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So. Fucking. Selfish.
It’s Jake who comes to see me in the morning as I lie in the cage he locked me in the night before. He’s alone, locking the dungeon door behind him and heading over to me with a sad smile. “Hey, man.”
I consider moving but decide against it when I realize this is the one position I can be in without anything hurting too badly—curled on my left side, one leg resting over the other, head supported by my bicep.
“Carter?” I ask, focused on the only thing that still matters.
“He’s doing okay.” He squats beside the cage, two fingers curling around a set of bars. I start to smirk at his fancy-ass suit but stop when it pulls at the injured skin on my face too much. “He’s with Casey for the moment. He’s worried about you.”
“Tell him not to be. He’s the baby brother. Tell him to let me do the worrying.”
He chuckles. “I’ll let him know. Did you get any sleep? Anyone come bother you in the night?”
“One or two. Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
“Yeah?” He rubs at his jaw, looking concerned. “And how about sleep?”
I give him a look. “I passed out for a while. It’s good enough.”
“I can maybe sneak you up to my room for a few hours.”
“I’m fine, Jake. Really. Don’t worry about it.”
He sighs, resigned. “Alright. The plan is still the same. You’ll be taken to the party venue by a few of Travis’s higher-ups later. I told them all to leave you the fuck alone until then, some bullshit about not ruining the night’s entertainment by fucking you up too badly before the show can start. They’ll listen, but they won’t behave when it’s time to move you, and they definitely won’t behave while they secure you on stage.”
“I know.” When I see how torn up he looks about it, I force a smile. It hurts like fuck. One of my cuts splits back open, warm blood oozing out of it. “Jake, I’m fine. I signed up for this, yeah?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I know.” He rubs the back of his neck. “You need something to eat?”
“I’ll just throw it up,” I admit. “Could use some water, though.”
He nods. “I’ll go get you some. What about painkillers? I can get you nice and high before this whole thing starts. Won’t be enough to stop the pain, but it’ll take the edge off.”
“And risk something going wrong? Fuck no. I’m this fucking close to getting Carter to safety, to getting all of them to safety. I can handle the pain. I need my head clear.”
He doesn’t look happy, but he doesn’t argue either. He knows me too well for that. After all these years of talking on the phone, he can probably tell just by my voice that this isn’t up for discussion.
“Then I’ll get you water. And a straw for it. I’m assuming you’re hoping not to move.”
“I appreciate that.”
“I’ll tell Ace to have drinks and painkillers waiting for us at the safehouse for when this is all over.” He eyes me. “And the doctor.”
I don’t argue. Not only does that sound pretty fucking nice right now, but I know Ace is already planning on doing something similar anyway. He showed me the expensive bottle of Scotch he bought before I left the safehouse to come here. We’d spent the last month getting the place ready for the survivors—cleaning, decorating, and buying clothes and supplies. He’s been the fourth member of our team since the beginning, our tech wizard, weapons specialist, and resident fashionista. The two of us have lived together for most of that, just to make shit easier. In all that time, I had never seen that fucker in more of his element than when he was looking at paint samples and picking out bedding. There’s no way I’ll argue about him proudly sharing his fancy Scotch to celebrate the end of this shit.
I realize Jake is about to walk away to get my water, but I stop him. I could wait, could ask him when he comes back, but there’s the slightest risk that something could go wrong and he won’t make it back to me. I can’t take that chance. I have to know. I have to be able to prepare myself. “Jake?”
He cocks his head. “Yeah?”
“Carter.” I swallow hard. “Did he and Travis decide on what they’ll do tonight? You know, to buy time?”
There’re about thirty minutes between when Travis arrives at the party and the spiked champagne toast that’ll send everyone to the ground. It needs to be there for two reasons. One, so there’s enough time for all the important guests to arrive. If we do it too soon and don’t get everyone, then we risk major loose strings. The kind of loose strings that are powerful enough to rebuild the ring we’ve spent a decade infiltrating. Two, having a champagne toast the minute he walks into his own party would just be plain weird. Especially considering the particular circumstances of this party.
I left it up to Travis to talk to Carter about what he’d be comfortable with. Him seeing me for the first time since getting kidnapped will buy us about five minutes. Maybe longer, if Travis can draw out the taunting. After that, they’ll need some sort of entertainment. I told Travis to try to get Carter to agree to me being the main show. I hope to God he got him to.
From the look on Jake’s face right now, I have a feeling he didn’t.
“Jake, come on, man. Tell me.”
