“Smart thinking,” I say, watching the phone disappear in the side mirror. “How'd you know to do that?”
Spent way too much fucking time with V. His techie shit is rubbing off on me.” He glances sideways at me. “Don't tell him I said that. Fucker's ego is big enough already.”
A ghost of a smile touches my lips at the thought of V's reaction. “Assuming he's still alive,” I mutter, the possibility of V's death like acid in my throat.
“He's alive,” Ratchet says with conviction I envy. “That stubborn bastard wouldn't die without making some smart-ass comment first.”
“Take the next right,” I tell Ratchet. The warehouse district near the airport looms ahead.
“Signal's getting stronger,” Ratchet says, turning onto a service road that runs parallel to the airfield. The van's headlights cut through darkness, illuminating chain-link fences topped with razor wire. Beyond them, private hangars stand like sentinels, their massive doors sealed tight against the night.
The GPS directs us down a narrow access road markedAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Ratchet slows the van, killing the headlights as we approach.
“There,” I point to a cluster of buildings at the far end of the airstrip. The structure is larger than the others, its corrugated metal walls weathered by years of desert sun. A small office building sits adjacent, windows dark except for a single light burning on the second floor. Two black SUVs are parked outside—the same vehicles from the surveillance footage.
“That's gotta be it,” I mutter, scanning the perimeter. No obvious guards outside, but that doesn't mean shit.
Ratchet pulls into a visitor parking area about two hundred yards away, positioning the van between two empty delivery trucks. The engine dies with a shudder, leaving us in silence broken only by the distant drone of aircraft.
Ratchet takes back his phone, firing off a text. His thumbs move rapidly across the screen. “Sending Raze our location. If shit goes south, at least they know where to find our bodies.”
“That’s not as comforting as you’re trying to make it sound.”
“Believe me, the last thing I want is to die and for Ricca show up in hell with me to kill me again.”
My focus is locked on that hangar, on the faint flicker of movement behind the office window. My fingers twitch around the grip of my gun, muscles coiled so tight they might snap.
Charlotte’s in there.
I can feel it. And, when we go in, Terrance Roberts will wish he never laid a fucking hand on my woman because I will take both for what he’s done before I put a bullet into his head.
THOR
Twenty minutes feelslike twenty years when the woman you love is being tortured by her psychopath ex-husband.
I shift in the passenger seat as I scan the hangar for the hundredth time with the binoculars Ratchet found in the van. Nothing. No movement, no signs of life. Just metal walls and concrete, silent as a tomb in the midnight darkness.
“See anything?”
“Jack shit,” I growl. “Same as five minutes ago. And five minutes before that.”
My leg bounces with restless energy. Every second we sit here is another second Charlotte's at Terrance's mercy. Another second of the pain I promised she'd never feel again.
“They're in there. V's tracker hasn't moved.”
“Unless they found it and left it behind as bait.” The thought has been gnawing at me since we parked. “What if they're already gone? What if we're sitting on our asses while they load her onto some private jet?”
Ratchet's jaw tightens. “Then we track the plane. Follow it to wherever they take her. Hunt them to the ends of the fucking earth. But I don't think that's what's happening,” he continues, checking his phone again. “V's signal is steady. Still in the same spot. If they were moving him, we'd see fluctuations.”
A text pops up on Ratchet's screen. He angles it toward me, and I see a message from Raze.
ETA 3 hours. Hold position. Do NOT engage alone.
“Three fucking hours,” I snarl, crushing the binoculars in my grip. “She'll be dead in three hours.”
“She won't be,” Ratchet says firmly. “Terrance needs her alive for whatever sick game he's playing.”
I lean forward, pressing my forehead against the cool window. “I should have never let her out of my sight.”
