Page 94 of Kyle

“They’re loading out,” Jasmin’s voice crackled in my earpiece.

“Copy that. How many trucks?” Declan asked.

“Four. Twenty-eight girls so far,” she returned.

Fuck. We were gonna lose a truck.

“How much time we got?” Colin asked.

“Looks like a while. They’re in no hurry.”

“Mission shift, boys and girls,” Lincoln came over the comms. “Colin and Brooks, get your asses to town and find a vehicle to borrow and stay put. You’re team one. We’ll radio when your truck pulls out.”

“Copy,” Brooks answered.

“Double-time that,” Linc instructed. “Jas and Max, team two. Thad, Kyle, Dec, team three. Me and Leo, team four. We’ll take up the rear.”

After a round of acknowledgements, the others started to move into position. Since the three of us were sticking together, none of us moved from our location and waited.

“Something’s jacked,” I announced. “Fuckin’ feel it in my gut.”

“Not the first time we’ve had to regroup in the middle of a maneuver,” Dec reminded me.

“It’s not the mission. But something’s fucked. And I don’t like that we have zero goddamn communication with HQ.”

“Zane’s aware of the problem. You know he’s working on fixing it,” Thad said, sounding just as irritated as I did.

“Not the first time we’ve been dark, either. So start explaining what feels fucked. Do we need to scrap the mission?”

Declan was a smart man, and listened to his team. We’d all been in this line of work long enough we knew not to ignore our gut. And if I told him we needed to pull back, he’d make the call. No more questions asked.

“Don’t fuckin’ know, Dec. Never felt like this. I just know down to my soul something is jacked up.”

“Nut to butt,” Dec said into his mic, instructing the team without actually saying it to stick close to their teammate and watch their backs.

“Fuck me. Who?” Leo asked, knowing one of us had a bad feeling.

“Kyle.”

“Sheee-it,” Leo mumbled. “I was hoping for an easy op.”

“Not today, brother,” Dec returned.

He killed his mic and turned back to me. “I need honesty. You think this has more to do with you knowing Anaya is questioning Monica?”

“Maybe,” I answered. “But, Dec, you know my gut’s never wrong. We need to check in as soon as we can.”

“We will. Hang tight.”

Hang tight? I had no option, but if I had, I would’ve taken it. I glanced at Thad and knew he felt it, too, he was just better at hiding it than me.

There was damn well something wrong.

* * *

Two hours later, we were finally on the road following a truck with seven girls in the cargo hold. Two men to each truck.

“We have forty minutes before we hit Lake Memphremagog,” Thad said from the back seat.