Page 92 of The Wanted One

“Brant was going to take his time killing me. He blamed me for Mom’s accident even though it made no sense. But one of the guys from his crew stopped him. He was a friend from my mom’s old crew. The one who got her the job with Brant. They started arguing about what to do with me.”

Listening to her recount it all, her voice almost aloof, I could tell she was trying to distance herself from the memory just to get the words out. I wanted to wrap her in my arms and tell her it would all be okay, but I knew she had to finish sharing first.

“Mom’s friend distracted him but not long enough. Brant went over to his bench and swapped his knife for a gun.” She frowned and covered her scar with her palm as if trying to stop the bleeding from eleven years ago. “That’s when Mom burst through the side door near where I was standing, and Brant fired. I think it was in reaction to being startled, but Mom was in front of me, blocking me. The bullet hit her right in the chest.” She paused for a breath, and I couldn’t wait any longer and pulled her in my arms.

I’d already wanted to kill Brant, but the more I learned, the more I knew there’d be no mercy.

An “are you coming” knock at the door made her flinch. I tightened my hold on her and hollered, “We’ll be right there,” before anyone could ask what was taking us so long.

“Both Brant and her friend looked shocked to see her alive,” she continued in a daze, ignoring the interruption, “and Brant let go of the gun and ran to Mom. He was holding her in his arms, and she looked at me, then at him and whispered something I couldn’t hear just before she . . .” She shook her head, her lower lip trembling as she recalled the painful memories. “I knew she was dead, and I hated leaving her, but I had to get to Lucy. I, um, had the gun, the one he shot both her and the Fed with, and I didn’t hesitate to shoot one of his men trying to stop me from leaving to get to Lucy.”

“What about the other guy? The man you said was your mom’s friend?”

She pulled back to find my eyes. “I had the door open, prepared to leave, and he yelled for me not to move. I turned around to see him aiming at me, but I saw the look in his eyes. He couldn’t do it. So, I ran.”

Thank God she’d read him right and he never pulled the trigger.

She sniffled, swiping at her cheeks as if trying to hide the tears that blended in with the shower spray. “I found Lucy, and we rushed back to our house. I had to take the chance to go back for the passports and money Mom had left for us. Brant sent men after us, but we got away.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said, squeezing her tight again, forgetting time was sensitive and my team was waiting. All that mattered was holding this woman in my arms.

Camila may have brought us together for a reason, but I’d be damned if I didn’t believe it was fate.

And now I had to survive the rest of the mission to find out if Charley truly felt the same way about me.

CHAPTER THIRTY

JACK

“I know, I know. You don’t need to say anything,” I muttered the second I was within earshot of Gray in the library. Carter, Mya, and Gwen were crowded around the stately desk at the center of the room, working with the limited resources we had: one stolen laptop from the cartel’s home and Gray’s iPad.

Charley went over to sit with Lucy on the couch in front of the bay window that overlooked the mountains. At least Lucy wasn’t shunning her. Eye contact made between the two of them. Good start.

“I could say something about what I think you were doing up there, in the middle of an op, with a person of interest, but that would make me a colossal hypocrite, wouldn’t it?” Gray’s smirk came and went fast, a quick switch of gears from best friend mode to team leader. “Camila’s plane is rerouting to Bogota´. She’ll be here later this evening.”

“Wait, what?” Charley’s head whipped our way, her hands gripping her thighs to steady herself. “Why? What happened?”

“She got Shannon to talk at the last minute,” Carter said, facing us, leaning against the desk. “Apparently, Shannon’s not just the polygrapher. The show was her brainchild. Stephen is the public name and face for it.”

Gwen was seated behind the desk with the computer, busy typing as if Carter’s words weren’t news to her. Considering how long I’d taken to get down there, they probably weren’t.

Worth it.

Mya quietly looked up from the iPad, meeting my eyes for a moment before they flicked to Charley and back to me. I took it as a sign she was happy for me and whatever was happening with Charley’s and my relationship. Damn, I hoped it wasn’t too early to use that word.

I had to assume Jesse, Oliver, and Mason were now securing our perimeter since they were MIA and Camila’s team was going to Colombia.

I folded my arms and leaned against the side of the bookshelf to my right. Mom would have loved this library. But it wasn’t the time or place to miss my parents, so I focused back on Carter. “And what’s in Bogota´ that’d have Camila rerouting there?”

Carter gripped the bridge of his nose as if not keen on the idea of Camila heading to Colombia without him. Camila could hold her own, though. She ran a security team and was a former intelligence officer. I’d witnessed her kick some ass just last month in Cape Town when we’d helped her stop the sale of the high-tech prototype of a new weapon created by our government that’d been stolen.

When Carter continued to remain tight-lipped about the details, Gray filled in some blanks for us. “Shannon didn’t recognize Brant’s name or photo when Camila showed it to her. She said he’s not who forced her to work with him.”

“She could be lying,” Charley said before I could. “Especially about the forced part. But Brant has to be involved. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Is Shannon working with anyone else? Stephen?”

“According to her, no. And Camila pressed her pretty hard,” Gray said.

“Didn’t they use a lie detector test on her, too?” Lucy asked, her tone soft.

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