I could see people inside through the long French windows. There was a woman and a little boy.
The minute I registered that however the scene was wiped away from me with the blast of a bomb more powerful than the others.
It knocked me back, right off my feet. It knocked me but still I crawled forward. I kept going like I could still save them.
Disbelief took me.
I couldn’t believe I failed. I was sure it couldn’t have been three and a half minutes since I’d spoken to the bastard. Then it hit me. It wasn’t.
It was all part of his game.
I never had a chance.
I never had a chance and he wanted me to know I didn’t. He wanted to teach us a lesson.
We couldn’t stop him.
I couldn’t.
Chapter 9
Xander
Present day…
My first reaction was to contact Ethan and Wes for an emergency meeting.
It was no damn coincidence that we knew The Ra was involved and I saw Balthazar today.
Over the last few weeks we didn’t link his association because The Ra were so vast and there were so many groups of them all over the world.
Now I was for damn certain that he was involved.
The sight of him meant that things were next level bad.
In five years I’d never come close to seeing the man.
To date I’d spent over two million on various missions Wes and I had planned to find him. That was how much I’d spent to get a possible sighting of one of the most notorious terrorist associates and came back with shit.
Nothing every time.
Yet, today he was just simply at the casino. Right there out in the open like the everyday person who went there for fun.
The man had been looking at me, looking at me from across the other building. Right in my line of sight, but so far away.
Far away and positioned in a way to remind me that I couldn’t catch him.
Fucking asshole!
Wes and Ethan were already at the warehouse when I got there.
They knew it had to be serious for me to call this meeting because I was supposed to be floorwalking the casino.
“What happened?” Ethan asked.
“Balthazar Kane. That’s what happened. I just saw him, forty minutes ago at the casino. The man looked at me like we were just passersby and took off.” I wasn’t the sort of guy to blurt in a babble but that’s what I sounded like.
Ethan turned pale and Wes’ mouth dropped open.
