Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 80391 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80391 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
“Dixie, make sure she doesn’t leave. Take her straight home and sit on her if you have to. Adeline, I’m counting on you to not make me worry about you.” He said before kissing my lips, and roaring off, followed by eight more bikes and the truck that the Native American man and the one with the scar under his eye.
I watched with my heart in my throat as the love of my life set off to bring my twin home. The other half of my soul.
“It’s going to be okay, honey. They’ll bring her home. No matter what.” Dixie said as he pulled me in close.
That no matter what was what bothered me.
***
Kettle
6:59 P.M.
“They stopped at Lake Darbonne. They took Lake Darbonne Road, and then onto Lake Road from there. I have the property listed as belonging to a Reese Madison. That’s Gustavo’s married sister’s lake home. It’s empty and on the market, according to the realty records.” Jack said where we were stopped on the side of the road.
We’d stopped nearly a mile and a half away near some dumpsters.
“How are we going to do this?” Silas asked Sam, yielding to the judgment of the most experienced man on the team.
Sam looked taken aback at his father’s trust in him, but quickly took charge.
“We wait for dark. It’s only thirty minutes from now, and that should give your friend time to get here with his dog. You said he was another twenty minutes...” He trailed off as Trance’s personal truck started to zip past them before locking the brakes up and backing up until he was in front of the dumpster.
He hopped out of the truck and walked determinedly towards us, his face a mask of fear.
“Do you know where she is?” He asked apprehensively.
He visibly relaxed at our nods, calling Radar out of his truck, before he collapsed against the bumper in relief.
“Tell me what we’ve got.” He rumbled.
Sam started outlining what he’d like done; telling us who went where, and then we looked at the blue prints of the house and grounds.
“He hasn’t been here long enough to have anything set up. From what I can tell, he used his cell phone to call the sister in Iowa, where she lives now. They were on the phone for ten minutes before they hung up, and Gustavo’s course veered from Alexandria to Farmersville within two minutes of that call. It looks like he’s just looking for a place to hide out until he can figure out his next move. If we’re lucky, he’ll have no safeguards in place at all.” Jack said as his eyes flicked over the computer screen in front of him.
I couldn’t help the manic smile that overtook my face in that instant. It was really good to have that man on my side. ‘Cause working against a man of his caliber really wouldn’t be good.
“So do we walk in?” Silas asked once we got the logistics of what the plan was. “I think that’s best. Although, I think walking along the outer tree line that lines the lake would be best.” Sam rumbled.
We all nodded in confirmation.
“Now, I want to be sure that we all understand that this is going to be a police operation. Loki, Trance and Radar need to be the only ones that fire anything or offer any deadly force. It’s going to be the only clean way any of this can be done without pulling strings.” Silas noted from his position at Sam’s side.
Although he said it to all of us, his eyes were pinned on me, making sure he got the point across.
I gave him an assuring nod, and we set out down the tree line.
The walk was less than a mile and a half walking distance through the woods, since we were able to cut off nearly half the distance that it took to drive there.
Everything that happened once we reached the property line was just this side of anticlimactic.
Viddy was sitting at the kitchen table with her hands and feet bound to the chair.
Gustavo was pacing and yelling into his phone, nearly the entire kitchen’s length away from Viddy.
Warily, Trance and Loki advanced on the door while the rest of us fanned out around the property.
I took the side door that led out from the dining room while Trance and Loki both took the sliding glass door that led into the kitchen.
Even better, the glass door was open, allowing the cool night breeze in through the screen door.
Allowing us to hear every bit of the conversation. Which was how we knew that Gustavo was alone, weaponless, as well as pissed way the hell off that he’d grabbed the wrong sister, risking everything to kidnap this woman which wouldn’t even get him anywhere.
I was inside the house and rounding the edge of the hallway, just barely able to see into the kitchen as Loki stepped inside, when Gustavo turned away in his pacing. He had his back to the door allowing Loki to step entirely into the kitchen before he turned and even saw that anyone was there.
Then he tried to run. Directly towards me.
Ignoring the earlier warning from Silas, I reared back my arm and punched the smaller man with every bit of fury that had built up in the past sixteen years. Releasing every single bit of it on the man, and then some.
The punch took him on the cheekbone.
I clearly heard the crunch of a bone shattering, and then he went down. Hard.
His head hit the tiled floor first, followed shortly after by the rest of him.
It took every ounce of self-control I possessed to keep from rearing my leg back and kicking him, beating the ever loving shit out of him until his face no longer resembled anything human.
But then Sebastian’s hand curled around my shoulder and hauled me back from temptation, practically dragging me backwards until I was back outside and standing in the cool winter air.
“You’re okay.” Sebastian said to me, and it was only then that I realized just how quickly I was breathing.