“Always, sweetheart. There’s no way you could stop me.”
“Yeah, I kind of figured that. It’s why I didn’t tell you yesterday. You were in the middle of that mission. I guess that went tits up?”
“You could say that. Go have breakfast and I’ll talk to you soon. I love you.”
“Love you.”
After she hangs up, I check my phone screen for cracks. I’ve been clutching it so tightly. It buzzes immediately with a text from Evan.
Evan: I got a charter flight. The pilot will file the flight plan as soon as we get to the airport.
Me: A charter flight. How the hell did you arrange that?
Evan: I have my ways. I don’t know what’s going on, boss. But we’re all going with you. You can’t stop us.
I look over at Mike and see the smirk on his face.
Me: I wouldn’t dream of it.
“I’m guessing you figured out enough from my end of the conversation?” I ask when he stays quiet.
“Something happened to Providence when she was younger and now she’s back there to figure it out?” he asks.
“Close but not exactly. It’s not my story to tell. But the real reason I’m going,” at his raised eyebrow, I correct myself. “Wewill attempt to rescue two little girls who were abducted a couple of days ago.”
“What the actual fuck? She went there to do that on her own?”
“Yeah, well, we were in Baltimore and she didn’t want to pull us away from that. We could have been saving over one hundred women. She didn’t know it was a false flag.”
“I heard you promise to make her wait to do anything. Do you think she will?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. I’m not sure I’ll blame her if she doesn’t. I think it’s going to come down to how quickly we can get there. Step on that gas, we’ve got a plane to catch.”
“Copy that.”
CHAPTER 10
PROVIDENCE
Mellie knocks on the door, then pushes it open after I hang up with Tony. I’d asked her to give me a few minutes, but I’m not surprised she was listening outside the room.
“Are you okay?” she asks as she sits on the bed she used last night.
“Yeah. He’s coming. Actually, if I know those guys, the entire team will be with him. It looks like you’re going to meet them after all.”
“That’s good right. It’s what we were hoping for.” She’s watching my facial expressions as she tucks some hair behind her ear. I’ve noticed it’s one of her tells when she’s nervous.
“It is good, I just don’t want to wait too long. What if we’re wrong about them being held in that house? Then we’ve wasted valuable time we could have been using to try to track them down.” As we’re talking, I’m typing out the information that Tony wanted. “Is it okay to give Tony your cell number in case he can’t get through on mine?”
“Sure.” After she rattles it off, she leans back against the wall by her bed. “So, what do you want to do? You promised him we’d wait.”
“I know,” answering as I hit send on the text with the information I have, which isn’t much. But now he has the house we think they’re being held in, the Browns’ address, and Mellie’s phone number.
“I vote for breakfast and then figuring it out. What do you say? You haven’t lived until you’ve tasted my mom’s blueberry muffins fresh from the oven.”
“Well, damn, woman. You should have led with that.” I grin. Sharing all of that with Tony was hard, unimaginably so, but it also eased some of the fear and anger squeezing my chest.
“There you are. I thought I was going to have to come up and get you.” Trudy’s face lights up as me and Mellie walk into the kitchen. “Do you like coffee, Providence?”
