Page 34 of Deadly Alliance

BOOM!

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Emme swirledher glass of wine, smiling at Celeste who laughed at one of Lucy’s scandalous stories. Everybody laughed, and Emme forced herself to do the same. It was difficult to push Shane’s face from her mind, especially when she looked at her friends happy and in love.

She loved them all to death, but she would have liked some time to lick her wounds and cry her eyes out. Get that silliness out of her system for good and move on. Another mission, another focus.

Jace stretched on her small sofa. “I’m hungry. Anything in your fridge, Emme?”

Emme rolled her eyes and pushed herself up. “Not enough for you, and definitely not enough for Zin. It’s either pizza or Thai. They’re the only ones who deliver.”

As she went to the kitchen to grab the menus, a phone rang. Zin kissed Celeste before getting up to answer in the hallway.

Celeste winked at Emme and let herself fall in beside her. “Let’s order a lot of food and use Zin’s credit card, shall we?”

Jace whooped and Lucy elbowed him in the ribs which made Celeste giggle.

Too bad the bubble of laughter popped when Zin came back into the room.

“We need to move out. Now.”

Zin went to Celeste and the way he cradled her under his arm; it had to be bad.

All of them went into high alert. “Just got a call from Dee on their way to the airport. We’re a target; we have to move.”

Emme nodded. “My car is out the front.”

Zin almost yelled at her. “No! No cars. None of ours at least.”

“Why? What’s going on?” Lucy started closing the curtains on the house.

Emme’s head clicked into action and she went to her wardrobe, pulling out a few weapons. “That’s all I have. They are loaded.”

Each of them took one, except Celeste who looked both frightened and resolved. After all, it was the downside of falling for one of the Fortis men.

“We can leave out the back. We’ll have the cover from the hedge and Mrs Moore has gone to visit her sister, her car won’t be missed for another week. It will be a tight fit though.”

As they made their way to the back, Lucy patted her shoulder and winked. “I like the way you’re prepared. Makes me very proud.”

Emme nodded but hearing her praise warmed her heart.

Jace went first. Lucy and Emme scanned the area as Zin stayed at the back, protecting Celeste with his body. It was over very quickly, in less than a minute they were all piled in the small car.

With Jace at the wheel, Lucy riding shotgun and Zin folded in the back with Celeste on his lap, Emme shifted as best she could beside him.

Jace took the turn to enter the main road. “Now that we are technically out of harm’s way care to tell us what’s going on, Zin? And maybe where we are going? Not complaining, but Mrs Moore hasn’t fuelled the tank in a while.”

“Do we need to call Zack?”

“Dee said Owen had already called him.”

Emme’d had enough. “Can you be more specific? What triggered all this?”

Zin hesitated for a moment before locking eyes with her. “It seems that Bolton is not our guy, either that or he’s working with someone.”

A fist of ice tightened around her heart. It wasn’t like Zin to spare any details.

“What makes you say that? What happened, Zin?”