Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 59119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 296(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 296(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
I gnashed my teeth as the hurt threatened to resurface, but I pushed it down and ran outside.
“Goddammit—Crew!” he growled.
I sprinted for all I was worth. Past the car, up to the dirt road.
My heart started pounding.
I tried to stay calm, steady breaths, knowing that the sedative was going to work faster the more I exerted myself, but for this part, I had to put distance between us.
Fucking hell, I better have juice left in my phone. We’d obviously used throwaways during our operation; that was the phone Mercier had found and stolen from me.
I didn’t have our secure chat installed on my private cell, not that it mattered if I didn’t even have a signal.
After a minute or two, I veered off the road and ran straight into the forest for the mother of uphill treks.
That motherfucker.
He’d snuck up in the middle of the night to prepare. Everything had been a calculated part of his plan. The questions he’d asked, the information I’d given him, how we’d kept the damn mattresses on the floor. “To stay close.” Such fucking horseshit. He’d just wanted to eliminate the squeaking of the camping beds.
And I’d been the fucking idiot who’d told him where to find the sedative.
I had to make this right for the team. We couldn’t lose Mercier. He was our way in.
I slowed down to a stop when I could barely see the dirt road anymore, and I hurriedly turned on my phone and prayed for the battery. Come on, come on. Yes—thank fuck. I had 47%. The first thing I did was disable the password completely. When Ryan found this phone, he had to be able to open it.
Then I word-vomited in a note, not giving a flying fuck about typos and errors.
Mercier played me, I woke up to him shooting the sedative up my arm. I have maybe 20mins left. We’re going by boat. I think hes meeting up with carillo. Mercier is our way in. he will take me. I wont fight him too much bc we need him. Find me. Carillo will NOT enter thru Marsay or Valencia. Mercier plans to use carillo to get to Colombia to take down luca. Mercier might have two other feds helping him, im not sure but he said they weren’t ready with their training. Could be a lie. IM FINE GRAMPS DON’T WORRY, just find me. I will try to get free. I will try to make contact. I don’t know where he has his boat but maybe Monaco. Idk. My GUESS is that carillo is on a cargo ship. Bribes involved? He will leave ship somewhere and board mercier’s boat. don’t call my dad.
“Crew!”
I snapped my head up and ducked down. He couldn’t see me. He was down there on the dirt road.
I pocketed my phone again and began making my way back to the house, through the woods, as stealthily as possible.
It was scary how easily I slipped back into the mind-set of a Marine on active duty. Work came first, processing came later. Get the job done. Hide the phone—don’t give Mercier any more reason to go upstairs. I almost tripped over a fallen tree branch, and I cursed when I began feeling a bit sluggish. Mostly my mind. The sharpness was softening, the hyperfixation faded.
I was panting by the time I emerged from the forest and ran into the house. Up the stairs, where I hid the phone in the same compartment. Then I wrote a haphazard SOS in the dust that covered the floorboards before I darted down the stairs a final time and back outside.
I heaved a ragged breath. Far away, Mercier shouted my name.
“Fuck,” I breathed.
I blinked and looked around me. There. I picked up a rock and jogged over to the car, finding it locked. Obviously. I smashed the driver’s side window and hoped it was loud enough for Mercier to hear it.
If not, the car alarm certainly was.
I flinched at the loud sound.
Last-minute jitters and doubts. Did I make a run for it and hope he wouldn’t find me? Did I push the car into the lake, stranding us both out here?
Unfortunately, I couldn’t hot-wire a push-start ignition car, but I could release the brakes and send the car into the water. And then what?
He wouldn’t actually be stranded. He’d undoubtedly escape when I dropped.
No. I had to let myself be taken.
I broke off a few lingering shards of glass in the window, then opened the door from the inside.
Come on, you slow fuck, get back here.
I probably couldn’t fight him any longer. I felt increasingly tired for every moment that went by, and…maybe this was for the best. He clearly had no desire to team up with us, so perhaps this was the only way for me—for one of our team members—to stay on him and hopefully reach out at some point.