He holds his arms up, placating. “I know, I will.”
“I mean it.” I point my finger at him, waggling it. “I know you love to wing it—”
“Winging a speech is slightly different from winging any of this.”
“Get going, Kara,” Henry calls from his study.
“Love you,” Owen says, reaching for my little finger.
“Me more.” I wrap my pinkie around his, and he pulls our conjoined hands to his mouth, kissing them. I pull him to my mouth quickly, and before I am even more torn about leaving him without me in the vicinity to protect him, I throw open the door and walk into the cold air of the hallway.
“It’s freezing,” I mutter into the earpiece as I take up my position on the corner of two roads. The courthouse entrance is across from the coffee shop I’m sitting outside of, where I have direct sight of the entrance that prison trucks turn into.
Two have already arrived, none of which Roman was in.
But they each wait up to a minute before the big black gate slides along its metal rung and opens following a security checkpoint.
What they don’t do?
Check the vehicles themselves, which is why in my backpack is a small set of explosives. Not big enough to do damage to the armoured vehicle, but enough to take out the car axis and make the car immobile.
“Two minutes out.” Henry’s voice comes through my ear.
“Roger that.” I take a sip of my coffee and pretend to read my book.
The prison vehicle pulls into the road, so I stand and cross the road as it stops at the black gates. I walk behind it, pretend to drop something. I slide the small device under the truck as I pretend to pick something up and carry on walking.
The move takes no more than ten seconds and isn’t enough to cause any suspicion.
“Planted,” I say into the earpiece.
“Cameras haven’t picked up anything, neither has chatter. You’re good.”
“Moving to phase two.”
Phase two involves two things. Number one, Roman completing his plea hearing. Which I’m sure he’ll be really pissed off about.
Number two, it involves me waiting again. But before I wait, I need to get into position.
The time to get out of the courthouse and onto the main road and location of where I will make the hit is approximately fifteen minutes. We’ve chosen the spot because it is smack bang in the middle of the journey, which means it’s the furthest position away from the courthouse, police hub and prison.
When they radio for help, it will take at least four minutes for said help to arrive. Giving me and Roman four minutes of a head start to get the hell out the area.
I walk to my motorbike and gun the engine, the vibrations running through me settling the adrenaline. Like I’d said, this mission doesn’t make me nervous, it’s planned.
But I’m away from Owen at a time when he still has a hit on him. I do, too, but well, I always have some sort of contract out on me. I’m used to this world.
“How’s things at home?”
“No change since the last time you asked, which was about five minutes ago, Kara.”
“Can you stop calling me Kara!” I ask, pulling up to a red traffic light.
“Ah yes, I heard Owen call you Lucy. I must say Apex Security really did well hiding your past.”
“Have you been poking about, Mr Bishop?”
“Doing my due diligence,” he admits.
