"I can get it for you."
"How?"
"I need to make a call." I had no idea who I was going to call. No one I knew had a million dollars sitting around, let alone a million dollars to spend to save Ashleigh and me.
He snapped his fingers, and the guy holding Ashleigh left, running around some bushes. "I'll get you your phone."
"You'll need to let her go first."
"I can't do that until I have the money."
I closed my eyes and sighed, hearing the door of a vehicle slam shut not far away. I had a half a mind to make a break for it, but the guys had guns. I just wanted Ashleigh to be safe. "Fine."
The guy who had left came back holding my phone. He handed it to the leader.
"Who are we calling?" the leader questioned. "And this better not be a fuckin' joke."
My brain was trying to catch up with my mouth. I still had no idea who to call. My gaze met Ashleigh's as though she had the answer, and then it hit me. "My buddy, Paul, but it needs to be me who calls him."
"So, you could ask for help?"
"Like I know where we are to even tell him," I retorted, motioning with my head at our surroundings. I didn't know if my plan was going to work, but I had to try. I wasn't going to go down without a fight. "All there is are fucking trees around. He knows I'm in Fiji."
"Okay. You have one minute." He handed me my phone before pulling out his gun. The two other guys pulled their weapons, one of them pointing his at Ashleigh and the other at me.
"Where do I have him send the money? It will need to be a wire transfer or something. He's back in the US."
The leader glared at me as though my question irritated him. He turned and went in the direction the other guy had run off to get my phone as he mumbled, "Fucking Filipe. Brings me the wrong fucking people, and now this? I'm going to kill him."
My gaze met Ashleigh's, and I tried to give her a reassuring smile. I also hoped she remembered my stories about Paul and who he was married to. Plus, what he currently did for work. He was the only one I knew to call who could even remotely come through and help us. If I was Gabe, Brad, or Paul, I would think I could fight my way out of this mess, but I wasn't.
I wasn't a trained killer like them.
The leader came back and handed me a small piece of paper with a number on it. "Have him transfer to that account."
"Okay." I took a deep breath, turned so the only visible landmark was behind me, and video-called Special Agent Paul Jackson.
The five-minute timer went off.
"Ready?" Joss asked.
I nodded. I'd been waiting years for this moment, especially with her. "Hell, yeah."
She lifted the pregnancy test from the counter, and immediately, her shoulders fell. "Not pregnant."
We hadn't been trying long, given I had been away at Quantico and was just starting out in the FBI, but now we were both ready, mainly since all of our friends either had kids or were about to—like her best friend, Cat, who was pregnant with her first child with Seth.
I pulled Joss into my arms. "It's okay. You know I like trying to knock you up."
"Oh, I know." She laughed, and it warmed my heart to know that she was laughing even though the test was negative. We would make it happen eventually. It just wasn't our time yet.
My phone started to ring in my pocket, and I pulled it out. "It's Nick," I stated.
"From Fiji?" Joss questioned.
I shrugged and swiped the button to answer the video call. "Nicholas!" I greeted him. "Calling to tell me I won the bet?"
"Ah, not exactly." Nick rubbed the back of his neck. He didn't look nice and relaxed, like I would have expected, given that he had been in paradise for several days. He looked stressed, with disheveled hair and not even a hint of a smile. I expected he would still be rubbing it in that he was in Fiji getting paid to fuck like he had before he left.
