Total pages in book: 38
Estimated words: 36987 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 185(@200wpm)___ 148(@250wpm)___ 123(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36987 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 185(@200wpm)___ 148(@250wpm)___ 123(@300wpm)
“May I ask what this is for?”
“Certainly,” she said, smiling at him. “It’s for security and access to the safe house where you’re going. We’d like you all to be able to get in and out even if Hunt is compromised.”
Kurt’s breath caught.
“While that’s not a contingency we’re anticipating, we have to be prepared. One should always be, don’t you agree?”
He nodded slowly, scanned his hand, then turned in his seat to give Brad instructions who immediately lowered the window behind Kurt’s. He probably wanted to be involved in the conversation as well.
Jing said, “It would be good if the children scanned their hands as well, but if the parents don’t––”
“It’s fine,” Brad said, leaning out of the window. “We want them to be safe.”
“Good,” Jing praised him, smiling, which transformed her face from gorgeous to breathtaking, and I understood why Brad stared for a moment before ducking back inside. Funnily enough, he didn’t roll down his window. It felt like, as beautiful as she was, he still wanted some protective barrier between them.
Jing texted someone on her phone as she leaned back on the passenger-side door of her car. She could not have looked any more relaxed if she’d tried, and there I was, frantic to get going, wanting to get into the new car and drive away.
Once Kurt passed me back the tablet, I went to scan my hand as well.
“Like we don’t have your prints,” she said like I was stupid.
“Nice,” I grumbled.
She smiled, took the tablet from me, then pointed at the pouch in my hand. “Use those cards and that cash and the burner in there if you need to make a call. Yes?”
“Yes.” I opened the zippered pouch to find a burner and three cash bundles of what looked like a thousand dollars each.
“You’re driving to Coos Bay, which is lovely, by the way. It’s a cliché, but there’s literally a cabin in the woods, and that’s where you’ll be staying until the people who are after you are dealt with.”
Had I heard her right? My head snapped up, and I met her gaze. “What?”
She rolled her eyes like I was getting on her last nerve.
“I can do my own protecting and killing.”
“Oh really? Can you? Just you alone with kids and parents and the man you love?”
I groaned because why the hell did she have to add that last part when I hadn’t sacked up enough to say the words to Kurt?
“I don’t think that’s a really great idea, Captain, do you?”
So much disdain and sarcasm along with the use of my title.
“We’re talking about your family, are we not?” she pressed.
They were Kurt’s family, not mine.
“Hunt?”
But really, since he was mine, weren’t they mine too? Didn’t that follow? We’d been together two years, and though this was the first time I’d met them, we’d basically been connected the entire time. I had to stop being on the fence, make a decision, and maybe it started with something ridiculously stupid like claiming the people in the car.
“Yes. My family,” I told her.
“Well, then.” She shrugged. “Yeah. We’re going to take care of things while you fall off the grid with your family.”
I was stunned.
“Why do you look like that? You know this is how it works.”
And I did know because I’d done it for others. Been there for others in their time of need. Sometimes one had to be the hand of God in situations, in the nick of time, the guy standing between the heartbreak of losing those you loved and salvation. At this moment, I was the defenseless one, and someone else was going to step up and kill people so we would live. It was hard to wrap my brain around because it was so unexpected.
I never considered that Chris would get me help. I knew he would get me—us—out of Portland, but I couldn’t have imagined he’d do more.
“I had no idea you and Mancuso were so tight,” she said, passing me a satellite phone. “I missed that in Thailand.”
“We were all a bit busy.”
She nodded. “True.”
“Why do I need a satellite phone?”
Her grimace nearly killed me. “I didn’t know you could call Chris long distance in Barcelona on a local burner.”
God.
“Or is there something I don’t know?”
“Sorry, can you let it go?”
She shrugged.
“I don’t remember you being this much of a jerk the last time I saw you.”
“Yes, but we’re friends now,” she said sarcastically with a little cackle at the end.
I cleared my throat. “Not that I doubt your skill set, but I didn’t have any idea you could take care of—”
“Oh no. Not me,” she said quickly, stepping sideways and motioning toward her car.
I bent slightly, peering in to get a look at the driver, and saw a man I had never met in my life. That didn’t mean I didn’t know who he was. It was the whole his-reputation-precedes-him bit. Everyone knew of him, and when you did meet him, you just knew who he was from how everyone described him. They all said the same thing: that there was an unnerving stillness about the man. And sitting there, regarding me, it was like all of a sudden, the whole world got quiet. All I could hear was my own breathing.