After the Storm (KGI #8)(118)

“I can’t let you do that,” Donovan said just as emphatically. “You have a wife and a daughter and another child on the way. I’m not letting you take the fall for this if it gets messy.”

“You have family too,” Sam pointed out. “I’ll get on the horn with Resnick and have him wave his magic wand. The bastard owes us big and he knows it. Besides, when I explain, he’ll take care of it. There’ll be a f**kload of red tape, but if I can get his ass out here, he’ll have the connections to make sure this goes down as a righteous kill.”

Knowing he didn’t have time to argue, Donovan nodded.

“The rest of you are with me,” Donovan said. “I want no stone uncovered in this house. There has to be something here. It’s the only option we have left. The clock is ticking for Eve, if it hasn’t expired yet. Find me something that points us in the right direction.”

CHAPTER 41

“I know this slays your control-freak asses, but my team needs to take lead on this and go in and shut it down,” Resnick said.

Typically, he had a cigarette dangling from his mouth, and he inhaled, then exhaled in short jerky puffs, a sign of agitation.

They were gathered outside a maximum-security private holding, a mere thirty miles from where Walt’s house outside Wasco was located. Their exhaustive search of Walt’s cabin had paid off. The arrogant bastard not only kept the fake medical history he’d compiled for Eve in a safe in his office, but he also had a diary where every detail of the last twenty years had been meticulously accounted for.

Donovan couldn’t believe someone as careful and as cunning and intelligent as Breckenridge would be stupid enough to have written evidence of his crimes, but as Skylar had explained, he thought himself invincible. Untouchable. And he was too egotistical not to have it accounted for. He kept it hidden for his own enjoyment. His legacy, written down. Things he took pride in. The killing of his wife and how pathetically easy it had been. How he was afforded sympathy and admiration for the way he’d taken in his stepdaughter and his smugness over the fact that he controlled his entire family.

It had disgusted him and made him even more fearful that he’d already killed Eve and disposed of her body. He’d spoken of having a cover story, but he’d left off there. Donovan had gone crazy and his brothers hadn’t been able to control him. Until Skylar had uncovered financial records. Off the books under a fake corporation. And the only payments were made to a private facility outside Portland, Oregon.

Bingo.

It had to be where he had stashed Eve. And if he was paying them the sums of money and hiding it, there was something here he didn’t want the world to know about.

Sam made a rude noise and Donovan just stared holes through Resnick.

“No f**king way I’m leaving Eve’s fate to you and your lackeys,” Donovan bit out.

Resnick’s eyebrows rose, but then other than agitation smoking—which he frequently indulged in—the man didn’t get worked up about much. Unless you counted the whole fiasco with Shea and Grace. It had been the first time Donovan had seen the man express any kind of emotion. It still amazed him that apparently the man had a heart underneath that give-a-f*ck, good-of-the-country bullshit facade.

“Listen to me, Donovan. I’ve already got messes I’ve got to clean up for you. I’m not adding another. If my team goes in, this falls under the heading of a federal raid. You just happened to show up behind us and as such bear no responsibility in what goes down. This has to be done by the books. My lackeys, as you term them, are good and you damn well know it. They won’t f**k this up.”

“He has a point, Van,” Garrett said in a resigned tone that told Donovan he didn’t like the situation any more than Donovan did.

“Goddamn it,” Donovan swore. “Okay, but let’s roll. We’re wasting time. Time that Eve doesn’t have. I want her out of this hellhole.”

“Then let’s do it,” Resnick said, motioning to his team leader.

“We’ll let you know when we’re in and it’s clear,” Kyle Phillips said as he walked by Donovan. “But wait for my signal. Don’t f**k this up, Kelly. Think with your head and leave your emotions out of it. It needs to go down on the level.”

Leave his emotions out of it. When his heart and soul was in this goddamn hellhole enduring God only knew what. Yeah, leave his emotions out of it. Like that was going to happen.

Sam put a restraining hand on Donovan’s arm as if he realized how perilously close Donovan was to saying f**k it and charging in ahead of Kyle Phillips and his team. He shook off Sam’s hand.

“I’m cool. I’ll wait.”

So he stood and simmered, waiting, each second passing in agony. He listened, straining toward the building nestled in a grove of trees, isolated from the rest of the world. The entire complex was surrounded by a high stone wall with barbed wire coiled at the top. It was a goddamn prison and it gutted him that his Eve was in there. Treated like an animal. Worse than an animal.

It seemed an hour had passed, and maybe it had. He wasn’t the only one simmering with impatience. His brothers and Nathan and Joe’s entire team were twitchy with agitation.

“Chaps my ass that we have to take orders from that ass**le,” Skylar muttered. “He’s not my goddamn boss.”

Sam grinned beside Donovan. “I’m liking her a hell of a lot. I admit, I had doubts when I first hired her on, but I wanted to see what she was capable of. You have to admit, she’s perfect. She has the delicate, harmless cheerleader look about her, but she’d remove your balls without remorse and then shove them down your throat after she broke your kneecaps.”