Page 49 of Callahan's Haven

Did the doorknob just move?

She held her breath as, little by little, the door cracked open. Woosley had been the only one to watch over her, but she knew more were in the building. She’d heard him talking to them. Was the meeting over? A sense of doom filled her. Her father was probably dead and she was about to wish she was too.

She found herself breathing harder the more the door opened, until a blackened face peeked inside and smiled. Whoever it was put a finger to their lips and indicated the still-sleeping Donald.

Haven nodded and peered closer, her eyes widening and heart racing when she realized it was Solace.

They found me!

Solace held up a finger and then stepped back from the almost-open door. Her yell of, “Now!” was accompanied by the door being kicked all the way open with shouts and gunfire filling her ears.

“What the fuck!” Woosley fell out of his chair, with his gun skittering across the floor a couple of feet away from him while Solace held hers steady on him.

“Don’t move,” she said, her face tense and eyes narrowed. “But then again…move. Give me an excuse.”

Woosley lay sprawled on the floor, his feet tangled up in the legs of his chair and his hands out to his sides. One of them was close to his gun. A slow grin spread over his face while whatever was going on behind Solace seemed to have died out quickly.

“Well, well, well, if it ain’t the barracks whore again. What? Hiding your face from the little love tap I gave you?”

Looking closer, Haven could see one of Solace’s eyes seemed swollen, and the sclera red and angry looking.

“I’ve had worse.” Solace just grinned at him. “And from better men than you.” She motioned with her gun. “Get up and turn around.”

“Do you really think you’re getting out of here with her?”

“Oh,” Solace said with a full-on smile. “I know I am. Your men are contained…or dead…or both.”

Donald’s face hardened, his cheeks turning red. Haven watched as he glanced at his gun and then at her, resolve showing in his gaze as he kicked the chair away from him toward Solace and reached for his weapon.

The chair flew into Solace while Woosley grabbed his gun and bounded to his feet. Haven closed her eyes tight, and then jerked when the loud retort of a single gunshot filled the room, her heart nearly stopping as a body hit the floor.

She slowly opened her eyes, expecting to see Donald’s gun pointing at her and Solace’s body crumpled in the doorway.

Instead, Donald lay a few feet from her, his blank stare facing her—his forehead marred by a single bullet hole. She whipped her head over to Solace holstering her gun, her expression grim. “Let’s get you out of here,” she said, pulling out a knife and kneeling in front of her.

“My father?”

Solace’s shoulders tensed before she looked up at her from where she was cutting away the bindings around her ankles. “We don’t know yet.”

“He’s in Turkey.”

“We know.”

“You do?” Haven’s brows furrowed as she waited while Solace started at the ties on her wrists. “Do you know they’re having him kill a Mazhar Sadik.”

Relief filled her when Solace cut the last tie and she could rub over her raw wrists.

“We do now,” Solace said, standing up. “He’s—” She paused and cocked her head to the side, her smiling eyes going to Haven’s. “Yes, I have her.”

Haven figured she must have her ear comm in, so Garrett and Declan had to be with her. Reality set in again.

Calwasn’twith them and never would be again.

But maybe they could still save her father—stop him. They just had to find a way to contact him. “We need—”

“Haven!”

Haven’s gaze flew to Solace who was turning toward the empty doorway. She slowly stood from the chair on unsteady legs. “Cal?”

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