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Janey could feel the fear shaking her apart from the inside out. She moved across the console to the passenger seat as Mark eased into the vehicle and closed the door softly behind him.
Darkness surrounded them. Janey had lost sight of Alex within seconds of him moving away from the truck.
Mark flipped his cell phone open and hit speed dial. “Natches. Back street across from Alex’s house.
Come in quiet, lights off. We have the stalker on-site and Alex and Tyrell are moving in. ” He was silent for a second. “Confirmed. I have her with me and we need backup. ” He flipped the phone closed and turned to grin at her. “Cavalry is coming. ”
“Alex should have waited,” she said worriedly, fighting the fear and the tears that would have escaped.
“He and Tyrell are the best at this that there is,” Mark promised her, flashing her a smile. “They’ll be back in twenty, your stalker bleeding and moaning in pain, and everything will slide back to normal for all of us. ”
She gripped the gun Alex had given her, staring around in fear. It was too dark. There were too many shadows. And Alex wasn’t with her. He was out there, in danger.
Mark tried to reassure her again. “The major has always known what he was doing. Trust him. ”
“I trust him. ” She trusted him with her life, but he wasn’t here and she couldn’t see him. She had turned and was staring through the passenger window, her gaze delving into the darkness, when she heard the windshield shatter.
TWENTY-THREE
Janey felt the pinch of something in her shoulder as she turned to Mark. His head had slammed back, his eyes widening in shock, a dart buried in his neck.
Janey reached, scrambling to the side of her seat to jerk it out.
“Mark. Oh God. Mark. ”
He was struggling to start the pickup, the motor cranking as Janey felt dizziness sweep over her. The gun fell from her hand and terror swept over her as she heard the locks to the truck disengage. She felt around her shoulder and pulled out a dart embedded there.
“Comm. ” Mark’s voice was raspy as he struggled to pull the small, black communications device from his neck. He shoved it at her. “Alex. Move. Move. ”
Janey struggled against the darkness trying to sweep over her. Reaching over Mark’s now-still figure, she fought to reengage the locks, to secure the truck. Her shoulder throbbed. She felt as though she were moving through water, weighed down, her vision and her tongue thick as cold air swirled into the vehicle.
“Move, bitch!” Hard hands gripped her hair, jerking her back, pulling her along the seat and through the door until she collapsed to the ground.
Alex would be coming. She knew he was. He would be running. She just had to delay.
“Get up or I kill that little fairy in the truck. Fucking queer. He doesn’t deserve to live. ”
The pressure against her scalp was agonizing. Janey cried out with the pain, struggling to her feet and fighting to hang on to the slender communications device Mark had pushed at her.
Her hands were shaking, a sense of vertigo slamming through her as she lowered her head to hide her efforts to tuck the device into the band of her jeans, beneath her shirt.
“God, this was almost too easy. ” The voice, disguised somehow, was gloating. “I knew where they’d come in at. I knew where they would park. I was smarter. I was better. ”
Janey struggled against the hold as she was dragged through a yard. It was dark, late, for some dumb reason no one on this street had a dog in their backyard; now, how stupid was that?
She could feel the edge of hysterical laughter bubbling in her throat.
“Don’t worry, bitch. He walked right into my hands. ” The voice was familiar but she couldn’t place it.
She shook her head, praying she had activated the right button on Mark’s communications device and that Alex was able to track her.
If he didn’t track her, she was dead. Hell, she was probably dead anyway.
“If you don’t step it up, I’m going to just shoot you and get it over with,” the voice snapped. “And I would, except that spineless little brat of mine needs to understand success. Stupid little bastard. He’s so fucking weak. Always arguing over what I want to do. ”
Augusta Napier, Hoyt’s mother.
Janey could feel her body trying to shut down, her mind fighting to escape the reality of the knowledge.
