“What are you doing?” Olivia asks skeptically.
Hassan makes a move to grab me, and I kick him in the stomach.
“Fuck,” he grinds out, then looks at Olivia. “Kicking the man you’re supposed to be saving? Are you sure she’s with you?”
“Completely sure.”
I point at the door, silently telling Olivia to cover it, and pull a crowbar from its spot on the belt strapped around my waist. The burka has a secondary benefit of hiding a few weapons.
When I approach the room’s only window, Olivia catches on and murmurs the change of plan into her microphone. I swing the crowbar with all my strength, and the window cracks.
Another swing, a larger crack.
“Give it to me,” Hassan says urgently.
Our eyes lock. I don’t trust him, but he has no reason to turn on me right now. Olivia and I are his only shot at living to run more drugs and sell more weapons.
I hand over the crowbar, and he swings it against the window, which shatters into pieces that fall to the ground. He runs the crowbar around the window frame to clear out the shards of glass and then lifts me up and shoves me through the opening.
I hear voices in the distant hallway as I land on the ground about six feet below the window. Hassan is right behind me, and then I hold my breath and stare at the window, waiting for Olivia.
A punch to my eye pushes me backward, and I almost lose my footing. That prick Hassan clocked me and took off. He’s kicking up a trail of dust as he runs away. I’d like to chase him and punch him back, but I can’t leave Olivia.
When I look back up, she’s scrambling through the hole where the window was, and I hear a crashing sound in the room. The two of us duck down and take off running. Bullets rain down on the ground at our feet, and I feel like my heart might beat right out of my chest.
An armored van is waiting for us on the street, and the door slides open as we approach. Two men reach for our arms and pull us inside, the van’s tires squealing as it pulls out before the door is even closed.
I’m breathing hard, relieved to be free of the compound.
“He got away,” I say, shaking my head.
“We’re on him,” one of the agents in the van says. “He’s safe.”
I take off my disguise and touch the swelling skin around my eye.
“He punched you?” Olivia asks, looking incredulous.
“Hassan would punch a little old lady. His moral compass is busted.”
“Nice work, girls,” Rae says over our coms headsets.
“Thanks,” Olivia says. “From both of us.”
I breathe out a sigh of relief and grab my cell phones from my bag, which was waiting for me in the van. There’s a message from Nix on one phone screen.
Hey, where the fuck are you? Call me.
I smile and return the phone to my bag. I can’t call or text him from Dubai because I can’t risk him tracing my location. I wish I could, though. A little alpha protectiveness sounds kinda nice right now.
16
Phoenix
“What has your panties in a bunch?”Coco asks, studying me over the screen of her laptop.
“Nothing, kid.” I try to keep my voice even and devoid of anything resembling the annoyance and anger that’s been growing inside me like a cancer since Kennedy left.
She’s been gone seven days, and I haven’t heard a thing from her. I pinged her phone four days ago but got nothing. She’s hiding. But I don’t know from whom or what, and at times, I wonder if it’s me she’s shielding herself from.
