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With that, I patched myself up too. I was just getting the glue on my arm that really required stitches when Bob burst back in, winded, shoulders slumped.
“Followed the trail,” he said, surveying the man who was tied up and still bleeding through one of the gauze pads I’d applied to his fingertips. “It went cold after the creek down a ways.”
“Tires?”
“No. Not that I saw. Just feet.”
“There’s supposed to be a car,” I hissed, looking over at the guy. Greg, he’d called himself.
“Might be. Just couldn’t see where they headed. Give me a location, I could head out again.”
“It will be too late,” I said, shaking my head. “There’s another private landing strip on someone named Richard Potter’s land.”
“Shit,” Bob grumbled, shaking his head.
“What?”
“No way we get on his property. He’s got it heavily guarded. And he’s a real sonofabitch. Local heroin dealer,” Bob told me.
So she was going to be on a plane before we could get to her.
Bad shit could happen on a plane.
And she would have no chance of escape.
“Fuck,” I hissed, slamming my fist down on the counter.
“You want me to call the law in?” Bob asked, tone dubious.
“Does it look like I want the law here?” I growled, waving a hand at my destruction.
“Had to offer it. You want, I can start getting some graves dug.”
My head whipped over at that, brows furrowed.
“What?” I asked, taken aback since that was not something you heard from someone.
“What what?” Bob asked, tucking his hands into his pockets. “You think normal men live alone in the woods like this?” he asked.
“Fair point,” I agreed. “Hypothetically, how many bodies are buried on this land?”
“Hypothetically, it’s the reason shit is so green and lush around here,” Bob said, smirking.
“Alright then. Yeah. Graves. My team is coming, but…”
“But they’ll be stiff and stinking before they land,” Bob said, nodding. “Sorry I couldn’t find your girl.”
“It’s not your fault,” I told him, shaking my head.
It was my job to protect her.
I was the one who fucked up.
The vision of her reaching for me, screaming for me to save her flashed across my mind, stealing my breath, making my stomach tighten painfully.
From there, Bob disappeared, coming back with a wheelbarrow where he hauled the first of the men.
“You don’t have a shovel,” I said, shaking my head.
“Shovel?” Bob asked, then snorted. “Amateur.”
And with that, he was gone, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
I replayed the events of the night over and over in my head, trying to think of the moment I’d fucked up.
But the fact of the matter was, the second you got infiltrated, you were fucked. True safety came in preventing that in the first place.
I’d failed in that regard.
Shawn would be the one paying for that.
I heard my crew coming, the plane grumbling over the treetops before landing.
Holden had training much like mine, letting him follow my directions from the landing strip to the cabin.
“I’ll get digging,” Holden offered.
“No. Bob is digging. He’s already done two,” I said, shaking my head.
“Okay. Want me to talk to him?” he asked, jerking his head toward the man who was still stubbornly awake.
“Not yet. I think I got as much as we need right now out of him,” I said, nodding at his hands.
“Not bad,” Holden said before his gaze slid around the bloodstained room.
“Was she injured?” Gunner asked, looking around.
“Her face was bloody,” I said as I led him toward the pantry where pasta sauce was spilled all over when she’d broken them to use the glass.
“Have you heard the plane?” he asked, making me stiffen, realizing I hadn’t.
“I don’t know how close the other landing strip is,” I told him.
“It’s not far from here,” Gunner said, frowning at me. “You would have heard it if it took off.”
“Fuck,” I hissed, moving back outside.
It was still the darkest part of night and the clouds had blocked out the moon, casting the woods in near pitch blackness.
“They could be anywhere,” I said, heart hammering in my chest.
“There’s three of us. We can head off in the most likely directions,” Gunner suggested, gesturing toward them. “We need flashlights. Holden and I brought extra guns for—“ he trailed off as all three of us stiffened.
Because somewhere off in the woods, there was a sound that didn’t belong.
Screaming.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Shawn
It wasn’t like in movies or TV where the bad guy waxes poetic about how he managed to track you down despite all the odds against it.
I mean, really, who did that in real life? Most people wanted you to be confused and fearful of their tactics and their reach.
So Brandon Adams didn’t tell me how he knew about Bellamy’s secret safe house, how he’d managed to track us down or find the cabin.
In fact, the walk through the woods was almost painfully quiet. Well, except for my curses and yells and struggling.
