Page 115 of Trapped Truth

“No tremors or blurred vision.” She rubs her bleary eyes.

“Axel, watch her closely. I want to know the minute anything changes.”

“What do you think I’ve been doing?” Axel glares at me.

“We’re all watching her.” Warner clicks his seatbelt in. “Just drive. Let’s get out of here.”

My jaw aches from the force of locking my teeth into a tight-lipped vice. I doubt biting my team leader’s head off will do much good. No matter how tempting.

As we pull out of the parking garage, winter gloom engulfs the car. Traffic moves at a slow crawl with the approaching evening rush. When I called, Luke was finishing his online schoolwork while Jayce prepped dinner. Not that she had much to say to me beyond a grunted hello that dripped with irritation.

“I need to see Gracie again,” Ember announces from the rear. “We need to run the footage of the fire attack past her, see if she recognises any of Madden’s men fleeing the scene.”

“All we have are a couple of grainy images.” There’s a hollow weight to Axel’s cadence. “Besides, they were masked. In and out, a clean kill. Hardly groundbreaking evidence.”

“It’s worth a shot. What about the accelerant used?”

“Petrol bombs.” I pass the report back with my free hand. “This was just released. Officially, the blaze was caused by a rival gang attempting to secure new territory.”

“Not far from the truth,” Blaine grumbles.

“The best lies often aren’t.”

“What about Spyder?” Ember suggests half-heartedly.

“Still on a ventilator,” Blaine replies in a grim tone. “Two low-ranking runners passed at the hospital, and one is in a medically induced coma with head-to-toe burns.”

“Shit!”

“How did Madden get their location?” Warner rubs his trouser-covered leg. “That’s what I want to know.”

“I can’t exactly interrogate the dead to identify who betrayed me, can I?”

“Enough, Blaine. We’re trying to help here.”

“Can your help bring back my dead friends?”

Internally wincing, the cold lash of Blaine’s voice doesn’t leave me with much to offer. Even I can admit the dude has been through a lot. His crew is like his family, and this attack decimated his ranks.

“How many people do you have left?” Axel cranes his neck to make eye contact.

“Perhaps a dozen,” Blaine reveals after a beat. “There was a smaller distribution operation in a different location.”

“Have you told the directors that?” Ember asks him.

“I’m already on thin ice, sweetheart. It isn’t the time to play my last card.”

“Probably for the best. They were pretty mad.”

“Ya think?” Axel flops back against his seat.

Even under the threat of re-prosecution, Blaine still has a backup plan. He’s a crafty son of a bitch. Begrudgingly, I can appreciate the master strategising at a time like this.

Focusing on the array of red brake lights sprawling ahead of us, we make progress through London’s rush hour at a painfully slow pace. I’m about ready to start rear-ending overpriced electric cars and black taxi cabs when the glittering lights of Canary Wharf become visible.

Between our desperate frenzy of active operations, moving loved ones into safe houses and chasing our tails at every turn, none of us have gotten much rest. I need to lay horizontal for a few hours before I do something really stupid or Blaine embarks on a murderous killing spree.

“We rest tonight then reinterview Gracie tomorrow,” Warner decides, his gaze on the towering apartment buildings ahead. “Perhaps she can give us another lead.”