sit my ass down,” he said, doing just that. “This is going to piss me the hell off. I can tell.”
In the background, Eve heard Gamble laughing, and she knew why.
Dakota was about to go nuts.
“You see, I was at the bunker, minding my own damn business, breastfeeding our son, when Gene called.”
Yeah, she was going to point that sexy crazy man away from her so she could get the job done, and then get back to her son and daughter.
Dakota was staring at her, and not saying a word.
“Apparently, he needed help taking out some mercenaries. So long story short, I’m in Baltimore about to off some cuntwaffle who did me dirty a few years back. What a small world, HUH?”
This was absolutely not happening.
There was no way he wasn’t sleeping or he’d hit his damn head and was having the mother of all concussions.
“So, my wife, who literally gave birth two weeks ago, is now working?” he asked.
She smiled.
“Oh, look at that, Cowboy. I’m working.”
He closed his eyes.
Dakota was at a loss for words. This was what happened when you went to sleep, and shit went down around you. Here he was, in the UK, enjoying the weather, and his family had neglected to tell him his wife was taking a job.
“I’m going to kill Gene.”
She stopped him.
“I mean, you can do that, but then Elizabeth is going to kill you, and then I’m going to have to kill her, and then, Maura is going to have to kill me, and we have children, so…probably not a good plan.”
He actually laughed.
“I can’t with you. The ONLY reason you’re getting away with this is one, I can’t stop you. Two, you’re too goddamn sexy for my own good, and three, I’m in an entirely different country. Is our son okay?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Of course,” she said.
He went there.
“And you can handle this mercenary?” he asked.
Again, she nodded.
“Well, then, I guess I’m good with it. It’s not like I can say no, because you’re not listening to me anyway.”
She softened.
“I love you, Dak.”
The crinkles around his eyes appeared, and they made her feel all loopy and girly. She loved herself a sexy man who got flustered.
“And I love you, my Evie. Just be careful, Baby.”
She had that warm, fuzzy feeling. Never in her life had anyone cared, and Dakota cared so much.
“I will be. She’s an easy target. Trust me when I say she got lucky burning me. I’m going to pop her in the melon and get the hell out of Dodge.”
Well, that was all he could ask.
“When you get home, kiss my son and Violet, too. We’re flying home today. I’ll be back in the States by tomorrow morning sometime.”
She grinned.
“Want to cuddle?” she asked.
He laughed.
“Yeah, I want to cuddle, and you know it,” he stated.
Gamble said something in the background, and Dakota didn’t even look at him, but he flipped him off without missing a beat.
She laughed.
Until she saw her target.
“Oh, shit! There’s Veruca. I gotta go, hot man. I have a cuntasaurus to make go into extinction.”
He got it.
“Be safe!” he said, right before she winked at him, and cut the call.
Now, Eve was focused on getting her job done. That million dollars was going to help a lot of women and children in the shelter.
Getting out of her rental car, she pulled on her backpack, and left the vehicle behind.
Heading toward the woman, she saw her walking a little dog.
It was a puppy, and so damn cute.
Sue her.
She was an animal person.
Animals didn’t do you dirty like people did.
In the park, Veruca was talking to the dog and doing a shit job of training it. When she kicked it, because it wasn’t listening, Eve wanted to punch her in the girl parts.
As she approached the woman, no one was around.
“You worthless fucking dog,” she said. “You piss in the house, you piss on my shoes, and you’re a pain in my ass!” Veruca said. “I think you might fall off the balcony and to your death, you worthless piece of shit.”
Oh.
Hell.
No.
A puppy killer too?
Eve had to draw the line, and that was it. This hoe was about to meet her maker, and now, more so for what she was about to do than what she’d done to her.
When she went to kick the puppy again, Eve had enough. She’d forgotten the need to kill Veruca for burning her, and now, she was going to off her for being an animal abuser.
“Hey, Veruca,” she said, and when the woman looked up, Eve pulled her gun, and gave her two bullet holes in her head, simultaneously.
The woman fell backward, landing in some flowers by the bench.
Well, that job was done.
The dog was pulling on the leash, and Eve wasn’t leaving it here. Yeah, someone would save it, but it would also make Veruca found much sooner.
It looked like someone was getting a dog. Violet had wanted one, and the universe provided.
Picking the puppy up, she tucked it into her arm and yanked the leash off of the dead woman’s wrist. Then, she dug out her phone to bring back to Maura before she began walking away.
Pulling her backpack off, she tucked the puppy into it, and wore it on the front of her, as she dropped the silenced gun into a garbage can not far away.
That’s when she saw the motorcycle.
Well, if she was breaking the rules, she was really breaking them.
Texting Gene, she told him the job was done and to transfer funds. Then, she sent a selfie to her husband. It was of her and the dog.
‘I’m on my way home. Guess what I found? We just got a puppy. Love you, Cowboy. See you for cuddles and beignets. I’m buying.’
Then, she hit send and got her ass onto that motorcycle. Hotwiring it, she tore down the street, the puppy licking her face.
Eve was heading in.
Her job was complete, and now, Veruca would never betray anyone again.
Especially a Snake.
* * * The Blackhawks * * *
That Same Day
At Dusk
Hours Later
While she wanted to get to Devon Slater, Maura had put the kibosh on making a move on him during the daylight. So, instead, they spent the next four hours planning for the assault.
Honestly, Elizabeth understood, and she trusted the woman to get the job done.
Kicking in the gate, killing security, and grabbing him would draw attention to them a little too much.
And no one wanted that.
NO.
ONE.
So, Elizabeth backed off. As long as he couldn’t get away, she was more than willing to let Maura plan this out. She was, after all, known for doing just that.
So, instead, they broke into a house not far away that was under construction—and empty so that they would have a place to work out their attack.
They used holographic mapping to lay out the plan, and they ran it a few times to make sure that it went off without a hitch. It wasn’t quite dark, so that meant taking extra precautions.
The first step was going to be breaking up into two groups. There would be the assault team, and then the getaway driver.
Rogue would be on the last one, and the rest of them would be boots on the ground, heading in.
The more people on that piece of shit, the less likely he would escape.
So now, Rogue dropped them off, making sure they could access the development the back way. They were climbing over shit, and ducking under things too.
It was like playing hide-and-seek in the woods, but her generation grew up doing this kind of shit.
So, Elizabeth was made for it.
With The Hunters, they traversed the five miles of shit terrain to get to the backside of the property.
Oh, she bet that he’d bought that particular house because he didn’t believe anyone would scale a rocky, rattlesnake-infested cliff to get to him.
Yeah, he was wrong.
While she hated snakes, almost as much as she hated spiders, she loathed Devon Slater more.
Dig up her mother and father?
Oh, well, trust and believe, she’d make him pay for that, and all the other sins he’d committed, like calling out the Russian spy on her that got Jet killed.
Like poisoning Vivian.
Oh, and Rayna RunningWolf’s death.
It was payback time.
His days of threatening her family were over, and his hours were coming to a close.
“Good job keeping up,” Zayn said to Gene. “You’re not as soft as we thought you were.”
Gene shrugged.
“I mean, I’m not ‘I’m wearing boxers with smiley faces on them’ soft, but…oh well,” he said, busting his ass.
It took him a second.
Wait.
Zayn was wearing those boxers.
“What the fuck?” he asked, looking down, seeing his fly was open on his cargo pants. “You assholes let me hike five miles with my fly down?” he asked.
Maura laughed.