The Safe Bet (Hidden Truths #1)(68)

Confusion swirled inside her. “This doesn’t have anything to do with my mom?”

“Sweetie, you’re a pawn in a much bigger game. Your life, your past, is meaningless to me. But I do need to give some credit to your father. If it weren’t for him, I’d never have stumbled onto such a golden opportunity.”

He leaned in toward her, the whites of his eyes bright as the light of the lantern played off his face. His lips curled on the ends into a grin. “If you haven’t figured it out by now—your father hired me.”

*


There was too much damn beeping. His head was going to explode.

After a few attempts, Michael opened his eyes, and he was greeted by a piercing white light.

“Kate,” he grumbled her name.

“She was taken, Michael.”

Connor’s words trickled through his mind, eating at him like a piranha on the attack. He couldn’t believe it. Refused to accept it. “No.” He struggled to sit up, but felt Connor’s hand on his shoulder, guiding him gently to lie back down.

“We’re on it, don’t worry.” Connor left the room for a brief moment and returned with Jake at his side.

“You okay, man?” Jake asked as Michael struggled to sit up again. “You were in an accident, and you’ve been shot. Relax.”

Michael shook his head. “I have to find her. I need to get to her.” He ignored the pain blitzing his system and removed the wires that were fixed to his chest. The monitors in the room began shrieking at obnoxious levels. “Get me out of this hospital,” he demanded.

“Buddy, you were shot in the shoulder—not too far from your other bullet wound. You need to stay here.”

“The fuck I do.” Every nerve in Michael’s body powered to toxic levels. Adrenaline was taking over with the need to get to Kate—to hell with pain.

But two nurses rushed in the room. “Please, sir, if you don’t stop struggling we will need to inject you with something,” the nurse to his left insisted.

The thought of being drugged halted his struggle for the moment. “Fine,” he said, waving his hand at the nurse. He sat back and allowed the nurse to hook him up to the machines.

“I should be dead. Why am I alive?” he asked, feeling a little breathless.

Jake exchanged a knowing look with Connor.

“What is it?” Michael all but shouted.

“A lot has happened in the five hours you’ve been asleep,” Jake said with a steady voice. He took a few steps closer to Michael’s bed.

“Five hours?” Michael started to sit up again.

“I won’t tell you anything unless you calm down,” Jake warned.

Anger seethed through his bones. “Fine.”

“When I discovered Dustin Scott was the one tracking Kate, I had to call my superiors, as well as Homeland Security. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you, but catching Dustin is a matter of national security. I have a team of agents nearby, working together to locate his whereabouts. I received direct orders to use Kate to draw out Dustin.”

Michael clenched his hands at his sides but remained quiet.

“I asked Kate to take her date to the nightclub. I knew you would track Kate down and become furious with me, with Connor . . . I knew you would do something irrational—like take her to your cabin. I expected that, and I needed you to do that. Dustin needed to be able to access you and Kate to make his move.” He held his hands in the air and furrowed his brow. “I’m so sorry. I was under orders.”

Damn Jake—always following the rules. What the hell!

“I didn’t want to betray your trust, and I hated putting you and Kate in danger, but I had no choice. We’re talking about a man with connections to notorious terrorist cells throughout the world.” Jake was trying to convince his case, but the man had no idea what it was like to have a woman he cared for in harm’s way. If it had been his mother or sister, how would Jake have felt . . .?

“Yesterday we did a search of any recent hotel and home rentals nearby. Someone matching Dustin’s description rented a rather isolated property on the lake a mile from your cabin,” Jake said.

“Which is why you wanted me at my cabin.” Michael released a breath. “Is Kate there?”

“No. Surveillance shows no thermal body imaging. But we did discover something interesting—the place is being monitored and is rigged with explosives.”

“He set a trap for us,” Connor said from across the room.

“What about her phone? Can you track it?” Michael asked.

“Unfortunately she doesn’t have it on her. We found it at the scene of the car accident,” Jake said.

This couldn’t be happening. “What does Dustin want with Kate? If he wants us to get blown to hell, why didn’t he just kill me?”

“I’m pretty sure he wants you alive, but the rest of my team—I doubt he cares about them.”

“Because?” Michael tried to roll his neck a bit, to free some of the stiffness, but the pain in his chest and shoulder shocked him to stillness.

“He sent you a video message an hour ago.”

“Show it to me.” His voice was cold and thick with resentment.

Jake pulled his cell phone from his pocket and queued up the video.