Page 8 of Final Exit

Why? It’s not like you can help me any more than I can help you. You’re nearly two hours away with your own enemies to worry about.

There might be others in Boulder who can help. I can give them your GPS coordinates.

She stiffened.If you’re talking about those traitor Enforcers who turned against the rest of us and are now calling themselves Equalizers, they’re the last people I’d trust.

Devlin Buchanan and the others aren’t traitors. They figured out everything was going south way before the rest of us did and got out. They can help you, if you’ll let me contact them. If I remember right, they already tried to recruit you once. They know who you are. They’ll be happy to help.

Hot anger had her typing so fast her fingers cramped.No telling what would have happened to me if I’d accepted their offer at the time. From where I stand, the whole reason EXIT imploded is because Devlin put everything into motion. If it weren’t for the Equalizers, we’d both be lying on a beach somewhere right now spending our big fat paychecks.

Instead of the sexy teasing she’d expected in reply, she got a rushed message.

Gotta go. Be safe.

Text me when you make it out of there.

She waited, hoping for one last message. But a full minute passed and her screen remained blank. Her fingers tightened around the phone. If anyone could get out of a tough situation, Hawke could. He would contact her later, when he was in the clear. She had to believe that. Because she’d already lost everyone else she’d ever cared about. She couldn’t stomach the thought of losing Hawke, too.

Swallowing against the tightness in her throat, she put her phone away. Then she pulled the neon-green emergency release handle and climbed out of the trunk of the Ghost’s car.

Chapter Four

Saturday, 2:25 a.m.

Bailey swept her wet bangs out of her eyes and ducked beside the black Cadillac Coupe in the driveway of the Ghost’s single-story ranch house. Rain was falling steadily, soaking her through and through. But it kept any late-night curious neighbors away, which meant she didn’t have to worry so much that someone might call the cops if they saw her skulking around.

Then again, maybe stealth wasn’t necessary. The man who’d seemed so formidable back in the woods now seemed the complete opposite—careless and oblivious to everything around him.

After she’d heard him get out of the car, she’d carefully climbed out of the trunk. His back was turned to her and he was bobbing and weaving like a drunk. The smell of whiskey reached her even through the pouring rain. And when she peeked through the Caddy’s window, the full bottle of whiskey that she’d seen in the console earlier was only half-full now. He must have been drinking the whole way home.

She was lucky that he hadn’t wrecked the car and killed them both, or worse, some innocent passerby. She had zero respect for someone who’d risk other people’s lives that way.

The man was so inebriated that a barking Rottweiler could have snuck up on him. It was taking all of his concentration to remain upright while he tried to fit his key in the side door’s lock.

Even from twenty feet away she could hear the slur of his voice as he grumbled about the stubborn door. When the Ghost finally stumbled inside, Bailey shook her head in disgust.Thiswas the man they’d labeled the Ghost because he appeared from out of nowhere, was elusive, a shadow? This was the man so many Enforcers had feared, worrying that he and one of his teams of gunmen would come after them next and make them disappear just like so many of their peers?

Pathetic.

In spite of his impressive build and brawn, he didn’t have the discipline required of a true leader. He wasn’t even worthy of her scorn, much less her fear. And somehow that made everything worse. That a man so inept could bring down so many Enforcers was insulting, embarrassing.

After waiting a full minute to make sure her nemesis didn’t come back outside, she jogged from the car to the same side door he’d just gone through. Locked. No surprise there. Even a bumbling fool couldn’t bethatlax. But she didn’t see any of the usual trappings of an alarm—no warning signs in the yard, no wires or metal plates in the nearest window casing to indicate the old house had been retrofitted with a modern security system. Maybe he assumed he didn’t need one in an upper-middle-class neighborhood like this. And he’d never considered that one of the people he’d hunted would hitch a ride in his car and hunt him instead.

He was about to pay for both of those mistakes.

Since there were floodlights on this side of the house, making her feel dangerously exposed, she discarded the idea of picking the lock. Plus, going in cold was foolish. She needed to check the perimeter, get as much information as she could about her target before attempting entry.

Keeping her head down just in case there was a camera hidden somewhere, she walked the entire perimeter. A line of shrubs along the front of the house gave her excellent concealment, allowing her to peek in windows, straining to see as much as possible through the tiny cracks in the blinds. If there was a security system, it was well hidden. And she hadn’t spotted any cameras, although she continued to keep her head down just in case. Not that it really mattered. The Ghost’s men had been after her for weeks. They obviously knew what she looked like. But old habits died hard. And she’d been an Enforcer for a long time.

After making her way to the back of the house, she decided she’d enter through a dry-rotted set of French double doors that opened onto a six-by-six concrete patio. There wasn’t even a porch light on back here to dissuade a potential burglar.

Or one determined, badass Enforcer.

Although she hadn’t seen the Ghost when she’d peeked through the blinds in the various windows, she figured that he must be in the front room since it was the only one with a light on. He was probably sitting in some corner she couldn’t see, nursing another bottle of whiskey.

A few minutes later, courtesy of the mushy wooden frame and the pry bar she took from the trunk, she was inside. After propping closed one of the ruined French doors behind her, she stepped into the center of the room.

The dim light from the archway at the back left corner of the room helped her catalog the contents—a couch to her left, two chairs to the right, a wall of bookshelves with knickknacks and paperweights on the wall opposite of where she stood, and little else. It didn’t even look lived-in. It was probably just the place where the FBI—or whoever the Ghost’s real employer was—had set him up while his men murdered Enforcers. She hefted the pry bar in her hand. Time to go hunting.

“I guarantee you won’t find a flat tire in here to change.”

---