He cocked his head and studied her. “For the longest time, I thought you'd arranged the whole Jordan Summers sting. I figured you had studied Marcus enough to know that he wanted a labyrinth to play in, and who better to build it for him than a helpless little mouse of a girl like Jordan? He would have kept her, you know. She was a little old for his tastes but he would have played with her anyway.”
The thought sickened Gina. “No. I would have never done that.”
Jeremy laughed again. “Such a hypocrite. Of course you would have if you thought you could get away with it. But Marcus is untouchable. Those photos weren’t going to make a damn bit of difference and he knew it. It was more strategic to let you rescue her and continue believing that you’re doing God’s work through The Repair Shop. He needs that more than he ever needed Jordan Summers. While he uses The Repair Shop as his own branch of the CIA, Jordan was just a little plaything, an extra for doing business with her brother.”
Jeremy gave her a smile that was pure evil. “It amused me, thinking about how you must have thought you’d finally beaten him after all those years. You took those photos thinking they were the smoking gun you needed and they didn't amount to shit. It was good to see you suffer for that.” He mocked Gina's voice, “Kids in cages and I couldn't dooo anything to save them, waaaa.”
He laughed as if the whole thing were the funniest prank anyone had ever pulled. “But, that also made you a liability. It was only a matter of time before you’d figure out the whole thing. Losing Skeleton Key was the perfect excuse to turn everyone slowly against you. And, it would let me come out of hiding and take over The Repair Shop openly, the way it should have always been.”
Gina’s head was killing her. “So. How long exactly has Porter been on the outs with Capitoline? As long as he’s been sending us to attack them?”
"And you still don't have it right. I'm so disappointed. He's not on the outs as you put it. He's making his move to take them over. And you have been one of his best generals. You kept Capitoline out of Colorado when they wanted to build a stronghold there. You killed Walker and Kyla when she was this close to putting everything together. That’s why Ron Anderson had to die. He was close too, and would have told her what she needed to know.”
“The drone attack. Was it the same…thing…that you did to us in the restaurant?”
“No. That was just a little toxin. I used a more interesting weapon on you. The technology’s been around since the Eighties, only refined and field-tested the past few years. It was developed as a way to control pests. That's how they see most people, you know. As pests. Vermin. It’s how I see Malcolm. And how I see Elissa St Clair. So I think I’ll let you watch me use it on them again.”
Gina blanched.No, not Elissa. Not here.
Jeremy cackled. “That’s right, Regina. I’ve got Elissa in the other room right now. She was my surprise in Key West. All I had to do was hack into her computer there and I knew right where you were going. To see our old friend Princess Sana. You must have gotten in touch with her after I left. If I’d known before what a good friend she was of yours, I would have?—”
That’s when the lights went out.
Gina smiled into the darkness. Her next thought was one of the calmest she’d ever had.
Lachlan is here.
TWENTY-SIX
Lachlan, present day, Switzerland
I’m never working without a team again.
Maybe it was Gina’s influence. Her tendency to go it alone must have rubbed off on him. Maybe it was too long away from the SEALs and he’d forgotten how to be a team guy. Or maybe he should just admit that it was his own damn blind spot that had made him fly thousands of miles alone to find Gina, only to lose both her and Elissa to Jeremy Heath.
He was standing in Sana’s home while she did an amazing job of not completely losing her ever-loving shit. She’d had two bodyguards taken out of commission by what they both described as the biggest man they’d ever seen. Malcolm had done it quickly, and non-fatally and that was proof enough for Lachlan that Mal was not trying to kill Gina but to protect her.
They’d recovered consciousness just in time to find Sana racing back to her home and stopped her. She sent one off in the direction Gina had taken and the other had escorted her home while keeping in contact with his partner through a comm.
That was ten minutes ago, about the time Lachlan came rolling up to Sana’s doorstep with the new knowledge that Elissa was MIA.
He’d last talked to her on the phone when she was in Key West. Then according to Nash, she’d called to update him, letting him know that she hadn’t found Gina and would be heading back to LAX on an early-morning flight. Nash was less than happy with his fiancée for hopping on plane and flying across the country without any backup but was smart enough to know he’d never win an argument with her.
Next he’d heard from her, she’d texted that she’d gotten on the plane and would see him soon.
She never arrived in Los Angeles. The flight manifest showed she’d never gotten on the plane.
My damn fault. I should have never let her go.
“Principal found,” Sana’s bodyguard said. “She’s talking to the hostile in a restaurant.”
Lach popped a comm into his ear.
“Do not approach,” he said. “Assume they’re under surveillance.” He turned to Sana’s other two guards. “Let’s roll,”
They spread out and headed toward the restaurant with a plan to cover every exit. But like all plans, it went to shit as soon as they hit the battlefield.
The bodyguard who had eyes on Gina and Malcolm inside the restaurant suddenly screamed over the comm. Lach’s first thought was that he was too late. The guard had been made and attacked. He started running toward the restaurant but came to a dead stop when he saw patrons staggering out and collapsing in the street. Some were clutching their heads, others were dry heaving. The ones who walked farther away seemed to recover from whatever had made them sick.
