Page 31 of Judgment Day

“I know. We have to kill him before that week is up.”

“But...” She paused to stare down at her fingernails.

“But what?”

“I’ve got Timeless meetings coming up,” she explained. “Meetings that I can’t miss. I have the most important one in four days. Another agent is coming to the safe house to host the meeting. It’s mandatory. I have to be there.”

“That means we don’t have a week to get it done. We have three days,” Scar recalculated.

“There’s no way we can get it done in three days,” Exa told him. “I want him to suffer. I don’t want a quick kill.”

“We’ll make him suffer, trust me. But if we don’t act now, I’m afraid it’ll mess up our later plans.”

“Shit!” Exa exclaimed as she climbed off the bed and began pacing in front of it. “I’ll have to talk to my team about us leaving. Have you talked to the guys?”

“I’ve talked with a couple of them. I’m ready to go whenever you are.”

“I can pack some bags,” she said, still pacing. “I have Seven monitoring his home at all times. We have cameras recording the activity outside of his house. Nova took care of that for me. We used to have some on the inside, but his team found those when they did a sweep. I’ll have Seven tap into the cameras to make sure he’s home. If he’s not home, that’ll be a problem.”

“Yeah. That would pose a problem. Let’s have Seven check the cameras. I’ll have Liam try to hack into the judge’s phone to pinpoint his location. Also, to see if the good old judge has any speaking engagements or dinners he needs to be at. Once we know his schedule and his current location, we can plan out the rest. No matter where he is, we can have Declan fly us there. How does that sound?”

Exa stopped pacing and stared at him. “That sounds good.”

She looked like she wanted to say more but kept it to herself. It took everything in him to keep from asking her what was wrong. Instead, he closed his laptop, shoved it toward the pillows, then patted a space on the bed next to him.

“Come lie down,” he told her.

“I would love to. But, we don’t have time to lie down. We need...”

“For ten minutes. Lie next to me for ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes,” she repeated. “That’s it.”

“The time starts now,” he told her. “Come here.”

Frowning, she climbed onto the bed and snuggled up next to him. Scar draped his arm over her and stared down at her.

“Close your eyes.” She did as he asked. “Don’t talk,” he told her. “Don’t think about anything.”

“That’s impossible. I have too much on my mind not to think about anything.”

“Just listen to my voice. I’ll tell you a story.”

She chuckled and looked up at him. “You’re going to tell me a story?”

“Yeah. I’ll tell you the story I overheard Skye telling to Ya-Ya and Kov one night to make them go to sleep.”

“Oh, I’m eager to hear this.”

“Close your eyes,” he told her. Once her eyes were closed, he began his story. “Once upon a time...”

Exa chuckled.

“Shh,” he told her. “Don’t distract me.”

“Sorry,” she whispered, smiling.

Damn, he loved her smile.

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