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Chet was playing a dangerous game. He was counting on her father taking Oakley out before he could give Chet up. If she and Zach were dead, no one could tell her dad Chet had anything to do with it. The records would show he was on a plane heading over the Pacific at the time of her death, and there wouldn’t be anything her dad could do legally. He might not even suspect Chet since up until this moment she wouldn’t have thought he would be capable of doing something like this.
“I don’t care.” Chet looked down at his watch. “You should get going if you’re going to make the meeting with Dare. Mike, didn’t you say you caught his car on CCTV?”
Mike nodded. There was a laptop on what looked like a big stack of some kind of fertilizer bags. “Yep. I got him coming down the A32 a couple of minutes ago. He’s going to be on time. Should be turning onto the road that leads to your land any minute. He had to have driven like a bat out of hell. You’re looking for a white Mercedes.”
Oakley stared at him for a moment as though trying to figure out what was wrong with the scenario. Likely intuition was telling him his American “friends” were up to something, but he couldn’t figure out what. He pulled out his cell. “Hey, Willie, you see a white Mercedes coming up the road?”
Whatever Willie said had Oakley nodding and hanging up.
Chet and Mike looked at him, calm expressions on their faces.
She had to admit. They were good. She wished so badly that she could tell Oakley everything and watch the bloodbath that would ensue, but that would merely blow up whatever plan her parents had implemented.
Dare was coming for her.
Or maybe he wasn’t and they were putting Tristan or Cooper in his place.
Had he cared at all? Or had he been grateful it was over?
“I’m going to pick up Nash,” Oakley announced. “You stand by with the phone I gave you. When you get the signal, livestream her as proof of life. Before I take Nash with me, I’ll send you the coordinates to the intel I promised. Do not let that bitch say a word, do you understand?”
“I think I can handle it,” Chet promised. “You’ll get your proof of life, and we’ll take her body with us. You have to deal with Nash.”
Oakley started for the door of what seemed to be a large gardening shed. “I’m taking him someplace safe. I’ll handle it from here. You be gone by the time I get back. I don’t want to see your face again. If you don’t use that material the way we agreed on, you’ll discover I can find you no matter how hard you try to hide.”
“No worries, mate,” Chet replied with a jaunty salute. “I’ll happily take a cushy desk job and let the idiots of the world put their lives on the line, and you can feel free to kill as many people in Third World countries as you like. Have fun, man.”
Oakley left, slamming the door behind him.
She had maybe ten, fifteen minutes to figure out how to get away from two trained operatives. “He doesn’t know Dare was with my parents.”
Chet’s smirk kicked up a notch. “Nope. Idiot thinks Dare wasn’t in the suite at the time. Doesn’t have any idea I put Zach out of his misery. He has no idea Zach even existed. He thinks you’re exactly what you presented yourself to be—a girl trying to make her way in the world by fucking a rich dude.”
“My father is going to kill him, but you’re counting on that,” she said.
“I am,” Chet agreed. “You see, when I go to my bosses with the intel Oakley’s handing over, I’ll be untouchable.”
Somehow she doubted that. “My father won’t take things at face value no matter how carefully you’ve covered your tracks. He’ll want to know how you got the intel. If it leads back to Oakley, he’ll definitely have questions. My father is dangerous when he’s curious.”
“It won’t matter. I’ll have brought the Agency invaluable intel about a group of anarchists who are planning an attack on a vulnerable government in Southeast Asia. I’ll stop that attack, and I’ll be the golden boy,” Chet promised.
“Meanwhile, Oakley gets weaponized anthrax he’ll use to kill hundreds of thousands,” she said.
That stopped Chet. His expression shuttered. “You can’t know that.”
So her asshole ex didn’t know everything. “I know what he wants from Dare’s father. He wants either the anthrax itself or the protocols for how they enhanced it.”
Mike shook his head. “Taggart will take the asshole out before it gets that far.”
A long breath went through Chet. “That’s right. Look, Mike, why don’t you give me a moment with my ex?”
