Page 68 of A Very Titan Christmas
His radio crackled. Official-sounding language, some of it in code, blared between them.
“Say a word, and I’ll put a bullet between your eyes.” His eyes narrowed, assessing her to determine if his threat had worked. A second later, he talked in code over his radio with what she guessed meant, “All’s good here.”
The radio chatter continued with more garbled, crackling code talk.
He kept the gun trained on her but offered a quick nod, as if they were on the same page. “Good. Now, let’s go.”
So, was he on the security detail?
His fingers dug into her elbow. Pain radiated down her arm. Her knees weakened. She couldn’t think straight. But she wasn’t fucking going anywhere. Rachel folded herself into deadweight.
“Get up.” He holstered his weapon and jerked her upright with a grip on each arm that felt tighter than before. “Stand up.”
They heard voices simultaneously. He froze.
“Help—”
His hand clamped over her mouth. She thrashed and kicked. He wrapped an arm around her throat. Rachel fought for breath. Her legs and arms felt too heavy to raise. She couldn’t move. Gray clouds appeared in her peripheral vision. She fought to keep her eyes open, but all went dark.
*
Members of TitanGroup surrounded the makeshift war room table. The windows overlooked the snow-covered woods, and all Bryce could think about was how he’d fucked up. He hadn’t been by Rachel’s side and couldn’t figure out the timing of the blackout that had powered down or disabled the resort’s CCTV, Wi-Fi, electronic locking mechanisms that usually required a badge swipe, and anything else that would have been useful to find Rachel.
“They can’t get far.” Jared slammed his fist on the conference room table. A holiday arrangement of holly and pinecones jumped. “Parker, what do we know?”
Not much, Bryce thought. If Parker knew anything, he would have led with that.
Angry static burned Bryce’s ears. He could only come up with one answer: The enemy was among them. The idea that someone had taken Rachel killed him. The idea of losing her, likehe’d lost Montana… The ache in his chest got stronger every time he tried to take a breath.
“Senator and Mrs. Porter are secured,” Parker said.
Jared pinched the bridge of his nose. “Tell me something fuckin’ useful, Parker.”
“Porter’s people had a leak—”
“Almost twenty-four hours ago. How can a fuckin’ power outage cause this much damage?” Frustration glinted in Jared’s dark eyes. “What does all of this tell us?”
“That it looks a hell of a lot like an inside job.”
Parker had said out loud what Bryce was thinking.
Jared paced. “An inside job.”
Bryce raged. His fists balled under the table. “How is that possible?”
“Too many cooks in the kitchen,” Parker said. “Too many people unfamiliar with each other. We’re not the lead. We haven’t been, and this isn’t how we’d operate.”
“Fuck.” Jared cracked his knuckles. “Is every access road out of this resort shut down?”
“Affirmative.”
“Helicopters are circling?”
“Look, the Feds are running point on this investigation. I’m only able to pass along intel—”
“I’ll get us where we need to be,” Jared said. “But I’m not hearing much to act on.”
“The helos are using thermal imaging. The dog handlers are running their pups, but the conditions are harsh. In a way, that works in our favor.”
