Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 98561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
“I’m watching this.” A thick finger stabbed towards the game show. “This shit’s educational.”
I drew in a slow breath. I was good at talking to people and could negotiate with anyone. But I was out of time. That news story could end any second. I stepped right up to Treymoor and looked into his eyes. “Lawrence,” I said, “the woman I’m crazy about may be in trouble and I’ve got to find out what’s going on. Now you can beat the hell out of me if you want to, but I need to watch the news.”
I winced, waiting for the first blow to land. But Lawrence just stared at me, nodded sagely and changed the channel back.
As soon as I saw the screen, my stomach dropped through the floor. I was right, it was her, her name was right there on screen next to her picture. Please don’t let her be dead.
She wasn’t. She and two local doctors had been kidnapped by members of a drug cartel in—what the hell is she doing in Ecuador?!
The news report ended. I ran for the prison library: I had to find out more.
In the library, I grabbed the New York Times and Washington Posts and started reading. The kidnapping had happened three days ago and had started a panic: charities were pulling all of their workers out of the area, afraid the same thing would happen to them. The Ecuadorean government wouldn’t say exactly what the cartel was asking in exchange for the hostages, it just stuck to its we don’t negotiate with terrorists line. The US’s offer of help had been rejected.
They aren’t going to rescue her. And when the cartel realized they weren’t going to get a ransom, they’d kill her.
I stomped out of the library and out into the yard. A protective fury had filled my chest to bursting: I couldn’t stop pacing, my face a grim mask. How dare they mess with my angel! She was in trouble over there. Someone needed to help her, and the goddamn government wasn’t doing anything, ours or theirs. Someone needed to go in there and get her—
I stopped pacing. Me. I could go in there and get her. I had the skills. I had contacts over there. I knew the terrain. But—
I looked up at the guard tower and concrete walls. But I was stuck in here. She was going to die because I couldn’t get to her.
I turned away, stalking off towards the weights area. Other inmates saw me approach and started forward to greet me, then saw my face and backed away.
The rage was white-hot now, uncontainable. It can’t end like this. I’d seen what the cartels did to their victims. No. Not her. Not Olivia. Jesus, what had she even been doing, in the middle of the rainforest? But I already knew the answer: knowing her, she’d been helping someone. And now she was going to die for it.
And it was my fault. If she hadn’t stood up for me against the warden, she’d still be working here. I owed her.
I’d never felt so helpless. As I reached the weights bench, I heaved up the barbell and hurled it at the wall with a yell of rage. It bounced and clanged and the whole yard looked round, but it didn’t make me feel any better.
And then, as I stood there panting, I remembered that there was a way I could get out of here. There was a way I could save her.
I closed my eyes and let out a long breath. No. No, there must be another way. But there wasn’t.
For a moment, I tried to talk myself out of it. But even as my brain was spinning away, my soul had already decided. I’d made up my mind as soon as I found out she was in trouble. I’d felt a fear, a need, that I’d never felt before in my life.
My hands closed into fists. I was going to go get her. And no force on Earth was going to stop me.
I marched back inside, went straight to the payphones and picked up a handset. The operator asked who I wanted to call.
“The White House.” I waited, listening. “No, it’s not a joke.”
Just eight hours after I called him, Kian O’Harra was back in the visitor’s area, sitting on the other side of the Plexiglass. How did he manage to get here so fast?
I picked up the handset and got straight to it. “I’ll join your team,” I told him. “But I’ve got a condition.” And I told him about the kidnapped doctors. “Our first mission has to be going over there and getting them out.”
Kian grimaced. “The team isn’t ready yet.”
“Then get them ready. You told me these guys were the best.”
“They are. But they haven’t even met yet. They’ve got to train together, learn to work together. A month, at least, to—”