Total pages in book: 165
Estimated words: 154925 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 775(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154925 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 775(@200wpm)___ 620(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
This was where she had to make some choices.
“Drake didn’t know. He didn’t believe it when we were told we should look here. Neither did my boss, but I had to check.” Her heart beat against her chest so hard she was almost certain she could hear it. “Drake didn’t know you still had this place, but John did. Does.”
“What?” Julia stood, the rifle coming down as she stared at Mae.
If Julia hadn’t had the high ground, Mae thought she could have taken the new guard. He was distracted by the bodies and getting too close. She could see the move play out in her head. Kick up and catch his balls. Then when he bent over, she would bring the flat of her hand up to crush his nose and send the cartilage up into his brain.
Instead, she stayed where she was, holding her hands up to show she was no real threat. “The man you called John is alive, and he told me where to find this place. Like I said, no one wanted to listen, but I had to come see for myself. I had to find Kyle. No one cares about Kyle, so it has to be me.”
“John died,” Julia stated, no emotion to her tone.
MaeBe shook her head. “He didn’t, and he had a lot to say. Take me to Kyle and then I’ll tell you what he said and who he really was.”
This was what she was counting on. Julia stood there for a moment, staring down at her. Mae knew what she was doing. She was calculating whether or not she could believe Mae, deciding if she even had a choice.
“Bring her inside. Restrain her first, and check her for any weapons,” Julia said with a frown.
He gripped her arms, placing zip ties around her wrists that he tightened far more than he should. They bit into her, and she would lose feeling if they were left on for too long. “You have made a big mistake coming here.”
The lights flickered off and then on, and she knew Hutch had cut into the power and the Internet. The power was already back but the Internet wouldn’t be, and they would all blame the brief power outage. By the time they’d reengaged the security system, Hutch and Adam would be inside, changing the code and feeding the monitors with the hour of footage Ten had taken by carefully placing his own cameras near the ones that protected the tunnels.
She was right where she needed to be.
Julia had briefly looked back as the power flickered. “Perhaps we should…”
She couldn’t allow the woman to send someone to check on security.
“John saved me from being taken in by your first team,” MaeBe announced. “In fact, he was the one who took them all down. I’ll tell you why if you let me see Kyle.”
“I thought John was the guy in charge after you,” the guard said, his hand curling around her arm and squeezing her tight. “If he’s talking about the group you work for, we have a much bigger problem than the girl and your boyfriend.”
“He’s dead. He would have come back to me if he hadn’t died,” Julia replied, but it was easy to see she’d been shaken by that news.
Yes, she’d known this would be the way to buy the time she needed. Julia had to be hyper focused. The need to recheck her security was gone in the face of a situation that was much more horrifying. And immediate.
“How do you think I found this place? Your former assistant told me about it. Drake said it wasn’t true, and Ian believed him. They don’t want to trust Joseph, but I did,” she stated, letting her chin come up and showing her stubborn will. “And I’ll tell you all about him if you let Kyle go.”
Julia’s eyes narrowed. “You’ll tell me everything, and I’ll enjoy getting the information out of you. Bring her inside. I want her in the guest room. She’ll tell us everything we need to know. And if anyone else shows up, shoot them on sight. And check her for a tracker. If you find it, cut it out of her and flush it down the toilet. I need to know if someone else is coming. I’m going to call John.”
Pain screamed through MaeBe’s shoulder as the guard wrenched her along. It was a close thing to stay on her feet.
She prayed Ian worked fast.
* * * *
Julia couldn’t believe that bitch had walked right up to her safehouse. It was a bold move for such a sniveling little girl. And a liar.
John couldn’t be alive. John wouldn’t have betrayed her like that. Never. John had been with her for a long time. He’d been an excellent assistant, always doing what she needed. He’d been a halfway decent lover. He wasn’t Kyle, of course, but he’d gotten the job done.