Page 47 of Stealthy Seduction
The screens.
The mask.
That voice saying her name like it knew her, like it had been waiting for her.
Because it was.
“Drive!” Hudson’s bellow cut through her shock as he shoved her into the van and slammed the door behind them. “Get us out of here, now!”
The van accelerated through the streets, taking a route that seemed deliberately circuitous—turning down side streets, speeding through neighborhoods, doubling back on itself in a pattern that would confuse anyone trying to follow.
“Dante, I need a route with no traffic cameras,” Hudson said into his comms unit. “And check for eyes in the sky while you’re at it.”
His voice projected in a strange echo through a radio the driver had on him. When he turned his head, Izzy saw Sinner was at the wheel. He wasn’t the pizza guy. Not today.
“Copy that,” came Dante’s response. A few moments later, his voice sliced into the tension. “Jesus, Steele, you called it. There’s a drone tracking your vehicle. Small, probably commercial grade, but it’s definitely following you.”
“Can you take it out?”
“Working on it… Almost there… Got it! Sending the signal now.”
Izzy twisted just in time to see a small explosion bloom in the sky—a brief flash of fire and debris that disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.
The reality of what had just happened began to sink in, and with it came a terror so complete it made her Syria captivity look like a minor inconvenience.
“Drones following us? What’s going on?” She barely recognized her voice as her own. “Here I thought Syria was the worst thing that could ever happen to me.”
“It’s tied to Syria,” Hudson said grimly, reaching for her hand with a steadiness that she desperately needed.
“Tied to Syria h-how!” The words came out higher than she’d intended, panic making her vocal cords crack. “What has this got to do with anything? What have I ever done to deserve this?”
She was collapsing into herself now, knees pulled up to her chest as the magnitude of the situation crashed over her. Someone had taken over every electronic billboard in Times Square.
Someone had called her by name, threatened her life…sent drones to follow her through the city.
Someone wanted her dead, and she had no idea why.
“Hudson, when I was a hostage…” She struggled to get the words out. “That person—my captor—he wore a mask sometimes. Not like that LED thing, but still… Why would someone be targeting me? I went underground, used my real name, tried to rebuild my life. Who wants me dead? How did he know my name?”
Hudson’s grip was solid and warm around her trembling fingers. She tried to hold on to the feeling, to connect herself to it or risk being washed out to sea.
“We’re going to work this all out, Izzy. I promise you that.”
“But why did he say ‘a life for a life?’” The question came out as a whimper. “What life? Whose life?”
“I don’t know yet. But I need the team in order to figure this out.” His thumb traced across her knuckles, a gesture meant to ground her, to remind her that she wasn’t alone. “We’re going to get answers.”
Sinner continued to drive in a serpentine route through the city. Hudson checked the mirrors constantly, his SEAL training on full display.
But even his competence, his obvious skill at keeping her safe, couldn’t quiet the voice in her head that kept repeating the masked figure’s words.
A life for a life.
What life had she taken? What debt was she supposed to owe? And why did the electronic mask remind her so viscerally of her time in Syria, of the darkness and fear…and the helpless certainty that she was going to die?
She pressed closer to Hudson’s side, drawing what comfort she could from his solid presence, but the terror remained.Whoever was behind that mask, whatever they wanted from her, she had the horrible feeling that her nightmare was just beginning.
And this time, she wasn’t convinced even Hudson and his team would be enough to save her.
