“You have a plan.” Her heart thumped, sending a hefty dose of hope flourishing throughout her system.
“Yes, but I needed you to be awake for it to work.”
“What if they’d come back to kill us before I came to?”
“If they wanted us dead, they would have killed us in the apartment.”
The apartment.
“How did they even find us?”
“I have no idea. They must have followed you and Digger from the office.”
“That’s impossible.” Shadow started to shake her head but was stopped with a wince as pain shot like a knife through her skull. “Slade made sure we didn’t have a tail.”
“Well right now, the how doesn’t matter. Whoever it is will be coming back, most likely sooner, rather than later. And when they do, we need to be ready.”
“Tell me what I need to do.”
“We must maintain the element of surprise, which means we have to remain bound until the very last second. And you have to wait for me to make the call.”
“Done.” She didn’t so much as hesitate to agree. “Now hurry up and tell me the plan before the assholes come back.”
Over the next few minutes, her father did just that. And when the door to the room opened, Shadow was convinced she was ready.
But then she saw the face of the man who’d just entered the room, and just like that, she forgot all about the well-thought-out plan.
“You.”
Michael Stanton appeared in his typical black suit and matching tie. There was even a small pin of the American Flag attached to his lapel.
The sight of the man made her sick, and she began pulling against the tape holding her in place. “You son of a bitch! I swear to God, when I get loose, I’m going to fuckingkillyou!”
Her shouted warning echoed off the concrete walls, but Stanton simply threw his head back and laughed. The bastardlaughed, and when Shadow looked over at her father, his only response was a slow shake of his head.
Not yet.
She could practically hear his thoughts as his eyes burned into hers with an insistent stare. He’d warned her the waiting would be the hardest part, but until now, she had no idea how true that really was.
“You have your mother’s spirit, I’ll give you that.” Stanton grinned. “And it appears you also inherited both her and your father’s do-gooder genes. I warned her, you know. Said those good intentions of hers would end up getting her killed. But like you…” He pulled a pistol from his jacket pocket and sighed. “She refused to listen.”
“What did she have on you?” her father asked the man who’d brutally his wife. “I mean, you’re going to kill us anyway, the least you could do is give us that.”
Stanton looked at her father and then to her before giving one of his shoulders a shrug. “You’re right. I am going to kill you.”
“Then what are you waiting for, Stanton?” Shadow popped off to the murdering SOB. “Why all the grandstanding? Are you really that hard-up? Let me guess. The missus just doesn’t do it for ya, anymore, is that it?”
The man chuckled again. “Damn, Alice. You really are the spitting image of your mother, aren’t you?”
“That’s the nicest thing a piece of shit like you could ever say. But hey, since you have such a captive audience, why not give us the goods before ending all the fun?” She made a show of her secured hands and shrugged. “Not like we’re going anywhere.”
He stared down at her with a look of both fury and intrigue. “All right, fine.” Stanton began pacing the space between them and the room’s only exit. “I suppose I have a few moments to spare before I have to leave for my next speaking event. So yeah, I’ll play. Why not?”
Why not, indeed?
Shadow forced her split lip into a smile, the move splitting apart a cut in her lip from earlier. A fresh drop of warm blood began to run down her chin, but she ignored it and focused on every word the murdering asshole spoke.
“I’m assuming you already know that your mother and I were wet work agents with the CIA back in the day,” Stanton began. “We were one of the few sets of partners who regularly worked together to take out high-value targets. Oh, they were all very bad people, of course. Your mother never would have done that kind of work otherwise. Amanda was truly a patriot. The woman was just and fair and had one of the biggest hearts I’d ever seen.”
