Page 132 of Nemesis

“Clean,” Saint repeats. “I don’t remember the clean part.”

“You were stabbed.” She crosses her arms over her chest. “Of course you don’t remember it.”

He idly rubs at the center of his chest.

I stand. “You two should stay, then. And I will go collect Reese.”

Here’s the part where I don’t give them a chance to argue. I get up and hop over the side of the boat onto the dock and stride back to my car. I get there and slide into the driver’s seat, locking the doors right as Artemis and Saint arrive. They both pull at the doors, and I give Tem a look through the window.

She can’t come.

Saint can’t either.

Knowing what I know now, they’d just be liabilities. While they both held their own in the bar—and the little goddess even going feral, which went straight to my dick—I can’t risk it. Their states of mind could be the difference between surviving and dying.

Not an option when it comes to Reese.

I’m going to get my former friend back, and my debt will be square.

I takemy time picking through the forest. Three times, I have to hide myself from men patrolling. If they’re out this deep in the woods, it means there’s more at stake than just one man being held hostage.

Hostage.

No one has demanded ransom, which kind of negates the hostage theory.

Reese doesn’t have any money to his name anyway. It’s why he’s so good at staying undetected. He has a single bank account that receives a government check once a month, that he occasionally draws cash from in Emerald Cove. Other than that, no credit cards, no mortgage or rent, no car.

There’s another use for hostages, though.

To protect themselves from an outside force.

And this double-edged sword is a message to us.

I reach the tree line and eye the sloping ground down to the church. It’s not so much a church as a warehouse, everything shiny and new. Fresh wood beams, a metal roof and siding. The smell of sawdust lingers, as well as traces of the heavy equipment they must’ve hauled up here to handle construction. There’s deep grooves in the dirt along the side.

I check my night-vision goggles. They paint the world in gray-green, and I crouch while I watch the building. It’s quiet, which is fine by me. My weapon gets a once-over next, and then I move from my position. I scramble down the slope and stay low until I get right up to the building.

The door is unlocked, and I step through fast, gun raised. I swing the goggles up, the hallway lit well enough to see. A line of fluorescent tubes hung at angles down the length of it.

Someone rounds a corner, and I fire without a thought. I don’t fucking care about killing someone—and he would just as soon shoot me for intruding.

My gun’s suppressor dampens the noise, but it doesn’t fully eradicate it. A shiver of sound echoes down the hallway, and the man drops a second later. I step over him, sparing only a glance for the bullet wound that found its mark in the center of his forehead.

After a long moment of silence, I grab him and drag his body with me. I can’t have him discovered before I’ve completed my rescue mission.

I follow the path the man on the boat described, to a stairwell that goes down. I leave the man tucked in the corner, behind the door and out of sight.

The stairwell deposits me into another hallway that’s nearly identical, minus the knowledge of being underground. It smells older here, the air humid. There’s a long row of closed doors on my left, and more to my right.

I check each one as quietly as possible, clearing the rooms until I reach one at the end. The door is made of metal, and the handle doesn’t move.

Which is usually a sign of something valuable behind it.

I kick at the door on the side of the hinges, and they give way easily. I burst into the room, clearing the corners, before turning my attention to the man hanging in the middle of the space.

His wrists are bound and attached to a hook over his head, although it’s low enough that he sags on his knees. His head is bowed forward. He’s shirtless, and his brown pants are stained in dark blotches down his thighs.

I lift his head by his hair and stare into the face of Reese Avery. He’s not conscious—doesn’t appear to be anyway, unless he’s faking—but there are still little scowl lines between his brows.

---