Uriel took her face in his big hands. He put away the Archangel, and instead was her friend, Caspian.
“And you have children who need you. He’s fucking with you. I need you to stop feeling guilty and start getting angry. Angry Elizabeth is a force of nature. Guilty Elizabeth is a target.”
She was to the point.
Because everyone around her seemed to forget she wore a goddamn badge.
And she’d earned it.
“If I’m angry, I won’t do this the legal way, Cas. He makes me angry enough that I want to bend the law until it breaks. I did it when Ethan’s assaulter returned, and I’ve done it a few times in my life, and it’s never worth the blood. I want to catch him the right way, and I want him to go to jail. I need to get them legal justice.”
He kissed her on the forehead.
“Mom, sometimes, you have to put evil where it belongs. He’ll get out. Let us handle it. You have a platoon of Marines ready to do the job. Set us free.”
She wouldn’t do that.
Why?
Elizabeth never asked anyone to do anything she wouldn’t do herself. It wasn’t fair, and she promised long ago not to be that kind of boss.
“No,” she said.
He sighed.
Elizabeth was to the point.
“I’m going to get him, and then, I need a break. This might be the one that takes me down,” she said. “Not personally, but professionally. I only have two choices, Cas. It’s let him kill, and ignore it, or go under and play the game. I don’t know who I’ll be when I come back out, but I’m not sure it will be the woman you see now. She might need to step back for a while to re-find herself.”
He was honest.
“We’re going to love you no matter what. You just have to…”
He stopped when Raphael approached.
“Everyone’s working on the case,” Raphael stated. “They received the information you sent over, and they are digging in. The whole team knows you’re returning with our guests,” he said, pointing at the blanket-covered bins. “They put two and two together, and came up with a personal escort for Jet.”
She figured as much. Tony likely told them that his remains were heading there.
“Any bodies?” she asked. “Has he popped up yet?”
Raphael shook his head.
“Not yet. You might have caught him off guard with that press conference. That might have bought you some time,” he admitted.
Or given him time to move to another city.
SheREALLYhoped and prayed that she picked the right city from his cryptic clues.
“Do you want to head there, or do you want the pilot to go somewhere else?” Raphael asked.
What she wanted was for the pilot to fly her anywhere but into the storm.
Except, she only had one choice in this, and it was to play through his sick and twisted game. In the back of her mind, she hopedThe Huntersput a rush on this. At some point, this was going to explode, and she knew it.
“What do you want to do?” Raphael asked.
She knew that she had to decide.
