No. No. God, please, no. Please, Lord. Don’t let this be true.
“I don’t understand why this is happening. What did they do to you? What do I have to do with any of this?”
“Aww, sweetheart. Unfortunately, you’re collateral damage in this war. Though, to be honest, you’re not really necessary anymore. Not now that Knox is dead.” He reaches forward and strokes my chin. I look away, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing the fear in my eyes, but he pinches my chin and moves me to look at him. “Boss isn’t quite ready to let you go, though. Seems she’s taken a dislike to you and has other plans.”
“What does that?—”
“Can you stop socializing and just get the job done?” A feminine voice orders as heels click on the tile floor.
Her voice isn’t one I’ll forget anytime soon, so when Brenda steps into my line of sight, I’m not at all surprised.
“You,” I growl. “He trusted you! They all did!”
“Trust?” She arches a brow. “Hardly. Fear would be a more accurate term. Either way, they served their purpose and became liabilities. You saw to that.”
“You killed them?” I choke on the words because, even as I see the collapsed building before me, even as I can still picture Garrison’s blood pouring from his wound and pooling on the floor beneath him, speaking them out loud makes it real. “No. No. I won’t believe it.”
Brenda grips either side of my chair. “Well, believe it, Tessa Lane. But don’t worry. You’ll be joining them soon because we have big, big plans for you.”
Chapter 27
Zane
“How bad?” Doctor Lani Hunt, the youngest of the Hunt siblings, demands when the four of us reach the stairwell of the private plane they flew in on. Her dark hair is swept up into a ponytail that swings as she walks. Dark eyes that miss nothing travel over the four of us.
I imagine we all look rough. Crawling your way out of a collapsed building will do that. Still, we made it out. Something I send a silent thank You to the Lord for. He protected us and guided us toward what must be one of the last payphones in the city, then brought the Hunts here safely.
Without knowing who to trust, there was only one call I could make after what happened. And it was to Dylan, who sent his two brothers and sister out to rescue us.
We should all be dead. But when the building came down, it left a gaping hole in the side of the stairwell. Just large enough for us to slip out before the news crews and first responders showed up. Thank You, God.
“Concussions would be my guess,” I say as we all but collapse onto the floor of the plane. Weston, Ryker, and Sawyer all drop down into seats and close their eyes. Blood crusts on their faces and arms, and anywhere there’s no blood, concrete dust clings to their skin.
I’m sure I’m not any better. But we’re alive.
“We weren’t followed. I’m going to tell him Lani wants to look you guys over before we can leave.” Bradyn Hunt, the eldest Hunt sibling and the leader of Hunt Brothers Search and Rescue, heads for the cockpit of the plane while his brother, Riley, starts offering us water bottles.
Lani starts for me, but I shake my head and point to my team.
She purses her lips, but doesn’t argue as she heads over and starts looking Sawyer over.
“They good?” Riley asks.
“Do I look like I know yet?” she snaps. “Sorry, just trying to listen.”
He holds up his hands. “Yes, ma’am.”
“We need to get to Brenda,” Weston growls as soon as Lani finishes looking him over. “She set us up.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” Sawyer replies.
“Don’t we?” Ryker demands. “No way her intel was legitimate, and she’s too smart to take someone’s word without looking into it first. She had to have known we were walking into a trap. No one else knew we were going to be there.”
Lani finishes with my team and crosses over to me. She presses her stethoscope to my back. “Deep breath.”
I do as she says, coughing and sputtering when my lungs burn, thanks to the dust I inhaled.
“They’re okay to travel,” she says. “I’m going to start treating surface injuries.” She retrieves her medical bag and crosses over to kneel in front of Sawyer, who has a nasty gash on his forehead. We’d slapped a field bandage on it, but blood has already seeped through the gauze.
