“Where, darlin’?”
She tries to lift her hand, but her arm shakes, and she lets it fall with a little whimper.
An older man with white hair steps out from the shadows. My brother and Connor draw down on him, and he raises his hands. “The garage is a quarter mile past the barn,” he says. “The gray building. Go quickly while my son’s clerics are…otherwise engaged.”
“Your son?” Jasper grabs the man’s arm, forces him to his knees, and jams his SIG against the guy’s temple.
Grace tugs on my shirt again, hard, then starts moving her fingers. “Darlin’, I don’t know all the letters?—”
“She’s saying, ‘Kept alive.’” Connor lowers his gun slightly. “He kept you alive?”
With a shuddering breath, she nods, then lays her palm over my heart. If that’s not code for please believe me, I don’t know what is.
I hold her close, my eyes narrowed on the old man. “That smoking pile of garbage is your son, yet you saved Grace’s life? How? Why?”
“Zeke trapped me here years ago. I’m an old man, Captain Stone. And he has—had—an army. But when Grace told me you were coming, I realized I had one chance to save my soul. To defy him in a way that mattered. So I slipped her the knife. Tainted the juice in the hopes it wouldn’t stay down. And”—he glances at Parker, limp in Hardison’s arms—“slid a piece of metal through the floor of the box so that girl would have a fighting chance.”
Nate stares down at his partner, at her bloody fingers, her soot-stained cheeks, and tightens his arms around her. “Cap, we gotta take him with us.”
I motion for Jas to let the old man up. His brows lift, but he takes a step back.
“I sure hope you can run,” I say. “Because we ain’t stickin’ around.”
The old man shakes his head. “No. My place is here. The wives and children…they’re innocent, Captain Stone. And they need me,” he says. “You’ll send someone for them, won’t you?”
“Yes. But…not until tomorrow. What happens next… Get them somewhere safe… Indoors. Away from any of the men. You hear me?”
Tears tumble down Grace’s cheeks. She reaches for the man, and he grasps her fingers briefly. “Your life is yours again, Grace. Live it well.”
In the next second, he’s gone. Melting back into the shadows.
“Zephyr? Where’s this goddamn garage?” Connor asks.
The hacker’s voice is like a whole fuckin’ choir of angels in my ear. “Northeast of you. Wait for ten seconds, and you’ll have a distraction.”
They’re some of the longest seconds of my life.
“Now. Everyone move!” The order shakes us all loose. Connor goes first, Jasper close behind. Hardison carries Parker next, and I hold Grace close, bringing up the rear.
One of the drones flies over our heads, and a second later, Zephyr calls out, “Get ready for a big boom, folks.”
“Parker, it’s gonna get loud,” Hardison warns.
She flinches, while Grace winds her arms around my neck and buries her face against my chest.
The percussion blast is strong enough I feel it all the way down to my toes. Grace jerks in my arms, a tiny whimper escaping her lips.
The effect is immediate. Men scatter, the gunfire dies down, and the battlefield collapses into silence and smoke. Thank God the women and children ran for their homes the second the shooting started.
Prophet is nothin’ more than a smoldering heap of burnt skin and blood, and my body unclenches a fraction. We’re safe. We should be safe. As long as Sandoval kept his word.
Inside the garage, more than a dozen vehicles wait. Jasper beelines for a white van.
“No!” Grace cries, panic sharp in her voice, clawing at me like the van itself might swallow her whole. “Took…me.”
Jasper stops inches away, frowns, then scans the place again. “Not the van, then.” He points at a newer pickup, clean, with a backseat. “That’ll have to do.”
Connor climbs into the bed, rifle at the ready. Jasper swings behind the wheel. Hardison and I get Grace and Parker into the back seat. We wedge in tight, me supporting Grace, Hardison bracing Parker.
