Page 78 of Final Exit

“We heard a click at the door, figured Kade had remotely unlocked it. And we heard him say something about the door over the intercom. Sure enough, it was unlocked.”

“He must have done that when he leaned over the control panel that last time. I didn’t notice. Thank God the gunmen didn’t either.” She looked at each of them again. “But I thought he’d bargained your lives for mine.” She started to press a hand to her temple, which was starting to throb, but the handcuffs jangled on her wrists, reminding her she was still tied up.

“Here, I’ll get those.” Jace stepped forward with a handcuff key, freeing her, just as he had that first night.

“Thank you.” She rubbed her wrists gratefully. Then she frowned. “Where’s Devlin? What happened to the gunmen? Where is Kade?”

“Come on,” Jace said.

He led her and the others out of the control booth back into the warehouse. Four bodies lay against the far wall. Jace and the others must have taken them out as they’d left the lab, warned by Kade as he’d announced that they were leaving the control room. It was all starting to make sense to her now. But there had been five gunmen.

Jace waved behind her and she turned around. The fifth man, Dominic, stood against the wall, his hands bound behind him, a length of phone cord—probably taken from the lab—tying both his ankles together. And standing in front of him, pointing a gun and saying something in a low menacing tone, was Devlin. And besidehim?

Kade.

They all joined Devlin and Kade, who were grilling the mercenary. From what Bailey caught of the conversation as she approached, he was squealing like a pig, telling them everything they wanted to know. So much for those loyalties he’d been so proud of back in the control room.

Bailey stopped several feet from Kade. Jace stopped with her.

“What happened after Kade and the others left the room?” she whispered.

“We waited until the gunmen went outside to surprise them,” he said, keeping his voice low to mirror hers. “They’d handcuffed Kade by the time we got out there and he was sitting in the leader’s Humvee. We heard them arguing. Kade was taunting the leader.”

“Taunting him?”

Jace stared at her. “Apparently the leader had a computer in his car and expected Kade to access the Enforcer network to trick more Enforcers into coming in. But Kade had lied about being able to access the network. He was taunting the leader about how gullible he was to believe his lies. Saying as long as you were safe, that was all that mattered.”

Bailey stared up at him. “He had to know the leader would kill him for that.”

“Yeah. I imagine he did. I’m pretty sure he didn’t expect us to make it out of there in time to save him. The leader was raising his gun to shoot Kade when Devlin leaned in and wrenched the gun out of his hand. It was close. Another second and Kade would have been dead.”

“Then he... he did all of this, expecting to die. He didn’t bargain his own life for mine. He was willing to die to make all of us safe.”

“Yep. That’s pretty much what we concluded, too.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “He’s a good man, Bailey. He was in an impossible situation and he came up with a plan that was risky as hell. But he did it to lure out the bad guys. And now that we managed to get the leader, we can get Faegan. He saved all of us.” He left her to join the others.

Bailey couldn’t seem to make her feet move. Everything that had happened in the past few hours kept running through her mind. And it all boiled down to one thing. They were all safe, because of Kade.

Devlin grabbed Dominic’s arm and hauled him toward the exit. The rest of the Equalizers followed.

Kade gave Bailey an uncertain look, then limped after the others.

“Oh, hell no.” Bailey ran after him and blocked his way.

He stopped and watched her with a wary look.

“Jace,” she yelled over her shoulder. “Give us a minute.”

“You got it,” he yelled back.

She didn’t say anything until she heard the door close.

“This was all a trick,” she finally said. “You knew that you would probably die either way. And still, you bargained, to save me. Why?”

His brows lowered as if in confusion. “Why? I couldn’t let them kill you, not if I could do something to stop them.”

“Why?”

He glanced impatiently toward the door. “We need to go. We have a lead on Faegan and where he might be holding the captured Enforcers.”

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