Page 36 of Assassin's Game
“Some kind of trial,” Mikaela repeated slowly. “He didn’t pit us against each other directly because he didn’t tell us about each other, but… He’s wanting a long-term team, obviously. One of us wins and the other gets burned?”
“An audition, maybe?” Rhys said. “He wouldn’t want another team possibly interfering in anything he sets up in the future, so he could get rid of the team he doesn’t plan to keep.”
My gaze met Remi’s, heavy with worry. Mikaela’s team had been given a deadline—did that mean X wanted to keep them and burn us, or vice versa? Could we keep our family safe, either way?
Not without help. We needed Mikaela and her team right now much more than they needed us. Our roots were here, our home. We couldn’t pick up and go as easily—too many dependents. And now, with Abby…we might not be able to leave at all. We were two men carrying the weight. We needed help.
We needed Mikaela’s team. Desperately.
I stopped directly opposite of Mikaela, just behind Remi’s shoulder. He looked back at me. Nodded. I met Mikaela’s eyes across the table. “It looks like we know what we have to do,” I said. “Let’s get it set up.”
“And Levi?” she asked. She was smart enough to know he headed our team just like she headed hers.
“He has more important things to worry about right now.”
“More important than a threat to his family’s survival?” Rhys asked, the rise in his tone telling me just how much he believed that.
I thought of Abby, how frantic and scared she must be. “Our family, Rhys,” I reminded him. “And he’s fighting for our survival just as hard as we are. Let’s go to work.”
OceanofPDF.com
Chapter Sixteen
Nix—
We had a proximately thirty-six hours to plan this op and put it in motion. That didn’t leave a lot of breathing room, but sometimes you worked with what you had. By dark we knew every detail of Sullivan’s driver’s life, and Monty, Titus, and Rhys were headed out to place a tracker on the town car the man used to ferry his boss around.
“This doesn’t require three of us,” Rhys groused as they gathered what they needed.
Eli approached just in time to catch the complaint. His stern look at my teammate said he didn’t give a shit. “You’re welcome to sit down here twiddling your thumbs.” He handed over a small black box that I knew contained the state-of-the-art tracking device, nearly undetectable, that Eli had promised. One of Hacr Tech’s latest projects. “Don’t forget, your team lost the toss-up. We cook dinner; you run the errands.”
As if tracking the man we planned to kidnap—not to mention staging his death—was as simple as a run to the grocery store.
Rhys grabbed the box and shoved it into the pocket of his fatigues with ill grace. “You won’t be laughing about it tomorrow when you have to supply the body for the car.”
I grimaced. Rhys had a point. First responders would realize the car was empty at the wreck site. Short of planting a bomb and blowing the car to bits—far more attention than we wanted—we had no choice but to substitute a body. It wouldn’t pass a DNA test, but we didn’t expect it to. Just buy us a little time. Since Eli and his brothers were local, they had easier access to a corpse than we would. I refused to ask where they planned to get it.
“Truth.” Eli raised a fist in Rhys’s direction, knuckles out. “Keep us informed.”
Rhys hesitated, then fist-bumped with Eli. “Will do. We expect dinner when we get back.”
I walked the guys to the back door of the basement. “You have Eli’s number. Your phone should work outside the grounds.” Remi had continued to refuse releasing the jammers—it would make the compound and its tech too vulnerable. They had given us complete access to their computers, though by “complete” they meant anything Eli hadn’t firewalled and only under supervision. I was good with that—for now—but access to my team during a mission, however minor, was a sticking point. “I’ll be with Eli every second; getting in touch with him is getting in touch with me.”
Titus rolled his eyes. “Yes, Mommy. I mean, ma’am.”
“What if he has to take a piss?” Monty deadpanned. “Awk-ward!”
God save me from the teenage mentality of grown men. “Get going, for fuck’s sake.”
Only when they walked out the door did I let my grin escape.
Titus popped his head back inside, and I wiped the amusement from my face. The twinkle in his eyes said he caught it anyway. “If you are going to trail him into the john, now is the time. Tomorrow he’ll smell too much like a dead bod—”
I palmed his face and shoved him out the door. “Shut the fuck up.”
His laughter trailed behind him as he crossed to the van. I close the door after they left.
Eli was crouched behind the couch, his big hands rubbing along Diesel’s neck as I approached. “For the record, the john’s off-limits.”
