A spray bottle emerged in her delicate hand. The white powdered substance sparkled within the clear container. She wiggled it back and forth in front of his face.
Fuck! Not again. That bitch—
A poof of white cloudy powder coated his skin.
A soft chuckle escaped her mouth.
“Good night, Mr. Montgomery.”
Chapter Thirty
Julian jerked at the I.V. piercing the vein of his left arm, removing it slowly. A drop of blood oozed from the prick, which he swiped at quickly, pressing his thumb against the bend of his elbow. “Let me get this straight. Sunny found out I got arrested and the entire TIDES team came to the Palmchat Islands to break me out of prison?”
When the masked woman had thrown powder in his face, he’d been convinced it was Priscilla Dumay coming after him again. He’d never expected TIDES had planned his escape.
Azalea “Zale” Newton nodded. “We split up and headed to different islands to stay off the cops’ radar.”
“We put our bloody lives on hold, waiting for the opportunity to bust you out of prison,” Simon Newton added with a surly expression.
Hakeem Underwood crossed his arms over his chest. “The three of us have been in St. Felipe since we arrived. When we heard you’d been stabbed in Tiverton and were going to be transferred to a hospital here, we were ready.”
“So that’s why the three of you broke me out of prison,” Julian said, staring at the last three people he’d ever expected to help him. Julian hadn’t exactly endeared himself to the trio when they’d worked together in Africa. Simon, Zale’s husband, had decided Julian was a foe and not a friend when Julian embarrassed the team during his first workout with them in Nairobi.
Hakeem was an entirely different story. He and Sunny’s brother still weren’t on good terms after Hakeem had used Mena as a pawn in his revenge against Tubeec Hirad. They tolerated each other for Sunny’s sake, which made it even more surprising that he was one of the TIDES members who had freed him from prison.
Zale was the exception. She was the only one who didn’t have a beef with him.
Zale said, “We’d been training for a possible prison break since we got here. Hijacking the water ambulance after we intercepted the call from the prison to St. Felipe Memorial Hospital had been the easy part.”
“Deciding whether to let you in on our plans almost stalled everything,” Hakeem said. “Ultimately, Sunny decided we should sedate you and make it look like an abduction. That way you have plausible deniability if you get caught.”
“Not a bad plan, if Zale hadn’t been so heavy-handed with the powder and knocked me out for almost two damn days,” Julian said.
“You’re welcome, asshole,” Simon said, taking a step toward Julian. “Zale risked her life and her freedom to help you, and you want to be pissed off because you got a few extra hours of sleep? Extra hours that helped that nasty gash heal after I stitched you up, by the way.”
Julian raised his hands, regretting his outburst. Simon was right. He was being ungrateful. The entire TIDES team had put their assignments on hold to come to the Palmchat Islands and lie in wait for a chance to help him. The least he could do was show appreciation for the risks they were taking. Risks that could land all of them in a maximum-security prison for years.
Julian said, “I’m sorry. I appreciate everything that all of you have done to help me. But it’s time that I step up and do more to help myself.”
“We agree,” Hakeem said. “The heat is on now that every Caribbean law enforcement agency is looking for you. We need to get back to Kenya. It’s only a matter of time before they connect you to us and cops show up at our doorstep with questions.”
“Which means, we need to be at our doorstep, if you get our drift,” Simon added.
Julian nodded. Going back to Nairobi was the right move. Time wasn’t on their side. They needed to head back to Africa tonight. He couldn’t be the reason any of them ended up in prison for helping him or worse—headed back to Kenya in body bags.
Julian glanced around the room. Four beds were stationed along two of the walls. In the middle of the room was a round table covered with monitors, computers and surveillance equipment. Across from the bed where he lay was a studio sized kitchen next to a full-sized bathroom. A step up from his accommodations in Tiverton.
“So, where am I? What is this place?” Julian asked. There were no windows, and he suspected he was in a hidden bunker.
Zale smiled, then said, “In a place you discovered about a year ago. No one would look for you here.”
“I discovered this place?”
“It’s where Dumay hid the surrogates, mate. The basement of the Genesis Gallery in St. Basil,” Simon explained.
“How the hell did you pull this off?”
Hakeem shrugged, “Not without a lot of help. You know how persuasive Sunny can be. She struck a deal with the owner and arranged for this room to be set up in case we were able to break you out of Tiverton.”
