My head feels like someone’s using it for basketball practice. Hell, there isn’t a single part of me that doesn’t hurt.
“I need water,” I croak. It’s not a lie. I’m parched.
“When you’re done.” He jams two fingers down on my left wrist—along the bone—and I yelp. My vision goes white from the pain.
“Can’t finish…with you…doing…that…”
The pressure eases. “Whiny little bitch,” he says under his breath.
“Asshole,” Bettina hisses. Sitting up against the wall, she looks so frail. But fire burns in her brown eyes. “Eres tan feo que hiciste llorar a una cebolla.”
A laugh bubbles up in my throat until Rex growls something unintelligible and stalks over to her. Shit. Stop him? Or use the distraction?
“Is that the best you can do?” he snarls. “I’m so ugly I make an onion cry? I can make you that ugly in seconds!”
She screams and kicks at him, catching him in the ankle.
Now. Move, now, Hope.
It’s awkward as hell to reach down to my right foot, but as Rex kicks Bettina in the hip, I dig into my shoe. The narrow, serrated file West slipped under the insole isn’t enough of a weapon for me to overpower Rex, but it’ll get me out of these zip ties. If I have enough time to use it.
Bettina’s whimpers put an end to that plan too soon. I can’t let him keep hurting her. Sliding the file up my left sleeve, I call his name.
“Stop! Or the next transfer I make will send a million dollars directly to the federal government.” He won’t understand there’s no way I can actually do that. The threat is effective enough. Rex shoves Bettina to the floor.
“If you try anything…” he warns, stalking back to my side.
“I know. More pain. You’re so creative.” The slap sends my head whipping to the side.
Shut up, Hope. Just a little longer and Wyatt will come for you.
The laptop screen flickers. Huh? The code I’d entered on this transfer, nin30, letting someone—Wren, I hope—know that Simon’s due back in the basement in thirty minutes, changes.
In10.
Ten minutes? They’re going to be here in ten minutes? I can hold out for ten more minutes. I have to.
Another flicker, and the code disappears. Quickly, I add OK to the transfer note, then send it off. Four accounts left, and now…nine minutes. Curling the fingers of my left hand, I close them around the tip of the file.
They’re coming for me. I have to be ready.
Wyatt
“In position to cut the power.” West’s words in my ear are the best fucking thing I’ve heard all day. We’ve been in position for over an hour and a half. Any longer, and I was going over the wall on my own, damn any consequences.
“Base, you good to go?” Rip asks.
“Base is ready. Count it down, Charlie.”
The brief silence is long enough for me to close my eyes and visualize my target. The south wall of the compound. Twelve feet up and over. A drop onto grass. Then fifty feet to the front door. Thermals better fucking work or we’re breaching the house blind.
“On my mark,” Rip says quietly. “Three. Two. One. Go.”
The floodlights illuminating the outer wall flicker—Wren’s infiltration of Simon’s network—and someone shouts. “What the hell was that?”
I take off at a dead run, covering the distance in under a minute. The wall looms tall above me. The instant everything goes dark, I throw the small grappling hook up and over the wall. It lands with a quiet plink, catches, and I start to climb.
The power comes back on with a dull hum of equipment, lights, and a blaring alarm from inside the house. “Yankee. Eight o’clock,” Ry says in my ear. Spinning around, I fire a single shot from my silenced MK-23. It finds its mark in a tall, black-clad man’s neck, and he goes down.
