Page 132 of Dash

The sounds of a ferocious firefight continued to echo from outside. My friends’ faces paraded through my mind. Micah, Kai, Javier, Matt, Finn. They were all dying as I sat here, unable to help them. What about Sandy, Cook, Monique, Paolo, and even Jorge? Were they being killed as well? Mina! Oh, my God. Mina.

Please, God. Don’t let them die.

Uncle Shit didn’t care about the murders in progress. “Your friends are dying. We’ve come to the end of the road. Now, tell me. Where are your damn sisters?”

For a moment, my mind went blank with fear. “I don’t—”

“Don’t tell him shit,” Dash lifted his sweat covered face and stared me down.

I considered Dash closely. He knew I had no clue of their whereabouts. Why was he pretending I knew?

“Where are your sisters?” Uncle Evil’s sickly-sweet breath blustered over me.

“Don’t,” Dash ground out.

I pressed my lips together and whimpered.

“Again,” Uncle Shit ordered Drew.

“Wait, stop!” I slumped on my chair. I couldn’t take it anymore. “But if I tell you, you’ll kill them.”

“That, my dear, is unavoidable.” The certainty of his tone chilled me to the core. “Contacts have been made. Paymentshave exchanged hands. Orders have been given by people more powerful than me.”

His employer had sent assassins after my sisters. This was no longer a guess or an assumption. It was real. My insides turned so cold I wondered if my vital organs had frozen into icicles. The danger to my sisters was imminent.

I trapped a sob in my throat. I almost lost it, but another look from Dash urged me to cling to my wits. I made a huge effort to think. To save my sisters’ lives, we needed to survive today and collect as much information as we could.

I pushed out the words. “Why would your employer have any interest in us?”

“Your father knew my employer,” Arthur said. “Richard got his hands on some dirt on him. He didn’t realize my employer knew he had this information until it was too late.”

Of course. Blackmail had always been one of Father’s favorite business strategies to control his opponents. I now understood why Uncle Shit had said that my father had been in and out of the NWO. Father had gone in, secured some leverage over my uncle’s mysterious employer, and then gotten out with information that could hamstring his enemy. This was Father’s MO and it usually worked to neutralize business threats. The problem was my father didn’t realize that he was dealing with cold-blooded killersandhis brother’s secret quest for vengeance.

“The information Richard held is dangerous to my employer,” Uncle Evil volunteered. “My employer believes that you and your sisters know what it is, that you won’t hesitate to use it against him, and that it’s hidden in this very house, as I know it is.”

I studied my uncle’s face, keenly aware that the report of gunfire was now coming in spurts. “Why would your employer believe all of that?”

“Because I told him.”

I gaped, understanding at last. “You linked his revenge to yours.”

My uncle’s sinister smirk illustrated how proud he was of his accomplishment. “There’s no escape for your sisters. Their assassins are already on the hunt.”

My stomach lurched.Cece. Affie. Missy. Were they alive? Were they dead?

“You’re lying.” It took all I had to bounce back from that one. “You don’t know my sisters’ whereabouts. If you did, you wouldn’t need me to tell you where they are.”

“My employer favors expediency,” the troll who’d once been my uncle said. “If you tell me where your sisters are, it will save us time and it’ll spare Dashiell more pain.”

I shuddered at the sheer agony on Dash’s face. Strands of hair were plastered over his forehead, wet with his sweat. How much longer could he last? How much longer before his heart failed or his brain sustained permanent damage?

“Shaw?” Mr. Evil flicked a careless hand and Drew lifted his hand to the remote.

“Wait!” I cried out. “I’ll tell you where my sisters are.”

“Stop,” my uncle ordered Drew then fixed his glower on me. “Where are they?”

The shots were now coming few and far in between. As far as I knew, Tracker Team was in its last legs or perhaps even gone now. No help was coming. Dash and I were alone in this.

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