Page 46 of Cautious

“Miny.” I shoot once more, aiming for the guy’s shoulder like I did the first. I’m shooting to maim, not to kill, but these guys don’t need to know that. I swing the gun to the last guy, the one whose eyes darted all over the place while he muttered a prayer on repeat under his breath. This time, I aim at his head.

“Mo.” The word is barely out of my mouth when he starts screaming.

“No! Stop. I’ll tell you everything I know.”

“Shut the fuck up, Finkle,” one of the other guys on the floor shouts, but it goes in one ear and out the other.

This Finkle guy is too freaked out for anything to register now beyond my gun pointing at him.

“Mr. Baylor told us to stay here and say nothing, do nothing, and our debts would be forgiven. All we had to do was wander around the property,” he says in a rush, making me look up at my guys.

“Heat signatures,” Kellen concludes. “He knew there was at least a chance SWAT would get called in. If the place was empty, we would have dismissed it and kept looking. Instead, we wasted a bunch of fucking time here instead,” he spits out angrily.

“Where is Baylor?” I grit out at Finkle, who is openly crying now.

“I don’t know, none of us do. He packed his things and left out the back… we don’t know anything else. We are just here because we owe him money,” he babbles.

I look at hisfriendsas they glare at me with a mix of hostility, fear, and pain, knowing the crybaby is right. None of them know jack shit.

“Fuck!” I yell, kicking over the chair closest to me as I lose what’s left of my frayed control. The chair smashes against the wall, bouncing against it so hard that one of the picture frames above it falls and smashes to the floor.

I pick it up to throw it too, the broken glass slicing into my palm. The pain is a welcome relief when the photo inside it stops me. It’s Christian and an older guy shaking hands, standing inside an airport hangar in front of a sleek black private jet withCBE Airwaysembossed on the side in gold scroll. It looks like the kind of plane a rapper would have, but I know how pretentious Christian is.

“Find out where this plane is,” I bark, handing the picture to Felix and stomping outside, needing to get the fuck out of this place before I really lose my shit in front of everyone.

I brace my hands on my thighs and take a deep breath, but it doesn’t help one fucking bit.

“You get anything?”

I look up at the sound of Tate’s voice, finding him staring at me from a few feet away, where he is standing with the big guy from his team.

“They were decoys. We think they were being used for their heat signatures. Callie, Christian, and his goons are long gone. They don’t know anything useful, but you might want to call a medic or two.”

Tate rolls his eyes but indicates for the big guy beside him to do just that.

“The two agents left when they realized Baylor wasn’t here. I don’t know what their fucking deal is,” he grumbles.

I don’t try to explain my suspicions, focusing only on finding Callie. “There’s a photo on his wall of a plane with a CBE logo on the side of it. If you had a plane on hand, where would you keep it around here? Because it sure as fuck isn’t on this property.”

“Let me make a call. Give me a second.” He spins around with his phone in his hand before I can reply.

I turn to face the house as my guys swap places with the SWAT team once more, swarming out of the house and stomping over to stand beside me.

“Shit.” I turn back to face Tate at his hissed curse and suck in a breath at the look on his face.

He stares at me for a beat before dropping the bomb.

“There is a private airfield about ten miles from here. A plane took off from there three hours ago. A black jet with a gold CBE logo on the side.”

Callie

I wake up feeling sick to my stomach. That’s nothing new, but the fact that my bed is moving is slightly disconcerting.

I open my eyes to get my bearings, realizing immediately I’m in a different room than before. My head is fuzzy, making the room spin, so I snap my eyes shut again.

Figures it was too much to ask that this was all a fucked-up dream.

“We will be there in an hour. In and out, then we’ll be off somewhere nobody can find us.”

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