“I’d rather not. No offense to your uncle, but I don’t want agents crawling all over my building. Plus, it’s too close to your father. He’s going to suspect you’re behind it and if he manages to breach our defenses, I don’t want those women caught up in it. I don’t mind giving up the safehouse; it’s not one we use often anyway. I’ll sell it after the women are gone,” Ryan explains.
Jase reaches over and snatches the box of chow mein. Spooning some on his plate, he glances up at us. “Knowing Vincenzo, he’ll be worried you’ll do something at the funeral. He won’t suspect you know about the shipment. So while he’s watching and waiting for you to strike out in public, we’ll be at the docks rescuing the women. Delran is the safest place for them until Harris can get them out.”
“Okay, I agree. How will we get them to New Jersey?”
“I’ll get one of the other teams on it. If you and Kian take the bikes, they’ll follow in vans. In and out. Get the women in the vans, do whatever surprise you want, and get out. Funeral or not, if Vincenzo gets wind of an attack, he’ll send men out after you, so get back here as quickly as you can.”
“Yessir,” Kian and I reply in unison, making Ryan roll his eyes.
“Can we go see the weapon room now? I wanna blow shit up,” I ask, excitement at the thought of getting out of the building thrumming through me.
Ryan sighs, putting down his fork and looking longingly at the food left on his plate. Wiping his mouth with a napkin, he gets up and leads the way.
When he opens the doors with a flourish, my mouth drops in wonder. Stepping inside, I spin slowly, taking everything in. Guns of all shapes and sizes. Knives, swords, and machetes. Bazookas, grenades … fuck me. It’s a doomsday prepper’s wet dream.
Reaching up, I grab an RPG-7, a sinister smile stretching wide across my face. Kian beams back at me, and I’m sure I hear Ryan mutter something like, “Oh great. There are two of them.”
Chapter 40
Dutch
“YouknowI’mnothappy about you going out like this,” Cruz informs me, his arms wrapped tight around me.
“I know. But I also know that you understand it, so after I kiss you goodbye and promise that I’ll come back in one piece, you’re going to let me go and do what I need to, right?”
His arms tighten. “You better come back unscathed. If you don’t, Kian is going to find himself at the end of my swords.”
My shoulders tremble with silent laughter. “I’ll be sure to pass that message along.”
“Please do. Now kiss me, and promise you’ll return to me.”
My entire life I’ve fought against authority. But Cruz being bossy makes me melt. Guess it’s okay when he does it. I do what he asks and he eventually lets me go, watching me until the elevator doors close.
Walking into the dining room right at ten o’clock, I meet Kian and Ryan, followed by Andy and Francis, the people Ryan has assigned to drive the vans. Lounging around on the sofas in the dining room, breakfast has been spread out on the coffee table for us to help ourselves to.
When I see Kian pouring himself a coffee, I scrunch my nose and scoot away from him. He jumps up, coming closer to me, waving his cup in the air. “Get away from me with that vile shit!” I screech. “It reeks!”
“I know you want some. Come on, you’ll need your energy today.”
“Kian, if you want to come with me today, you’ll go sit your ass down somewhere far away from me.”
He grumbles under his breath and takes a seat about six feet away from me. Fucker knows I hate coffee and the stench of it. Peering over at him, I see his devious mind working, and I just know he has something up his sleeve. I can picture him hugging me or blowing his breath on me.
I’m pretty sure my face just turned green at the thought. Narrowing my eyes at him, I almost laugh when he schools his features into an innocent-looking one. It’s about as convincing as my father pretending to be a good guy. “Don’t even fucking think about it, Hulk. If you put your stanky coffee breath anywhere near me, I’ll leave you behind and take Cruz instead.” I raise a brow to emphasize my point.
Kian rolls his eyes and sighs deeply to show me how put out he is. Reaching a hand in his pocket, he pulls out a pack of mint gum and makes a big production of shoving two sticks in his mouth and chewing furiously. He throws his hands in the air, raises a brow, and says, “Happy now?”
I smile prettily back at him, batting my eyelashes. “Yep.”
Ryan clears his throat and we snap to attention, going over the plan and backup plan one more time. Once he’s sure we’ve all memorized it backward and forward, we head to the weapon room and collect a couple of guns each, a few boxes of ammo, silencers, a knife each, and of course, two RPG-7s. Then I grab a third, just in case.
After we load the RPG-7s into the vans, I remove my boots and step into my one-piece leather suit. Not only will it protect me while on the bike, but it has hidden pockets where I can store my weapons.
Kian has specialized leathers custom-made for him. He likes to stand out, so has tattoo-looking artwork done on the legs and back of the jacket.
Once our weapons are concealed and we’re ready to go, we pull our helmets on and wave to Ryan. He presses the control to open the garage doors, golden rays of sun pouring in as the doors slowly raise. Once they’re up, I whoop, throttling the engine. I hear Kian’s bike answer mine, followed by the vans roaring to life. Excited to be out, even if it’s not on my own bike, I tear out of the garage, the others following my lead.
Manhattan is not the best place for riding. There’s too much traffic, too many people. And far too many cameras. Although when two of the world’s finest hackers are at your beck and call, cameras are no longer an issue … except for cell phones, of course. Not that we need to worry too much about that today. Jase may not be in Eric or Trey’s league, but his hacking skills are nothing to scoff at. He’s keeping track of us using our trackers, and when we get within two blocks of the docks, he’ll take care of any surveillance there.
