Her breath catches. “You’re an FBI agent?”
“Well,” I say, shifting the bag higher on my shoulder, “I doubt I am anymore. Not after what I did.”
She steps closer, hand trembling slightly as it lands on my arm. “Elias… what did you do?”
I look around at the men returning with their gear, hardened, angry, but alive because of me.
Looking into those beautiful blue eyes, I tell her, “I helped all of you escape.”
The words barely leave my mouth before the front door explodes open. Glass shatters down the hall, and heavy footsteps come running toward us.
Quickly, I reach into the bag on my shoulder and instantly find the can I’m searching for.
I spin just as a dozen FBI and SWAT agents in black tactical gear flood the house, guns raised.
“Hands up! You’re all under arrest!”
I don’t hesitate to press the release on the smoke grenade and toss it in the agents' direction.
“Let’s go!” I yell, grabbing Wren’s hand as I yank the side exit open and barrel into the yard. Knowing there is no time to get to my SUV, wherever they stashed it, since the front yard is flooded with agents, I lead us straight to my sedan in the neighbor's drive, not twenty feet away. And thanks to that house being set back slightly more than this one, we are mostly hidden from all the agents.
“Quickly, get in!” I press a button to open the trunk, knowing our bags won’t fit in the car with us, it will be tight enough as it is.
“I got her,” Dex says, scooping Wren up and running to the front passenger seat, sitting down, and pulling her into his lap. The other three cram into the tiny backseat as I jump behind the wheel, peeling out of the drive as fast as I can.
“They’re following!” Peter yells from the backseat, where he’s practically sitting sideways to fit back there withJagger and Sly.
I slam my foot down on the gas, determined not to get caught now that we’re so close to getting away.
“You couldn’t have brought a bigger car for us?” Peter asks as I make a sharp left turn.
“I was planning on using my SUV. Where’d you park it, anyway? I didn’t see it out front.”
Everyone is silent, and I quickly glance at the three in the back in the rearview mirror. They all avoid looking at me.
“What did you do to my car?” I ask angrily.
“In our defense,” Sly says calmly, “We thought it was bugged. That we were being tracked through it.”
“Where. Is. It?” I ask through gritted teeth.
“Did you happen to notice the minivan in front of the house?” Peter asks a little too casually.
It takes me all of two seconds to realize what he’s saying.
“You traded my SUV for that? Goddamn it!” I seethe, cranking the wheel hard to the right in hopes of losing our tail around the next turn. The sooner we can get away from my old colleagues, the sooner I can regroup and formulate the next steps of my plan.
But we aren’t gonna get far in a government-owned sedan.
“It’s not like we knew it was yours,” Dex says in defense from beside me, where Wren is perched in his lap, his arms wrapped a little too tightly around her for my preference. I narrow my eyes as my gaze flits back to the road. The sooner we can get a bigger vehicle, the better.
“Who the hell did you think it belonged to?” I fire back as I run an amber light, hoping to stop the feds. It doesn’t.
A large SUV suddenly charges out of the street to our right, heading straight for us. “Shit!” I hiss, laying my foot down and gunning the engine as fast as she’ll go.
“There’s at least six vehicles right on our tail,” Sylvester says, looking out the back window. “We need to lose them.”
“What do you think I’m trying to do here, Sylvester?” I ask, swerving around a slow car.
