The Revenge (The Insiders Trilogy #3)(80)

After that, they got in. Doors were closed. The rest of the guys streamed out and loaded up. We were off.

I waited until we got one block before speaking. “Did you kill those agents?”

Chase seemed to tense next to me.

There was no going back if they had. All of this would’ve been for nothing.

Harden turned around from the front seat. His eyes locked on mine and he shook his head. “Not one. They were tranqed. That was it.”

Good. I didn’t need the feds coming after me for murder.

We’d gone one more block before we heard in our ears, “Uh, guys?”

Harden pressed his com. “What is it?”

“Feds are going the opposite way of you.”

Harden twisted back to me, frowning.

He wasn’t the only one. I leaned forward. “How?”

“Someone broke into our system and took control,” the voice in our ear answered, “How did that happen?”

The voice was in disbelief. “Remotely. Someone set up at a close enough distance, got in, took our signal, and they’re leading them away.”

I knew.

I knew.

Anger, hot and pulsating, rolled through my body, and I growled out an order. “You take that hack back and you send the feds anywhere except after that car.”

“I’ll try, but they’re moving out of range. I don’t know if I can stop it.”

“She’s smart. Trust your woman,” Chase said .

Trust her? I half growled right back at him. “Are you kidding me? You don’t know her.”

A glimmer of a smile flashed at me, then it was gone. He coughed, the exhaustion now seeping in, and his head bobbed up and down. “You’re right. I don’t.”

He seemed to dissolve in front of me.

What I saw in the house had been what he wanted those agents to see. Now he was here, and the mask was slipping. It was falling fast, too.

“Wait. The signal is gone,” said the voice in our ears.

I didn’t necessarily believe it, but I was praying. I was praying hard.

“We’re good. The feds are turning back to the house. The signal is totally gone.”

Thank God. Bailey was safe.

Still, I touched my radio. “I want a car sent to where that location was. Find her, follow her from a distance.”

“Got it.” And then, “A car has been dispatched. I got control again and went in to clear out the memory data or anything missed. But it’s completely gone.”

Harden shook his head. “What do you mean it’s gone? There should still be some feed there. You said you couldn’t loop over and replace their feed, but you could halt it from going to them and then go in and erase it.”

“That’s what I was going to do, but there’s no system left. She destroyed it all.”

“Jeez,” said one of the men in the vehicle.

Another laughed. “Can we recruit her?”

We drove the rest of the way in silence, taking back roads, and the only person who was making a sound was my brother. He was laughing.

“I like your woman. A lot.”

“Shut up.”





FIFTY-TWO

Bailey


I was coming out of the shower when the bedroom door slammed shut. A second later, the bathroom door was shoved open. In strode Kash.

Correction.

I’d been reaching for a towel, and my hand grabbed it, drawing it to me, but my concentration was all on what was coming toward me. He wasn’t coming at me light and casual. Oh hell no. He was heated. His eyes were flaring with some unnamed emotion, an emotion that was sending serious shivers down my back. And he wasn’t striding to me. There was no “stride” about him.

He was stalking me.

Kashton was in full-on predator mode, and I drew back just by instinct.

I pulled the towel farther to my chest, but then he was there. The towel was ripped from my hands, tossed to the floor, and he was crowding me in. Hands to my hips. Eyes pinning me in place, he eased me all the way back to the shower wall. He was fully clothed. I was fully naked. But it didn’t matter.

He. Was. Pissed .

My heart sank.

“I did it to help you.”

“Who asked for your help?”

The words were clipped out, though it wasn’t really in a question form.

I gulped.

He was fighting for control, but it was slipping.

Kash had darkness inside him. I knew it. I’d always known it, and I used to salivate over feeling that side of him, especially in bed. He could make me forget weeks, all just begging for the feel of him inside of me. My body was addicted to him. I’d always been desperate for his touch. A fevered rush would come over me. I would be frenzied for him. But he’d never directed that side of him toward me outside of the bed, and as he drew up to me, pushing against my body, I wasn’t sure what was happening here.

I didn’t know if he was so mad that he was going to punish me … Well, correction, I knew that was the case.

Another shiver went up my spine this time.

I swallowed over a knot, half of it forming from fear and the other half already reacting to the proximity of his body. I was leaning into him when his hand grabbed mine. He pushed it gently against the wall behind me, his hand over my wrist, and he leaned down, all the way in my face.