Page 33 of Assassin's Mark
Chapter Sixteen
“Daddy’s on the ball.”
Levi’s tone held a note of admiration, a warrior seeing the brilliance of their enemy’s move in battle. I really didn’t want to know what my father had done to earn the admiration of an assassin, but I did want to know what would fuck up my life next, so I asked.
“What now?”
“Derrick has scheduled a press conference. Apparently your situation needsan update.”
Sure it did. Or Derrick needed to keep his face—and his “concern” for his daughter—in the news.
The fact that he was holding another press conference didn’t surprise me. What did was that I could care less. It would all be lies anyway—about me, certainly about him and how he “cared” about his daughter. It wasn’t worth listening when you couldn’t trust anything that was said. Butapparently Levi felt the need to listen, because he clicked the on button for a blank monitor to his right and, moments later, what looked like a live feed from the same press room the last conference had occurred in appeared on the screen. The grainy texture and forty-five degree angle told me this was likely a security feed Levi had tapped into. The faint murmur of voices and a few moving figuresin the seats came through, but no one stood onstage—the meeting hadn’t begun. Yet.
I turned away from the screen. The desk. Levi. Nothing made sense anymore, and that fact didn’t change no matter how much I paced. My father had always been a liar, but not about me. Or so I thought. Bad men were always bad, but Levi and his brother were trying to save their sibling from someone who’d…what? Wantedto torture a man in a coma? Use him as bait? Simply question him? Would he have hurt the nurse? He’d followed her into the room; surely he couldn’t have left her as a witness to criminal activity. Which was worse, that their mystery man might’ve hurt her or that Eli had kidnapped her?
I didn’t know, and the lack of answers was pounding against the inside of my skull so hard a gallon of Tylenolprobably couldn’t ease the pain of it.
“Be still,” Levi snapped.
The command startled me out of my churning thoughts, igniting the anger that lay in wait just beneath the surface of my control. “Fuck off.”
I realized my mistake immediately. My muscles went tight, my chest squeezing with fear. But the blow my instincts screamed was coming, didn’t. Levi turned in his seat, so so slowly, to pinme with that silver gaze. Molten silver now—he was as angry, or angrier, than I could ever be.
“Sit. The fuck. Down. We don’t want to get the handcuffs out again, do we?”
A chill shivered down my spine. Hadn’t we learned our lesson about the handcuffs last night?
I stared at Levi’s stone-hard expression. No, apparently not.
One dark eyebrow arched. I scurried toward a chair, shame eating atmy insides.
He didn’t wait for my butt to hit the cushion. He didn’t have to; my obedience was expected, therefore it would happen. He turned back to the screen and his brothers with a quiet grunt of satisfaction that made me wish I had something hard to throw at his head, like a brick.
Levi probably had a steel plate for a skull anyway, knowing my luck. Asshole.
While I simmered in irritation—andadmittedly, a little fear—Levi went back to work. He focused on his computer screens and Eli’s occasional comments through his cell with narrow eyes and a clenched jaw. I got it, even if I didn’t want to: he needed to keep his attention on his brothers, and I was a distraction. That didn’t mean I liked being afraid.
But I focused on the computer screens too, watching the trio’s progress on thevideo feeds over his shoulder. Eli and the nurse seemed to race through the bowels of the hospital, one at each end of Remi’s bed. Levi typed rapid-fire on the keyboard, clicking the mouse faster than a striking snake, and though I couldn’t tell definitively what he was doing to help his brother, I assumed he was in some way clearing their path just as he’d made certain the nurse he wanted for Remihad answered Eli’s call. Halls miraculously cleared. Locked doors opened. And in the half-empty garage, an ambulance stood parked in a dark corner. I couldn’t help noticing that Eli now wore a hat very similar to the man he’d fought, his face hidden, only the nurse identifiable. He knew what he was doing, just as Levi did. A professional.
My headache resurged with a vengeance, tightening aroundmy skull like a vise.
Remi’s eyes never opened as they loaded him into the ambulance. I waited, breathless and conflicted, for the nurse to argue, to run, but she kept her focus and her steady hands on her patient the entire time. Only when Eli went to close up the back doors did she speak.
Levi growled at the minute delay. “Get her secured and get out of there, E. You’ve got sixty seconds.”
If Eli responded, I couldn’t see it. I didn’t see the handcuffs either, not until one was wrapped securely around the woman’s wrist. Eli secured the second to the rail of Remi’s bed, then shut the ambulance doors.
Relief and disgust surged like bile up the back of my throat. I turned away from the desk as I swallowed back my nausea. Only the sound of Derrick’s voice brought me back to awareness.
It was anticlimactic, really. There was nothing new on the abduction—big surprise. So why was Derrick holding a press conference?
As if asking the question flipped on a light in my brain, I knew. “He’s establishing an alibi, isn’t he?”
Levi grunted a response. When I stood, turning toward the desk, I could see what looked like traffic camera feeds on the monitors to Levi’s left. He scanned themcontinuously, maybe tracking Eli’s progress through the city. How would they hide an ambulance with so many eyes on the roads? If Levi could follow it, surely someone—
Why the hell are you worrying about that, Abby? Worry about seeing where the ambulance is going, toyourlocation!
As if I’d shouted out loud, Levi clicked a button, and one by one the feeds turned to static. I should be surprised—absolutelynothing in my life was under my control, right?—but I couldn’t help the burn of tears at the backs of my eyes.
