Page 107 of Walking Red Flag

I grinned at the man whose eyes went wide as hell when they saw me.

“Milena sends her regards,” I said, bringing the syringes up to my face to pull the caps off with my teeth.

Lyle started to struggle harder, and I stabbed him with the needles and depressed the plungers on both.

After pulling them out, I waited until Copper was fully out of the way, then I popped Lyle on the head, right against his temple.

He slumped onto Copper’s arms, and Copper threw him down on the bed in disgust.

Using the cuffs that were on the bed, I strapped Lyle to it, then the two of us went back to the curtained-off room.

Phoebe’s voice sounded a few minutes later, much louder than necessary.

“I’ll just swab him, and you can wheel him back to confinement,” Pheobe called out.

I grinned wickedly and opened the curtain just in time to see Rome.

I jerked my chin up at him, then looked at my brother. “Glad you’re not dead, brother. I would’ve fuckin’ hated it.”

Copper gave me another back-slapping hug and said, “Two more years.”

My heart was heavy when I replied, “Two more years.”

It was most of the way back to Dallas when Shasha’s phone call came through.

I pulled over and answered the call.

Apollo followed, uncaring that we’d stopped.

His eyes were on the sailboat that was in the middle of Lewisville Lake.

“Hey,” I said. “Everything okay?”

“Define okay,” Shasha grumbled.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Got a call from Artur,” he said as he relayed the call.

By the time Shasha was finished explaining, my blood was boiling.

“I’m headed up there,” I said. “You got a private plane, by chance?”

“Not a private plane that can get here in time, no,” he said. “But I can charter one.”

“It’ll take me another four hours at Dallas Cowboys stadium until I’m finished today. Gotta pack up and clean up. Get my cleaning crew in there. Show the owner everything,” I explained. “Then I can be at DFW airport by six.”

“Flight’s about four hours,” he said. “Drive is two from the airport. If you leave at midnight, you can sleep on the flight, then drive from four to six straight to her race. That way you don’t wake her up in the middle of the night, and she gets a good night’s sleep.”

He had a point.

“Fuck,” I said. “She hasn’t called me to tell me yet, though. You think she will?”

“Artur said that she’s trying to act unaffected. She also begged him not to tell me because she knew we’d be pissed, and she doesn’t want to bother anyone. She said she was just going to come home tomorrow.”

I was already shaking my head. “I’m going to move my schedule around. We’ll both stay up there. Might be good to be gone, really.”

He got my hint without me having to say it.

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