Page 9 of Ghost
He caught her knees, and she spilled into his arms.He dropped her inside the trunk, ripped off another piece of duct tape, and slapped it over her mouth.
Without another word, he shut the lid with a clank.
CHAPTER 4
Mila’s brain workedas quickly as a calculator.
The car headed south from the driveway.Five minutes later, the stop-and-go motion ceased and the brute accelerated.They were on the highway, heading east.
An unfamiliar emotion pierced her.God, how could she have been so stupid?Not only had she gotten caught, but he’d overpowered her.Easily.The emotion—fear?—quickly unraveled into something else.
Her lungs ached.The walls pressed in around her.Panic?No.She didn’t have time for that.Panic would ruin her.She had to keep her wits and formulate a plan.Calming her racing heart, she focused on the still air around her until the tension in her chest eased.
It didn’t take long for the December air to work its way inside the trunk.Her skin rippled, but she fought away the chill.Where the hell was he taking her?
She needed to get word to Neo that she’d been compromised, but reaching her handler would be impossible right now.In the twelve years she’d worked with him, there’d been only one other occasion where things had gonealmostthis badly.
He expected confirmation of the target’s death by midnight.On the dot.Instinct told her she likely had fifteen minutes before Neo got itchy.
He’d buy time, but he wouldn’t be able to hold off the hirer.They’d want verification and without it, she was a dead woman walking and out a hundred and fifty grand.
Shuffling so her back was against the far end of the trunk, where the wall butted up to the back seats, she swept her foot around the space for any usable object.Like the tool bench, the rough carpet was clean.
She could almost see him vacuuming the damn thing every time he took his groceries from the trunk.
Alexei’s voice sounded in her head.Think, Malyshka.There’s always a way out.Anything can be used as a weapon.Anything.
He’d once locked her in the trunk of a car and forced her to find a way out with her hands bound.She’d been thirteen and it’d taken her three hours.
Three hours too long, he’d said.
She swiped her foot along the panel beneath the hatch but couldn’t feel the lever that should pop open the trunk.There didn’t seem to be one in this model.
The only other option was the wall behind her.The seats likely folded down, but she’d have to find a button to make that happen.Or use enough force.She skimmed her fingers along the back of the seats and found the long, vertical line revealing the divide between the seats.
But she couldn’t kick it to hell yet.She’d need the perfect opportunity.Her shoulders screamed with exhaustion.She dropped her hands, and her breath heaved in and out through her nose.
Fighting him had taken a toll.He could’ve killed her.She suspected he was too ruthless to do it quickly.She didn’t doubt he’d enjoy trying to get her to talk.
Whatever interrogation stunts he thought he had would be useless, though.
Closing her eyes, she accepted her unsettling fate.She was stuck—for now.Once he stopped this vehicle, she’d make a move.She wasn’t one to run, but that six-foot-two, two-hundred-something-pound monster was a fight she wouldn’t willingly take.If she had the opportunity to kill him, she would.If running improved her odds, she’d do that.
That decision left a little too much wiggle room for her liking, but there was no help for it.
She was going to need her strength.Drawing her knees close to her abdomen, she slowed her breathing once again.
In the time it’d take to reach their destination, her body would do what it did best—repair and prepare for the next war.
***
Ghost rubbed hisknuckles over his jaw.He’d been driving for over six hours and the twists and turns of the mountains were giving him a headache.Or maybe the double kick to the head was to blame.
He shoved that reminder from his mind because if he thought about how she’d caught him off guard he’d only get more pissed off about it.The other thing that royally pissed him off was that he’d been found.He’d worked hard to cover his tracks, to live under the radar.Hell, more than half his colleagues didn’t even know his real name.
He had no family.No one tied to him.He’d even rehomed his dog, his only real friend in the goddamn world, when he struck the match to burn his old life to the ground.
So who the fuck had sent her?That was the question hammering his brain.The style of the attempt indicated Trident Securities was behind this.Not many people had the funds or resources to hire a professional hit man.He had many enemies, but only Trident had pockets that deep.His scorned former employer, Hunter Emmett, was dead, though.He’d taken him out.Shot the double-crossing bastard between the eyes himself.
