Page 111 of The Wrecked One

“Or from District Bird Shit.” Mason’s comment drew a soft chuckle from Gwen.

“The inside of the small practice arena is what really worries me, though. Especially the fact the two of you will be in there.” Mason’s tone was back to a somber one at that point. “We’re all going to be sitting there, unarmed, up until part two of the night, and I don’t trust the Sorens won’t violate the terms and conditions of the deal.”

“Trust?” I fake laughed, set aside the laptop on the couch, and stood. I rotated my neck, which hurt from looking down at the screen so much since yesterday. “We should most definitely not trust anyone from District Bird Shit.”

Mason’s lips twitched at my comment.

“That’s why my dad and the others snuck onto the island today,” Gwen said. “You know that growly man will ensure we’re safe in there before he lets me step inside.”

“I’m not going to lie, I kind of feel bad for the guy. Also, whatever man decides to marry you one day.” At Mason’s words, Gwen leaned over and playfully swatted his forearm.

Gray strode into the room, joining us a moment later. “Anything from the hacker?”

“Would’ve come and found you if that were the case, Uncle Gray.” Gwen winked at him.

“Smart-ass,” he teased her, but the tease was short-lived, and his expression quickly became sour.

“Bad news?” I really hoped I wasn’t reading him correctly.

Carter’s scowl as he entered the room, cutting straight over to Gwen’s desk, gave me my answer.

“You could say that,” Gray answered while Carter abruptly snatched Gwen’s laptop.

He balanced it on his palm and began typing with his other hand, muttering curses under his breath. Pretty sure one of them was cocksucker.

“I’m right. It’s him. Fuck.” Carter passed the laptop off to Gray and pulled his phone from his pocket, his fingers moving fast on the device. Gray scrutinized the laptop screen as Carter shared, “Raymond Pecker.”

“Pecker, huh? Sounds like a real dick.” Mason was on a roll distracting us with jokes. Guess he was filling in the void without Jack or Oliver there to do it.

“Raymond’s the former CIA station chief in Thailand,” Carter let us know.

Thailand, of course.

“Rumor is he stepped down to handle our government’s black sites there. He did some really fucked-up shit to the prisoners that even I’d say was going too far.” Carter stowed his phone in his pocket. “That was one of the dark chapters in CIA history, and Raymond basically wrote the handbook on dark government shit.”

“And are you about to tell us he’s here in Abu Dhabi?” Is that what’s going on? “Why am I not surprised a station chief would be corrupt and working with our enemy?”

At Carter’s nod, Gwen commented, “It’d be more shocking if there wasn’t corruption within the highest levels of our government.”

“I’m not worried about Raymond being here, even though he’ll for sure have a group of highly trained mercenaries here,” Carter said as Gray set the laptop back in front of Gwen. “It’s who he’s talking to that concerns me.”

Gwen dragged the screen closer and beat him to the punch. “Brutus Uri? The guy who owns the island we’re going to later?”

“Why does the name Brutus sound familiar?” Mason asked, stepping aside to give Carter and Gray more space by the desk.

“He’s from the Julius Caesar play. Torn between loyalty of a friend and his country,” I told him, and despite it being a random off-the-cuff remark, it felt oddly relevant to our situation. “Do you think Nicholas knows the Sorens went around him to Brutus?”

“Doubtful,” Carter gritted out, “but he will now. I just texted Nicholas with an urgent message to call me.”

“So, now there’s a guy here who even you think is too dark, and he’s presumably working to get Brutus in bed with the Sorens,” Gwen reiterated our shit situation. “None of this sounds promising.” Her eyes shot to the doorway, and I turned to see Wyatt and Teddy filtering into the room.

Please, no more bad news.

“Find an exfil plan for the two of them?” Gray asked, diving into the main reason Wyatt and his people had infil’ed the island ahead of time.

“There’s only one ideal insertion method for all of our teams.” Wyatt hung back away from the rest of us, clearly still in a foul mood the plan was moving forward. “We have a yacht anchored far out, but positioned close enough to other boats not to stand out. We also have two Zodiacs at our disposal, but we’ll be using them as a distraction.”

“Good thinking,” Carter agreed. “Power them on, keep them empty, and direct them toward the island as a diversion. Draw the Sorens’ fire while we get Gwen and Mya out from the other side of the island.”

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