Page 72 of Her Defiant Warrior

“Hot damn. You still have your knife!”

As soon as the words were out of Jase’s mouth, he realized they meant jack shit. Even if they cut themselves out of their restraints to go look around, there was no way the three of them could tie themselves back up.

Shit.

He looked at Gideon and Ryker and saw they had realized the same thing.

“It’s worth the risk,” Gideon said.

“Agreed,” Ryker nodded. “We need intelligence. We can’t just follow these idiots around blind and wait for something to happen.”

While they were talking, Jase was unbuckling Ryker’s belt and unhooking the knife.

“Ouch, be careful with that shing. I mean thing,” Ryker said.

Jase laughed. He knew damn good and well that Ryker was only saying that in order to make him and Gideon laugh.

After Jase got Ryker’s hands untied, Ryker cut the rest of them loose. He looked down at his watch. “It’s a minute past twenty-two-hundred hours. Do we wait?”

Jase nodded. “I say we wait until zero hundred.”

Kostya and Gideon nodded.

“Time for shut eye. Give me your watch, Ryker. I’ll wake you both at go-time,” Jase ordered.

“No, you two sleep. I rested while you were at the museum,” Kostya protested.

Gideon snorted. “Passing out from blood loss isn’t sleeping. Give Jase your watch, shut-up and sleep.”

13

“Nobody ever locks their tablets. What’s up with that?” Gideon mumbled.

Ryker was at the mouth of the hallway to the bedrooms, keeping watch for activity. Everything was quiet, but they needed to make sure nobody caught them by surprise. When Jase checked the three-car garage, there was only a sedan. It seemed like it would only be Ely who was with them, but they still needed to be careful.

Jase was now planted at the curtains in the study, watching to see if anyone was driving up to the house. They were at the end of a cul-de-sac in a well-to-do neighborhood.

Totally bizarre.

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Be happy you can access Ely’s information. Find out what’s going on. Does he have a file named plot to kill the prince? Can you e-mail it to Kostya so we can get out of here?”

“Come here,” Gideon motioned.

Jase went to look over Gideon’s shoulders. He didn’t need to be watching outside. Anybody who would be coming to the house would use the garage doors. The sound of the garage door opening would be enough of a clue to get their happy asses back to the bedroom.

“Whatchya got?”

“I think I have their personnel roster. Ely and Amanda aren’t on it. I don’t see someone named Spider or Bull, but I do see a Robert Gibbons, with a date beside his name. It was five months ago. There are forty-seven names.”

“E-mail it to yourself.”

“Kane’s downloading the entire hard-drive to himself as we speak, so that’s covered. But what scaring me is that there are forty-seven names on it. Why would they need to recruit Brax?”

“Maybe they have enough jobs world-wide that they needed another man here in Dubai,” Jase said hopefully.

“Maybe.”

“Anything else?”