Page 12 of Code Name: Phoenix

Jack rolls his eyes. There is no joy behind his curled lips, only impatience and disappointment. Pulling out his phone, he leans around me and snaps a photo of the man on the ground at my feet.

Jack’s buddy is looking off to the side, as though he is concentrating, probably listening to a voice on the other end of his earpiece. Then he comes back to our group. “Hunter, get Tex off the ground and pull everyone back. The house is secure. These two are the only ones here. You know the drill.”

I’m starting to learn some names.

“Grizz, you, Hunter, and Tex will ride back with these two.” Jack’s partner points to me and Dana as he speaks to the man with his hand wrapped around Dana’s arm.

Jack speaks for the first time since I ran. “She stays with us, Jekyll.” He stares at his buddy as he jabs a finger in my direction.

And now I know his irritable friend’s name too.

“No. They drive back in the van with the team,” Jekyll challenges Jack, and, judging by the awkward expressions of the other guys, this doesn’t happen often.

Jack and his partner are locked in a standoff. He hasn’t looked at me since he lifted me off the ground. The anger radiating off him suffocates me, and I hope they take me away soon. I can’t bear to stand here and watch him avoid me.

I’ve never wanted to be thrown into a solitary cell more in my life. I need to get away from them, and I need to talk to Dana. She’s keeping quiet, just like we talked about, but she looks worried, and I need a few minutes to calm her, or Jack’s buddy is going to have a field day interrogating her.

“This is the closest we’ve gotten to Maxwell. She’s Jay, and she’s one rung under Zane.” Jack again points in my direction without looking at me.

I’m absorbing as much information as I can, and my heart skips a beat when it sounds like they aren’t working for or with Maxwell. But it’s still unclear who their master is. Maxwell has many enemies who would go to great lengths to get their hands on us.

“You and I need to have words, Phoenix,” Jekyll retorts through gritted teeth. “We’ll follow you in the SUV with Grey and Eagle. They aren’t going anywhere.” Then, glancing past me at the men standing around us, he breaks up the show. “You heard me. Move out.”

The group briefly looks at Jack, who still isn’t looking directly at me. A harsh tug on my arm pulls me out of my daze, and Dana and I are turned and moved across the yard toward the waiting vehicles out front. I don’t dare look back at him.

There are more vehicles out front than before. Men file out of the farmhouse with our belongings. I steal an impressed glance in Dana’s direction at the sight of my computer being hauled out. She did a bang-up job destroying that thing—literally. I couldn’t bring it back if I wanted to.

Then I see our bags being carried out, and my heart sinks.

“I’m sorry, Jessa. I couldn’t get to it in time. You always told me to destroy the computer first. The bags were upstairs. I only had time to go up or down.” Her voice is drenched in regret.

I nod to reassure her. “You did the right thing.”

My perception of the world around me has changed in the last twenty minutes.

This is a disaster.

And here I am with the man I thought I would love forever.

The man who now looks like he wants to murder me.

CHAPTER3

JACK

She ran from me. I stood only feet away from her, and she had two choices.

She chose wrong.

I looked for her for years after her family’s car accident. I wouldn’t accept that she perished with her parents.

The moment my team lead told me she was gone was the worst moment of my life. Looking at photos from the car wreck and talking about my feelings with a shrink to get cleared so I could be put back out on active duty was brutal. But I went through it all for her. So I could get back out in the field and begin looking for her on my own.

And it was always a dead end. Her body was never found, and she was declared deceased after a couple of years.

No one can stay hidden for that long.

Except her.

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