He brushed a loose strand of hair away from my cheek. “Looks like that spot where I hit you is clearing up.”
I tried to knee him in the balls. Close to success, but one of his jerk friends held me back.
“Are you finally figuring out New Zealand was never the final stop?” He smirked. “You onlythoughtMitch came here because of footage you recovered. But my girlfriend sent you chasing after not only the wrong enemy, but the wrong location.” He winked, the bastard. “I have a lot more experience than your friends in putting together target packages and executing missions. My playbook was handed down to them, after all. Don’t feel bad.”
Condescending piece of shit.
He touched his chest, his voice lower and more serious now. “We sacrificed everything for our country. And they erased us afterward. Sent us off like disposable assets.” A gruff sound slipped through his barely parted lips. “Stratos didn’t really die, though. It evolved.” His voice cracked slightly. “It’s still breathing. Always has been. Quiet. Effective. Right under POTUS’s nose, even after Hobbs died.”
“Do your men at Helix know who’s really calling the shots and why? That it’s no longer about country anymore, but money?” My job was to stall, to buy the teams time. So I’d keep poking the bear for as long as needed until they arrived.
He pulled out a phone from his pocket. “You have no evidence to corroborate that text sent to my men. Nice try.”
“But itdidwork, didn’t it?” I pressed. “I bet some of your men flipped tonight.”
He flinched. Just barely.
“We’ll deal with traitors later.” To his men, he ordered, “Get her on board.”
“And Beau, or whatever his real name is?” I asked as we began to move. “You sent him to Eden’s location knowing he’d die tonight.”
“Casualty of war.”
“Who needs enemies with that mentality,” I muttered.
One of the masked men at my side pulled a Glock from his waistband, gesturing for me to walk faster.
“And them?” I asked, nodding to the other guy at my side holding my arm a bit more gently. “Are they expendable, too? Already ‘dead’ in the system so no one notices when they go missing?”
The one not waving a weapon at me slowed just a little. Just enough for me to know there was a chance of winning him over.
Rhett must’ve seen the look in his eyes, the hesitation there. “She’s baiting you,” he snapped. “Focus.”
“We don’t fake deaths anymore,” the guy with the Glock said. “We learned from the government’s mistakes.”
“Tell that to Arlo,” I reminded them all. “His death is what started this. And Mitch? You killed him, too. Should’ve asked questions first.”
Once we were inside the hangar, Rhett glanced at me before getting into the jet’s cockpit with his girlfriend.
“You’re really the one running Helix, aren’t you?” I asked once I was strapped into the cabin, which was open to the cockpit. “Not whoever’s listed on the website. Pretty sure the bylaws say dead men can’t own security firms.”
He turned, shifting his headset down. “You know what my biggest mistake was?” He met my eyes. “Letting Mitch walk in 2013. Should’ve either recruited him to stay on or put two in his skull back then. Saved us all the trouble.”
“Everything happens for a reason,” I murmured, picturing my loved ones waiting for me. Mission success meant I’d see my family, so I kept on pushing through the nerves and fear to hold strong.
“To be clear, you did silence Arlo—and then realized Mitch’s plane crash wasn’t real, which had you putting two and two together that Arlo talked to him. So you had to shut him up, too.” I paused, trying to buy us time. Distract him. “You had your girlfriend hack JSOC and found his location before he arrived at the safe house and killed him.”
I gave him another chance to stir. To get irritated as I pushed his buttons.
“How long before you realized your mistake and that he hid evidence first?” I kept my cool, not even sure who this me was right now. “Five or six months? Clearly before you created Beau, the sheriff. Tried using him to smoke out the truth. Figure out what the key even was and then find it.”
Theif looks could killglare from Rhett wasn’t aimed at me that time.
“Ah, I see. Your girlfriend messed up, not you.”
“Shut up,” Lisa bit out as Rhett faced forward and began hitting switches and tapping buttons, preparing to pull out of the hangar.
“You stumbled upon a new problem, though. My brother and his best friend. Alejandro’s ex-wife and her ties to Will Hobbs.”Nope, not backing down.“You ended up down to the wire with days to spare before the evidence would wind up in the wrong hands or out in the public.”
