Page 44 of Peace Under Fire

She paused, her instincts demanding that she skirt that question, protect their haven. Except it wasn’t a refuge anymore, was it? The compound had been invaded, her sisters taken. Why hide its location? They could never return there anyway.

The realization increased the pressure in her chest. The stinging in her eyes grew stronger. For the first time, she realized the full extent of her loss. They hadn’t just taken her family, they’d stolen her home too. The only home she’d ever known.

“We had a place on the outskirts of Sandpoint, Idaho.” Her voice was thick, full of loss.

Past tense. Her world was in past tense now.

The stinging in her eyes became unbearable.

“Did you go back to Sandpoint?” Tex asked. “Are you certain your family was taken?”

“No. I went straight to Jacob, to ask for his help in finding my sisters.” There. The request was out in the open now. Jacob didn’t look surprised. Neither did Brick.

Mandy slid her fingers beneath her sunglasses to swipe at the tears spilling from her eyes.

“So, you don’t know for certain that all your sisters were taken…” Jacob said thoughtfully. “You said Giulia called you. What about the others? Did you hear from any of them?” His voice fell silent. “How many sisters do you have?” he asked suddenly, as though the question had only then occurred to him.

“There are ten of us. And no. I only heard from Giulia. But they were all taken.”

“How can you be certain?” Jacob pressed, his intense dark gaze boring through her sunglasses.

“Because…” She hesitated, but they already knew she shared people’s dreams. Maybe the details she saw in Giulia’s dreams could help them locate her sisters. “I’ve been sharing Giulia’s dreams. I know they’ve all been taken because Giulia knows they were all taken along with her.”

Silence fell at that revelation.

Tex was the one to break it. “What’s the address to this place you have in Sandpoint? I’ll gather a team, send them to check the site out. Maybe the assholes who took your family left evidence behind, clues to help us find them.”

Mandy rattled the address off.

“Grumpy is still on standby,” Jacob said. “We can trust him. It doesn’t matter now whether our spy knows what we’re doing. No doubt the bastard already has eyes on the place in case Mandy returns.”

“True,” Tex murmured. “Gray’s in town too. I’ll reach out to him and Grumpy.”

The expression that fell over Jacob’s face was startling, like he’d just swallowed something sour or disgusting. Mandy frowned. What did Jacob have against this Gray person? She couldn’t imagine Jacob disliking a fellow teammate for no reason.

“Mandy.” Tex paused a moment as though waiting for her attention. “What details can you give me about this place your sisters were abducted from? It sounds like the lot of you were in hiding, so you must have had security in place.”

“Yes.” Mandy’s breath hitched as she thought of her home. “It’s a compound, really. There’s a large concrete bunker that’s surrounded by two outbuildings. We live in the bunker and use the other two buildings as a garage and a toolshed. The buildings sit in the middle of twenty-five acres. But only the two acres surrounding the buildings are fenced and there’s a twenty-foot electric gate at the foot of the driveway.”

More computer keys clacking. “Are there cameras?”

“Yes.” Mandy coughed to clear her tight, achy throat. “Kaylee filled the compound with cameras. They’re everywhere.”

“Now that I have an address, I can hack into those video feeds, get a look at the men who attacked the place,” Tex murmured.

“Are your sisters able to see the future too?” Jacob asked, his expression neutral.

She’d already told him she couldn’t pinpoint their traitor, or where his friend Lucky had been taken. He was probably hoping one of her sisters was more powerful and could give them the answers they needed. Mandy glanced at Brick, wondering how much Jacob or Tex had told him. Not that either man knew all that much, really. Not when it came to what her sisters were capable of.

“Brick knows about the voicemail,” Jacob said quietly, as though he’d read her mind. “He knows you predicted the future.”

“With one hundred percent accuracy, I might add,” Tex drawled. “Are the rest of your sisters as gifted when it comes to precognition?”

Mandy hesitated. Her sisters were much more talented than her—but not with precognition. Or at least only she and Patti had that ability, and her younger sister was much stronger in that regard. But should she alert these men to what her sisters were capable of? Her family already had one lethal organization after them. It seemed like a bad idea to expose their secrets to another governmental organization. One with just as much potential for abuse and corruption.

On the other hand, she’d come to Jacob for help, and he—along with his friends—was sure to find out what her sisters were capable of during any rescue attempt.

“We don’t share the same talents,” she offered carefully.

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