Page 24 of Assassin's Game
X
I stared at that line—will be handed over to the appropriate authorities in seventy-two hours—each word a bass-drum thump in my throat. X was no idiot; he knew we were stalling, and he was calling our bluff.
Which left us with only one clear choice.
“Wake up the others, Rhys.”
He set his coffee cup on the counter behind me and took my shoulders in his big hands, turning me to face him. “Nix…”
I shook my head. “Rhys.” I smiled, but even I knew it didn’t reach my eyes. “I’ll be damned if I give him what he wants.”
“So we’re approaching the Agozis then.”
We’d known Elijah Agozi’s identity for a day and a half, had surveillance on the Agozi mansion for close to twenty-four hours. “It’s time we find out if they’re for or against us.”
His blue eyes narrowed, turning hard. “And if they’re on X’s side?”
“Then we eliminate them before they can follow us.” I ignored the pang of regret at the thought of Elijah. He and his brothers were, to all appearances, home-grown mercenaries. They couldn’t hold a candle to my team. “And we’ll have exhausted all avenues before we run.”
Two hours later we sat in an SUV a couple of miles from the estate.
“You’re not going in alone, Nix.”
I glanced over my shoulder at Maris, sitting cross-legged in the cargo area of the vehicle. Her attention was supposed to be on the laptop in front of her, watching the roads outside the immediate surveillance area for any interference. Instead she stared back at me.
“I told you I wouldn’t, Sis, as long as you stay in the car.”
“I still don’t like the idea of staying behind,” Titus said.
“We need the two of you on the outside in case something goes wrong,” I said, my gaze flicking to Maris.And I need you here guarding the most precious thing in my life,I added silently.
Maris frowned. She knew what I wasn’t saying, but she also knew not to fight it in the middle of an op. “They have jammers,” she pointed out. “How will we know if something goes wrong?”
It was a likelihood we couldn’t avoid. Getting a hard line through the gates would be impossible. We’d managed to place surveillance cameras half a mile from the perimeter fence of the estate, facing all directions, but that was the extent of our sight. There was no satellite surveillance available here for Monty to hack, and we hadn’t had time to get our hands on a drone.
“Car,” Monty said from the back seat.
“Visual on driver?” Rhys asked. We knew an earlier departure had been Leah Marrone, the middle brother’s fiancée, and her little girl. A bit of hacking had told us the child attended a nearby elementary school, and Marrone had a nursing shift at Fulton County Memorial today. Ideally we’d like the other female who lived on the estate, Abby Roslyn, to also exit before we approached. Nothing in her background suggested she had the training or personality to be a mercenary, and we needed all our attention on the enemy, not on keeping civilians safe. I said ideally because, after a certain point in time, we had to make contact or risk Marrone and the child returning.
There was a pause as we waited; then Monty grunted in satisfaction. “It’s her.”
A part of me relaxed, knowing the woman was away and safe. We would be alone with our targets.
That part had me tensing my gut. I reached for the door handle. “Let’s go.”
Rhys, Monty and I took the two-mile jog easily. Even as a teen I could have doubled the pace and added a seventy-five-pound backpack and still not be breathing heavy as we approached the entrance to the estate; with our basic weapons and the clothes on our backs, it was a breeze. Rhys and Monty stood back slightly, alert, hands on their thigh-holstered guns, and waited as I approached the keypad and video screen. When I was squarely in the camera’s sights, a faint buzz sounded and I knew I’d gotten someone’s attention.
I waited.
A computer-generated voice finally asked, “How may I help you, Ms. Nixon?”
Shock jolted up my spine.Ms. Nixon.
It was a common courtesy, right? The fact that they called me “Ms.” didn’t mean they were working with X. Or so I told myself.
“I think you know what I want,” I replied. My fingers stroked the butt of my gun, and I wondered if Elijah was behind that camera, watching me, noting every movement. Did I want him to be?
Several minutes passed, but I refused to so much as twitch. Finally the voice returned.
