Page 108 of Captive Lies

Blaire

Someone’s phonerang and I heard Jake answer. There were seconds of silence and then I heard him inhale sharply. “We’re at homestead Charlie, Mr. Thorne.” I wracked my brain for what that meant. I was about to walk out the kitchen when I heard quick movements andthen…

“Drop it!” Jake yelled before I saw him go down. One of my bodyguards rushed me toward theelevator.

“What’s going on?” Ishrieked.

He got dropped as well, dragging me down with him. I pushed his body off and sat up, confused. Andy approached me with a lazy stride, his right hand holding a weird lookinggun.

“What did youdo?”

“Your bodyguards are lucky I like them better than Val’s,” Andy said, stopping three feet in front ofme.

My heart tried to reject what my mind was telling me, but all my interactions with Andy suddenly made sense. “You set meup.”

“Not really. You weren’t my job at first. I was simply insurance—my boss had bigger plans for me.” His eyes turned hard. “You screwed that up because you kept turning up like a badpenny.”

“I trustedyou!”

“We’ll have a heart-to-heart later, sweetheart.” He raised his gun and shot me with no hesitation. The searing prick in my stomach instantaneously dimmed my vision and turned my muscles to Jell-O. I collapsed on the floor unable to move. His image blurred as he crouched in front of me and spoke in this slo-mo voice I couldn’t make out. He stood and dragged my body into the elevator. Afterward, there wasnothing.

41

Grant

“Homestead Charlie.”

“Fuck!”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Viktor commented as Grant sprinted for the elevators, phone in hisear.

“Tyler, bring the car around.” He punched the button to call the car before turning to his companions. “Homestead Charlie is a threat code similar to Defcon 3. Donovan ended the call immediately and I think it’s because Andy was alreadythere.”

“What do we do?” the senator asked no one in particular. All four of them got into theelevator.

“We’re heading to the penthouse,” Grant said. “Donovan will call once he has the situation handled.” That was the optimal result. As soon as they cleared the elevator, he brought up his phone app that contained the tracking software. “I’m getting a faulty read. Blaire’s blinking in and out of thepenthouse.”

“The tracking device made specifically for the BloodTrak serum is more accurate,” Viktor said who was looking over Grant’s shoulder. He caught a troubled look on the blond man’s face, but it quickly disappeared and Viktor’s face was once againunreadable.

Tyler was already waiting for them in the Escalade and all four of them climbedin.

“Sully and I will ride with you for now,” Viktor informed him. “Our vehicles and my men are on theway.”

Grant didn’t respond but reached for the tracking device in the glove compartment and turned it on. “Signal is weak, but, from the coordinates, it looks like she’s in the basement.” They’d been in the car for a few minutes when Blaire’s signal blinked out. “Shit, this couldn’t be right? Shedisappeared.”

“How could that be?” the senator queried. “The BloodTrak serum is fool-proof.”

“Not anymore,” Sullycountered.

Grant turned in his seat and glared at the two AGS men. “Explain. And don’t tell me it’sclassified.”

“But it is,” Viktor replied. “Even the senator doesn’t know aboutit.”

“Well, I suggest you de-classify it pretty quick,” his dadsnapped.

Viktor regarded the senator for a second before speaking. “Since the attack on your wife when the explosive device was identified, the CIA stepped up its probe against YGE and Yashkin’s other associates,” he said. “We’ve uncovered a company that fronts as an energy research laboratory that’s actually manufacturing counter-measures against U.S.-made advanced military weapons. Among those was the hack of the BloodTrakserum.”

“Yes, but how would Andy know that’s the tracker we used on Blaire?” Grant said. “We’ve kept the information confidential from Dad and his staff untilnow.”

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